Jon Stewart covers the passage of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: Republicans bashing then endorsing the megabill, trading tax cuts to sway senators, giving a $40 billion infusion to ICE, boosting billionaires at the expense of Medicaid and SNAP, and more.
Former CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent and Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist Steve Kroft joins Jon to discuss a $16 million settlement in President Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS and Comedy Central’s parent company. They discuss how an incoming corporate merger and pressure from Trump’s FCC may have influenced the settlement, why journalists and legal experts consider it a “shakedown,” its impact on freedom of the press, and the one thing Trump didn’t get: an apology.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central's America's only
sorts for news.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Daily Joke with your home show.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Welcome everybody, Welcoming the down.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
We walking to that show, min John Start, and we
have started to staple my scripts so that it doesn't
fly away. We have an unbelievable show for you tonight.
Speaker 6 (00:53):
We're back.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
We've been off for a week now. We're ready to go,
by the way I guess tonight, Former sixty Minutes correspondent
Steve Croft, we'll be joining me later. Why why, why
why you ask to discuss our parent company paramounts. Shameful settlement.
(01:26):
That's why it's so wrong today, son of a bitch.
Let's get right into the big news of the weekend.
We celebrated our nation's independence with fireworks and drugs. Hid
(01:46):
it in peanut butter to get our dogs through the
fireworks tras adone. It's like a undershirt you wear on
the inside. But most notably, this weekend marked the passage
(02:12):
of the legislative coup that was Trump's big tax and
spending bill. Now, I'm gonna let you know there were some.
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Cuts the Medicaid cuts alone could total roughly nine hundred
and thirty billion dollars, with at least eleven point eight
million people at risk of losing their health coverage.
Speaker 8 (02:29):
Also cuts another two hundred and eighty five billion dollars
in food assistance.
Speaker 7 (02:33):
An end to clean energy credits from the Biden era.
Speaker 9 (02:36):
New caps on the amount that students can borrow in
federal loans.
Speaker 10 (02:39):
Three million poor people and kids will lose school lunch help.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
I think that last one is supposed to read three
million poor people and kids will lose school lunch.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Intonation.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
It's a lot of painful cuts on a lot of
vulnerable populations. But to be fair, at least America will
finally make a dent on the deficit. This megabill will
increase the deficit by three point four trillion dollars.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
What the fuck? Holy shit you what?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
You somehow managed to severely cut the safety net and
expand the deficit.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
That's impressive.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
That's one of those Hey man, how did you gain
all that weight?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
O zempic? That's something that's hard to do.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I'm on ozempic and now I'm really fad. So even
though some of our nation's most vulnerable are taking a
pay cut. Fear not o, people are getting a raise.
Speaker 9 (04:01):
There's one hundred and fifty seven billion dollars and new
spending for the military, and another one hundred and fifty
billion dollars for immigration and border enforcement.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
One hundred and fifty billion dollars for immigration and border enforcement.
Are you telling me all this crazy shit that has
been happening is broke Ice? Is that what you're saying?
What is Ice gonna do when they have real money?
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Oh, that's nice. They're going to do the Kanye diamond masks. Classy.
But America's military and paramilitary weren't the only winners in
this bill. Changes to the tax code could benefit corporate
(05:01):
America and manufacturers.
Speaker 11 (05:03):
The bill features roughly four trillion dollars in tax cuts,
mostly for the wealthiest Americans.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
Estate tax becomes permanent and more generous. The holy grail
of this tax plan, the best part of it for
businesses is bonus depreciation. That all the private jet makers
have been salivating over this possibility.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
I'm not sure that liquid is saliva, but okay. The
winners continue to be the winners either way. This bill
was a big victory for Mega and Republicans were turned up.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's like the stated, Bob, I'm.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Sorry that was the party they had for the Epstein
list not being released. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
That's not what that was.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
There was no list. There never was a list.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Will that really happen?
Speaker 11 (06:36):
It's sitting on my desk right now to review.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Is it really The list is on my desk? But
then I.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Looked at the list and said, no list. Now, there's
a lot of ways that we can walk through this
tax and spending bill and how this bill encapsulates a
ton of general Washington bullshit, for instance, political hypocrisy. This
bill was nine hundred and seventy pages. They jammed it
(07:07):
through with barely any time to read it. How did
Republicans feel about that when Democrats did it?
Speaker 6 (07:13):
This thing is moving too fast.
Speaker 12 (07:15):
People aren't even going to be able to read this bill,
and they hope that nobody's going to take the time
to read the bill overnight between right now and eight
o'clock in the morning, when we're supposed to vote.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
On the determination of the White House and the Democratic
majority to shove this down the throat of the American people.
When it happens to them, it's shoving it down their throat.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
It's an outrage.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
When it's four Republicans, it's just colaun America. Relax, the glottis,
breathe through, you know.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
It.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Loll be over soon and then we'll get brunch. Is
it the glottis?
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
It was the funniest throat organ I could think of.
Another way we can talk about this bill is democratic fecklessness.
They were utterly powerless to stop this turn of a bill,
which makes them look terrible. The only thing that could
make Democrats look even worse was bragging about the nothing
they could do. Schumer tweeted this news. I just got
(08:24):
the name struck off this bill with a move on
the Senate floor. Oh shit, No, you did seriously tell
me you didn't just brag about changing nothing about the
bill but its name.
Speaker 13 (08:41):
This is not a big, beautiful bill at all. That
is why I moved on the floor to strike the title.
It is now called the Act.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Are you trying to suck? Is that what this says?
That's your move. We worked hard and took out the
dumb name of the bill and named the bill after
a prestige drama on Hulu. But at least Democrats still
(09:26):
have Hakim Jeffries over in the House. He's a younger
leader and he decided not to answer with words, but
with imagery.
Speaker 11 (09:35):
Kim Jeffries on Instagram.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
He's got a baseball bat and he says House Democrats
will keep the pressure on Trump's one big ugly bill.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
King Jeffries answered with imagery. Imagery that sends a clear
message to Republicans that are came. Jeffries and the Democrats
are waiting for their moms to pick them up from
t ball. They the Democrats may not have made the team,
(10:18):
but they're ready to step in if a body is needed.
Does anybody understand that intimidating menacing photos are generally taken
from below to make the subject appear larger, not from
above to make the subject appear I don't know, eight
years old.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
The photo has to be intimidating.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Make sure you get the upholstery in my leather love seat.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
They gotta know I have furniture.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Or we can talk about the media's narrative dramatizing the
fragility of Trump's ruling coalition and what that fragility could mean.
Speaker 11 (11:00):
President Trump's agenda is in.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Trouble, big trouble for Trump's beautiful bill. President Trump's signature
legislation on a knife's edge hangs in the balance getting
a major roadblock.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
The margins are so tight here that anything could throw
it into jeopardy.
Speaker 14 (11:14):
It will be a nail bier, There's no question about that.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
The dramatic moment Vice President Vance breaking a tie vote, Oh,
it surprisingly got through, Like every other fucking thing Trump
has wanted, from Katari jet bribes to epstream file secrecy,
to extorted media conglomerate protection money. I can't believe ABC
(11:38):
paid that, so I'll let myself out. Sure, I wouldn't
want to be ABC. But every time a new Trump's
(12:02):
never getting that comes up, the media is blown away
when he actually does get it without ever acknowledging that
the no votes from Republicans are scripted to allow certain
senators plausible deniability without putting any part of that agenda
actually at risk.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
It reminds me of the way.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Every professional wrestling match gets the announcer slack jawed with
shock at the stunning turn of events.
Speaker 15 (12:27):
If John Stewart showed up here tonight. I would force
him to retire immediately because it is quite difficult to
do a phony news show with your jaw wired ship.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Oh no, yes, I didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Show look at old tubs.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What a surprise.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
I can't believe he showed up there. Like we rehearsed.
It should have been clear that this bill, like everything else,
was going to pass on the day they said it
was going to pass, that the nose for the bill
were for show. Like Senator Josh Hawley's deep concerns.
Speaker 10 (13:29):
This is real medicaid benefit cuts.
Speaker 14 (13:31):
I can't support that. No Republicans should support that. We're
the Party of the working class.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Mona.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
We need to act like it.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Hmm did you need to act like it?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Did you act like it? Josh?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Did you?
Speaker 8 (13:42):
Holly ended up voting for the bill, He put in
a statement quote, I will continue to do everything in
my power to reverse future cuts to Medicaid.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Oh yes, future cuts. Everything in my power for future
cuts except voting no in the present.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Or how about Senator Ron Johnson. We've got deficit concerns
for the children.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
I'm concerned about my children and my grandchildren. The fact
that we are stealing from them. We are stealing from
our children and grandchildren thirty seven trillion dollars a debt,
and we're going to add to it as Republicans.
Speaker 14 (14:16):
That is unacceptable.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
You'll never guess who accepted it. Saith to Ron Johnson
flipped from a no to a yes. Sorry, children and grandchildren,
maybe next future. Any other Republican who initially said this
is terrible, I'm not voting for this, and had an
(14:43):
even dumber reason for flipping yes. Timber Chet from Tennessee,
I'm looking at your dumb.
Speaker 10 (14:49):
Ass president was wonderful, as always informative. Fannie told me,
like seeing me on TV, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 14 (15:00):
Yeah, he signed a bunch of stuff. It's cool.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Were they cool? He signed a bunch of stuff for you?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
It was cool?
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Was that your class's first trip to Washington? He gave
his M and MS. I vote whatever you want me
to vote for. He signed my tents.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Whatever you want, I'll do it.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
By the way, nothing makes me distrust Donald Trump more
than saying that guy is good on TV. It's all
pro wrestling. The only difference between that vote and wrestling
is that wrestling is fun and takes actual courage, and
they didn't even get concessions to flip their vote.
Speaker 14 (15:47):
Only one senator.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Apparently got meaningful concessions, and that's Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
and those concessions really wouldn't work anywhere else but Alaska.
Senator pus said that this was that your vote was
a bailout for at the.
Speaker 14 (16:00):
Expense of the rest of the country.
Speaker 12 (16:01):
Oh my god, that's what Senator Fall said.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
Listen, it was easy, Senator, We've got the.
Speaker 14 (16:11):
I didn't say, ma'am, I'm just asking for your response.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
That's my favorite Clive effort. She stares him.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Down, and the reporter goes, I didn't say, hey, I
got it. I didn't. I don't know. I'm just I
don't even like this.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
I wanted to work in the control room, but I'm handsome,
so they put me out here because they didn't want
this money maker to go to waste. But excluding all
the fake narrative, shenanigans and hypocrisies and fecklessness, is the
central truth of this bill. Once again, it's the bullshit
gospel of austerity, the gospel they preach anytime the country's
(16:56):
finances are in shambles and out of control. Our problem
is an excess at the top, it's the sloth at
the bottom.
Speaker 10 (17:04):
We don't pay people in this country.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
To be lazy.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
If somebody's able bodied and they can go get a
job in they're living in their mom's basement playing video games,
I'm sorry, you gotta go get a job, get off
the couch, Stop eating the cheetos, stop buying the medical
marijuana and watching television. First of all, nobody talks about
my audience like that.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Nobody.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Yeah, you hear those fucking cheetos man. Second of all,
it is such a fucking lazy and wrong shrope. I
don't know if you've noticed, but those people smoking dope,
sitting around playing video games, they're all fucking twitch millionaires now.
And it's this lazy bullshit and narrative that our finances
(18:01):
are screwed because of how comfortable we have made it
for the poor, a mindset perhaps perfectly encapsulated by this
human editorial cartoon. Congressman Troy Nels.
Speaker 11 (18:13):
Can't ask you about the CBO score and the idea
that eleven million, twelve million irogans.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
I don't have confidence in the CBO.
Speaker 10 (18:20):
They're scoring their wrong half the damn time I don't
give any no.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
A congressman who just voted to force people off of
medicaid and food assistance just smoking a fatty with both
hands bandaged from what I can only assume is a
friction burn from too much celebratory masturbation. There's no other
(18:51):
way around it.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Medicaid and foods dance, I got blissess only things.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
The problem in our country isn't the sliver of able
bodied people that are somehow coasting on the unearned medical
coverage they may or may not use, but the millions
and millions of people in this country who work fucking
full time jobs and still need food and medical assistance.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
That's the system that's broken.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Fix that system. What are we talking about? And yet, oh,
we're always gas lit into the framework of the deserving poor.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
And I gotta tell you.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
The deserving poor they have very much disappointed the deserving rich.
Speaker 12 (19:49):
Open AI founder Sam Altman said he was politically homeless
in the July fourth message he posted to.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
X excuse me not to be that guy. I believe
the term is politically unhoused. But go on, how have
the Democrats let you down?
Speaker 12 (20:12):
I'd rather hear from candidates about how they are going
to make everyone have the stuff billionaires have instead of
how they are going to eliminate billionaires.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
That's the pitch everyone should be. Wouldn't we all just
run out of foam? Wouldn't that? I wasn't invited, But
that's the pitch. Somehow, it is fiscally irresponsible to build
(20:44):
a stronger floor for everyone to stand on if it
may in any way lower the already astronomical ceiling height experienced.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
By the rare few.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
This bill is the most st up performance review our
country could ever liver. It's the government sitting us all
down and telling us where we've been irresponsible with the spending.
We start with the wealthy. Thank you for coming in.
(21:15):
I know it's hard when you only work one day
a week, but thank you for making the time. It's
been a tough year. But as always, wealthy, you're killing it.
In the words of a place you probably never eat.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
At, we're loving it. And so once again for.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
The I'm going to say eightieth year in a row,
you're getting a raise. Now, if you excuse me, I
have a busy day. Another review to deliver you free
loading mother. It has come to my attention that some
(21:54):
of you are having breakfast.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Lunch.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Maybe you haven't heard our deficits out of control.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
We need that lunch money for more important things.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Which reminds me, what if I gave you a tax
deduction for taking a private jet to your private jet.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Time permits?
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Perhaps we could take it to that non existent island
I've heard so much about it.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Excuse man who hate the porridge that was here?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Who hate the port?
Speaker 15 (22:36):
You?
Speaker 9 (22:36):
Boy?
Speaker 5 (22:39):
What day is it?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Boy? Christmas Day?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Take this to bloom Buy the biggest Christmas goose.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
You can find, and take it to the La Port.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
I have a pilot. Look.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Blaming migrants and the able bodied poor is why Trump
won this election. But a system where working people struggle
so much is why mom Donnie won his election.
Speaker 14 (23:08):
And for all.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
And for all the people who are worried about mom
Donnie's socialist tendencies, guess what. He's the best case scenario
because this system is not sustainable, and if this doesn't change,
there's gonna be more drastic action.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Really, yeah, we're gonna need a bigger pet when we
come back.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
Steve Croft to be joining us, don't.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Go what about the talents?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
How I got tonight?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
He is an Emmy and Anybody Award winning journal has
been thirty years as a CBS correspondent for sixty minutes.
Please welcome to the program. Steve Kraft, Sir.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
How are you.
Speaker 14 (24:28):
I'm good. I can't believe I'm here.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
I'm delighted that you're here. Sixty minutes is in the news.
Speaker 14 (24:34):
It is I think what it? Sixty minutes is okay? Good, good, good.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Last person, I asked that this is an audience not
from here. How long is sixty minutes been on the air?
And before you answer, let me make you more comfortable ahead.
Speaker 14 (24:57):
I remember it.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
No, it's been on the air.
Speaker 14 (24:59):
How long is six I don't know, fifty some years.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
And it's been like a top ten, top twenty show,
not on cable, think on network now.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
In fact, in the thirty years i'd been on the show, yes,
and I had nothing specifically to do with this, but
we were the number one show in all of television.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
In all of television.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Yes, and now, so you're not particular.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
You're not over there anymore.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
And I'm not going to ask you to speak specifically
for the official line of sixty minutes, but I'm assuming
you still have some kind of text chain I do
with folks over there. Yes, Now, you may or may
not know as they or may or may not know
what sixty minutes is. Paramount, which is the parent company
(25:48):
CBS at sixty minutes and also for Comedy Central, recently
made the unusual arrangement of settling a lawsuit that President
Trump brought for and I don't.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
Even really know what it was for. And they paid
him it was making one edit. They made an edit, yes,
you pastards.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
They paid him six sixteen million dollars. What is I
would assume internally that is devastating to the people who
work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism.
Speaker 14 (26:31):
No, it devastating is a good word. Yep.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think there's a lot of fear over there. Fear
of fear of losing their job, fear of what's happening
to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment, right,
all of those things.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Why do you think they paid the sixteen million dollars?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Well, you know, a couple of Congressmen think that it
was a bribery.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
They think it was a bribe from Paramount.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, I should explain a little bit about what happened.
I hope I wasn't statualized. Sixteen minutes did an interview
with Kamala Harris.
Speaker 14 (27:20):
And during the interview, she.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Was the presidential candidate for this the Democratic Party, that's right,
and she had and she was asked a question about
net and Yahoo and great guy, why Yau.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And Yaghu wasn't saying and doing what we wanted him
to do. That's what was going on at the time. Yes,
and she gave fairly. She gave it a minute answer
and CBS took the first half of that answer and
gave it to the morning show on Sunday faced the
(27:54):
nation to use a sort of a teaser to get
people to watch it at night, and the second half
of that sound bite went into the story.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Now, news organizations use every part of the candidate. They
take the sound bites and they spread it over the
network so that none of it goes to waste. There
are hungry children and in countries right now with no
sound bites, that's right, and so they use those. So
they aired the first part of her answer on the.
Speaker 14 (28:27):
Morning news that was the teaser.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Yes, and then what did they do on the sixty minutes.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
They put that sound bite the second half in the
sixty minutes piece they were different, and somebody noticed that
in the Republican Party and decided somebody, somebody, I don't
know who Donald Trump, not personally.
Speaker 14 (28:47):
All he does is with no TV, but I think
he watches Fox.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Nothing to get mad about there.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Actually, Yeah, so anyway, I should this went out that
the sound bite in the exchange, neither of the front half.
Speaker 14 (29:06):
Or the second half answered the question.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
But Trump thought the second half was better than the
first half, and sixty minutes was deliberately trying to make
him lose the election by manipulating the news.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Sure, no, I have seen elections lost by that margin.
It's just it was a devastating half of a sound bite.
Is that standard operating perceived?
Speaker 14 (29:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Was anything done that you thought in retrospect that murcied
her like decontextualized her answer, tried to make her look better?
Was it all fair game? They did air the first
part that he thought made her look bad in the morning,
and then they aired the second part in the evening,
and then they made the whole thing available.
Speaker 14 (29:56):
Yeah, most people couldn't tell the difference.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
I'm going to show you some.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, Okay, now this is shot you're going to be
shocked by this. This is from It's an organization called
Fox News also within.
Speaker 14 (30:09):
I'm familiar with it, but rarely watching.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I have it on in my house all the time
because I want to give an answer bar right. So
this is an interview that it aired on Fox and Friends,
which is a show that they do in the morning
on a couch, but then they have a weekend show
also named Fox and Friends, where the people who don't
(30:33):
make it on the A team Fox and Friends get
experience so that they can become cabinet members.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
This is a question.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
That that one of their hosts asked a gentleman by
the name of Donald Trump. I want you to watch.
This is how it aired on their morning show.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
Please please take a look.
Speaker 11 (31:00):
Would you declassify the nine to eleven files?
Speaker 14 (31:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (31:03):
Would you declassified JFK files.
Speaker 14 (31:05):
Yeah, which I did. I did a lot of it.
Speaker 11 (31:07):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 14 (31:11):
Yeah, I would. Attorney General, what are you that? I
mean we talked about.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
So that's how it aired. Yeah, simple question. Would you
do clause by nine eleven?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Kennedy yes, Epstein yes, And then the Secretary of Defense
jumped in Ian, sir, please get me off this couch.
I want to show you the larger context of that
interview that aired later.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Take a look.
Speaker 11 (31:43):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah, yeah, I would, all right, yes, I would.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
I think that less so because you know, you don't
know if you don't want to affect people's lives of
its phony stuff in there, because it's a lot of
phony stuff.
Speaker 11 (31:56):
With that whole world.
Speaker 14 (31:58):
But I think I would.
Speaker 11 (31:59):
Or do you think that would restore trust?
Speaker 6 (32:03):
Now that.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Seems up, Yes, that would never happen on sixty minutes.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
No, but I would like to know why the sixty
minutes edit was worthy of a sixteen million dollar acquiescence
of what is considered the Tiffany News gold standard network
for Paramount of News, where very clearly Fox just did
(32:30):
what seems to me to be a more egregious edit. Yes,
So explain to me what was going through the mind
of Paramount when they said, oh, yeah, we screwed up,
here's your money.
Speaker 14 (32:46):
Why not?
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Why didn't they fight?
Speaker 14 (32:48):
They never said we screwed up?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
What did?
Speaker 14 (32:50):
They just paid the money?
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So just flat out protection money.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, it was a shakedown, that's what I call I
mean some people call it an extortion. That's a legal
to her mind, not you know, but shakedown.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
Is like obviously this is opinion.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Is this purely Paramount buying their way?
Speaker 6 (33:09):
They are.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
They are being sold right now to a gentleman who
is friends with the president, Larry Ellison and his son
David Ellison.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
The sky Dance.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Was this settlement just a payment so that this merger
can go through and not be challenged by Trump's FCC.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yes, I think that Trump when I tried to explain
this at the beginning, I said, it was like a
little complicated. Yeah, there's Sherry Redstone, who is the head
of Paramount. She's the owner of She wants to controlling share,
she wants to sell it.
Speaker 14 (33:45):
Yes, she has a couple of billion dollars.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Got an eight billion dollar deal on the table, yes.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And two billion dollars she's going to get. So she
wanted the sail to go through. But Donald Trump thought
I'm going to settle a score here. He said that,
you know very often about I'm going to go after
my enemies. And he was upset with sixty minutes, and
(34:11):
he decided that that he was going to sue for
sixteen million dollars, and then.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
He decided to sue for twenty billion dollars.
Speaker 14 (34:19):
Well sixty, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I think it was millions at first, then it went
to billions, say, and then it came back down to millions.
He changes his mind a lot, as you pointed out
in the in the tape intro.
Speaker 14 (34:38):
But anyway, he.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Also and which we haven't talked about, is that the
Federal Communications Commission, which approves licenses and things like that,
it is controlled by the president and he has obviously
somebody there who really likes him and will do whatever
he says and is for his agenda and all of us.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
And he's decided that he's not going to improve this deal.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
The FCC chairman said that that he wasn't going to
approve it.
Speaker 14 (35:06):
Well, he didn't say, no, I'm not going to approve it. Now.
I think we ought to have some public hearings on it.
I think we ought to like.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Take a good look at the media and how it's
performing and maybe doing something.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
So the implication is, you don't get your eight billion
dollar merger, you don't get your two billion dollar payout
unless you give me a tremendous amount of money. Now,
that strikes me as and I'm obviously not a lawyer,
but I did watch Good Fellows as that's that sounds illegal?
Speaker 14 (35:44):
Yes it does.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
It's okay, well it's a shutdown here.
Speaker 14 (35:50):
I think it's a shakedown.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
It's a shakedown.
Speaker 14 (35:54):
But now, not only the one I want to make
just one point.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yes, please, it's not just me or sixty Minutes or
you that think that this was a shakedowns. It's pretty
much every reporter that's looked at it, at this case
and said this is ridiculous. It's going to be thrown
out of any court that it goes before.
Speaker 14 (36:13):
Except maybe one in Texas.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Yeah, and that is where they brought the sin That's
where they brought the suit. And that's why I'm afraid
they'll send.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
This show if we get sued, because you said some
really nasty things about it, much worse than Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Can I tell you something and I'm gonna I'm gonna
say this, okay, and I mean this. I don't know personally.
I can't read, so this is all done phonetically. You
may be saying to me, I said some nasty things.
Here's what it's houded like to me. What is it
(36:56):
about this moment that makes his attacks on the press
more dangerous than what has always been standard fair? Hey man,
don't print that, don't do that. What is it about
this moment?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I think he's trying. I think he likes to get
even with his political enemies. He likes to do things
that he feels will intimidate them to stop reporting bad
things about it.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
And I think that and that he'll go further than
other people would.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, I guess so further really that it's not clear
the constitution allows.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
I don't even know if that's.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
In play anymore, because they'll find a judge in Texas
who says it isn't. But so what does the news
media do in this moment too? Is this the last
gasp of a dying industry or is this the turning
point for something that is become. Let's face it, it's
(38:02):
it's in many ways this moment is able to happen
because the news media has had its trust eroded with
the American people. Yes, So how.
Speaker 6 (38:13):
Does the news media respond? Then? Well?
Speaker 14 (38:16):
I think that it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
You know, this lawsuit, the one thing that they didn't
get Trump didn't get.
Speaker 14 (38:24):
He didn't get an apology, and he had been pushing
really hard.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That's one of the reasons why it went from like
a million or you know, ten million to ten billion,
because he was demanding an apology and wanted CBS to
admit it that he had made a mistake so he
could use that against it. It erode the credibility of
the program and the network. But he did not get it,
and that was that's important. I mean, it costs. You know,
(38:52):
we haven't touched on this, but the executive producer of
CBS News, well, yeah, was forced to quit.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
And the head of news in general quick yes, because
they wouldn't apologize, because they wouldn't apologize, and because they
thought they had lost control of the you know, they
had lost their independence, and it was a very honorable
thing to do. How does the media look for Trump?
This is great because now he's got himself a news network.
(39:20):
He already announced that Ellison is going to do a
great job at CBS, and Ellison is going to give
him sixteen more million dollars in public airwaves commercials.
Speaker 14 (39:36):
I have no proof of that. If that actually happened,
I think he does it. That doesn't mean it's true, but.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
I think for news media is this sort of the
new world that we live in that they were Listen,
the news media isn't perfect. I don't think anybody disputes that.
I think there's been mistakes. CNN accused that kid years
ago in a maga hat of like harassing a Native American,
(40:12):
and that was wrong and they had to pay. I
think like they should be responsible and help. But this
seems like a different thing where corporate pressure and political
pressure have never been stronger to It doesn't feel like
scrutiny on news networks. It feels like fealty that they
(40:32):
are being held to a standard that that will never
be satisfactory to Donald Trump. No one can ever kiss
his acid enough. I mean he goes after Fox sometimes,
which is crazy.
Speaker 14 (40:44):
Sixty million dollars was tribute.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
That's how he looks at and that's and that will
contribute to the king. Thank God, I'm on basic cable,
which I don't think he has. I think I think
he only cares about network.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
Well.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
I appreciate I appreciate you coming on to discuss it
in this Uh we didn't.
Speaker 14 (41:04):
Confuse the audience.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Can I tell you something?
Speaker 5 (41:08):
The audience is from Harvard, Like I've been talking to
people all THEO.
Speaker 6 (41:14):
They don't I'm talking to these people.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
I'm gonna I'm gonna be completely harmless. We didn't confuse them,
We bored them. Former sixty Minutes correspondent Steve Croft quick break.
Speaker 14 (41:29):
We'll be right back in.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Old let's go dripping to night.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
But before we go, let's chick in with the arrows
for the rest of the week.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Ronnie Jay, run out.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Right.
Speaker 14 (42:08):
How was your.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
Fourth How.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Well as you can see, John, it was a great.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
I get you're making a little comment on Congressman Troy
Nell's with the cigar and the bandit, and I get it.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
It's very funny, very nice.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
No, who's that? No?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
No, it's my first full July as an American citizen.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
So that's you.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
So I celebrated like a real American. So you would
you injure yourself with fireworks? No, I'm not stupid, Okay.
I got in a grill touching contest.
Speaker 14 (42:53):
And I won.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
WHOA, that's right.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
Who's stupid now, Jeremy, Now, I got ten bucks to
spend on skin grass. I just had a curiosity in
the grill touching contest you entered, who went first? I did?
That's how you win, John, So, Jeremy didn't even take
(43:20):
a turn. I had already won by that point. Okay, now, John,
now help me put this in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Absolute Ronnie chain.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Oh week.
Speaker 8 (43:30):
On Check.
Speaker 12 (43:33):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central
on Comedy Central.
Speaker 14 (43:43):
And stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central's America's only
sorts for news.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Daily Joke with your home show.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Welcome everybody, Welcoming the down.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
We walking to that show, min John Start, and we
have started to staple my scripts so that it doesn't
fly away. We have an unbelievable show for you tonight.
Speaker 6 (00:53):
We're back.
Speaker 5 (00:53):
We've been off for a week now. We're ready to go,
by the way I guess tonight, Former sixty Minutes correspondent
Steve Croft, we'll be joining me later. Why why, why
why you ask to discuss our parent company paramounts. Shameful settlement.
(01:26):
That's why it's so wrong today, son of a bitch.
Let's get right into the big news of the weekend.
We celebrated our nation's independence with fireworks and drugs. Hid
(01:46):
it in peanut butter to get our dogs through the
fireworks tras adone. It's like a undershirt you wear on
the inside. But most notably, this weekend marked the passage
(02:12):
of the legislative coup that was Trump's big tax and
spending bill. Now, I'm gonna let you know there were some.
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Cuts the Medicaid cuts alone could total roughly nine hundred
and thirty billion dollars, with at least eleven point eight
million people at risk of losing their health coverage.
Speaker 8 (02:29):
Also cuts another two hundred and eighty five billion dollars
in food assistance.
Speaker 7 (02:33):
An end to clean energy credits from the Biden era.
Speaker 9 (02:36):
New caps on the amount that students can borrow in
federal loans.
Speaker 10 (02:39):
Three million poor people and kids will lose school lunch help.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
I think that last one is supposed to read three
million poor people and kids will lose school lunch.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Intonation.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
It's a lot of painful cuts on a lot of
vulnerable populations. But to be fair, at least America will
finally make a dent on the deficit. This megabill will
increase the deficit by three point four trillion dollars.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
What the fuck? Holy shit you what?
Speaker 5 (03:24):
You somehow managed to severely cut the safety net and
expand the deficit.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
That's impressive.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
That's one of those Hey man, how did you gain
all that weight?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
O zempic? That's something that's hard to do.
Speaker 5 (03:48):
I'm on ozempic and now I'm really fad. So even
though some of our nation's most vulnerable are taking a
pay cut. Fear not o, people are getting a raise.
Speaker 9 (04:01):
There's one hundred and fifty seven billion dollars and new
spending for the military, and another one hundred and fifty
billion dollars for immigration and border enforcement.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
One hundred and fifty billion dollars for immigration and border enforcement.
Are you telling me all this crazy shit that has
been happening is broke Ice? Is that what you're saying?
What is Ice gonna do when they have real money?
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Oh, that's nice. They're going to do the Kanye diamond masks. Classy.
But America's military and paramilitary weren't the only winners in
this bill. Changes to the tax code could benefit corporate
(05:01):
America and manufacturers.
Speaker 11 (05:03):
The bill features roughly four trillion dollars in tax cuts,
mostly for the wealthiest Americans.
Speaker 8 (05:08):
Estate tax becomes permanent and more generous. The holy grail
of this tax plan, the best part of it for
businesses is bonus depreciation. That all the private jet makers
have been salivating over this possibility.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
I'm not sure that liquid is saliva, but okay. The
winners continue to be the winners either way. This bill
was a big victory for Mega and Republicans were turned up.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's like the stated, Bob, I'm.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Sorry that was the party they had for the Epstein
list not being released. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
That's not what that was.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
There was no list. There never was a list.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Will that really happen?
Speaker 11 (06:36):
It's sitting on my desk right now to review.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Is it really The list is on my desk? But
then I.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Looked at the list and said, no list. Now, there's
a lot of ways that we can walk through this
tax and spending bill and how this bill encapsulates a
ton of general Washington bullshit, for instance, political hypocrisy. This
bill was nine hundred and seventy pages. They jammed it
(07:07):
through with barely any time to read it. How did
Republicans feel about that when Democrats did it?
Speaker 6 (07:13):
This thing is moving too fast.
Speaker 12 (07:15):
People aren't even going to be able to read this bill,
and they hope that nobody's going to take the time
to read the bill overnight between right now and eight
o'clock in the morning, when we're supposed to vote.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
On the determination of the White House and the Democratic
majority to shove this down the throat of the American people.
When it happens to them, it's shoving it down their throat.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
It's an outrage.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
When it's four Republicans, it's just colaun America. Relax, the glottis,
breathe through, you know.
Speaker 7 (07:53):
It.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
Loll be over soon and then we'll get brunch. Is
it the glottis?
Speaker 6 (07:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (08:01):
It was the funniest throat organ I could think of.
Another way we can talk about this bill is democratic fecklessness.
They were utterly powerless to stop this turn of a bill,
which makes them look terrible. The only thing that could
make Democrats look even worse was bragging about the nothing
they could do. Schumer tweeted this news. I just got
(08:24):
the name struck off this bill with a move on
the Senate floor. Oh shit, No, you did seriously tell
me you didn't just brag about changing nothing about the
bill but its name.
Speaker 13 (08:41):
This is not a big, beautiful bill at all. That
is why I moved on the floor to strike the title.
It is now called the Act.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Are you trying to suck? Is that what this says?
That's your move. We worked hard and took out the
dumb name of the bill and named the bill after
a prestige drama on Hulu. But at least Democrats still
(09:26):
have Hakim Jeffries over in the House. He's a younger
leader and he decided not to answer with words, but
with imagery.
Speaker 11 (09:35):
Kim Jeffries on Instagram.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
He's got a baseball bat and he says House Democrats
will keep the pressure on Trump's one big ugly bill.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
King Jeffries answered with imagery. Imagery that sends a clear
message to Republicans that are came. Jeffries and the Democrats
are waiting for their moms to pick them up from
t ball. They the Democrats may not have made the team,
(10:18):
but they're ready to step in if a body is needed.
Does anybody understand that intimidating menacing photos are generally taken
from below to make the subject appear larger, not from
above to make the subject appear I don't know, eight
years old.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
The photo has to be intimidating.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Make sure you get the upholstery in my leather love seat.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
They gotta know I have furniture.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Or we can talk about the media's narrative dramatizing the
fragility of Trump's ruling coalition and what that fragility could mean.
Speaker 11 (11:00):
President Trump's agenda is in.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Trouble, big trouble for Trump's beautiful bill. President Trump's signature
legislation on a knife's edge hangs in the balance getting
a major roadblock.
Speaker 9 (11:09):
The margins are so tight here that anything could throw
it into jeopardy.
Speaker 14 (11:14):
It will be a nail bier, There's no question about that.
Speaker 5 (11:17):
The dramatic moment Vice President Vance breaking a tie vote, Oh,
it surprisingly got through, Like every other fucking thing Trump
has wanted, from Katari jet bribes to epstream file secrecy,
to extorted media conglomerate protection money. I can't believe ABC
(11:38):
paid that, so I'll let myself out. Sure, I wouldn't
want to be ABC. But every time a new Trump's
(12:02):
never getting that comes up, the media is blown away
when he actually does get it without ever acknowledging that
the no votes from Republicans are scripted to allow certain
senators plausible deniability without putting any part of that agenda
actually at risk.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
It reminds me of the way.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Every professional wrestling match gets the announcer slack jawed with
shock at the stunning turn of events.
Speaker 15 (12:27):
If John Stewart showed up here tonight. I would force
him to retire immediately because it is quite difficult to
do a phony news show with your jaw wired ship.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Oh no, yes, I didn't.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
Show look at old tubs.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What a surprise.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
I can't believe he showed up there. Like we rehearsed.
It should have been clear that this bill, like everything else,
was going to pass on the day they said it
was going to pass, that the nose for the bill
were for show. Like Senator Josh Hawley's deep concerns.
Speaker 10 (13:29):
This is real medicaid benefit cuts.
Speaker 14 (13:31):
I can't support that. No Republicans should support that. We're
the Party of the working class.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Mona.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
We need to act like it.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Hmm did you need to act like it?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Did you act like it? Josh?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Did you?
Speaker 8 (13:42):
Holly ended up voting for the bill, He put in
a statement quote, I will continue to do everything in
my power to reverse future cuts to Medicaid.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Oh yes, future cuts. Everything in my power for future
cuts except voting no in the present.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Or how about Senator Ron Johnson. We've got deficit concerns
for the children.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
I'm concerned about my children and my grandchildren. The fact
that we are stealing from them. We are stealing from
our children and grandchildren thirty seven trillion dollars a debt,
and we're going to add to it as Republicans.
Speaker 14 (14:16):
That is unacceptable.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
You'll never guess who accepted it. Saith to Ron Johnson
flipped from a no to a yes. Sorry, children and grandchildren,
maybe next future. Any other Republican who initially said this
is terrible, I'm not voting for this, and had an
(14:43):
even dumber reason for flipping yes. Timber Chet from Tennessee,
I'm looking at your dumb.
Speaker 10 (14:49):
Ass president was wonderful, as always informative. Fannie told me,
like seeing me on TV, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 14 (15:00):
Yeah, he signed a bunch of stuff. It's cool.
Speaker 5 (15:05):
Were they cool? He signed a bunch of stuff for you?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
It was cool?
Speaker 5 (15:10):
Was that your class's first trip to Washington? He gave
his M and MS. I vote whatever you want me
to vote for. He signed my tents.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Whatever you want, I'll do it.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
By the way, nothing makes me distrust Donald Trump more
than saying that guy is good on TV. It's all
pro wrestling. The only difference between that vote and wrestling
is that wrestling is fun and takes actual courage, and
they didn't even get concessions to flip their vote.
Speaker 14 (15:47):
Only one senator.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
Apparently got meaningful concessions, and that's Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
and those concessions really wouldn't work anywhere else but Alaska.
Senator pus said that this was that your vote was
a bailout for at the.
Speaker 14 (16:00):
Expense of the rest of the country.
Speaker 12 (16:01):
Oh my god, that's what Senator Fall said.
Speaker 11 (16:07):
Listen, it was easy, Senator, We've got the.
Speaker 14 (16:11):
I didn't say, ma'am, I'm just asking for your response.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
That's my favorite Clive effort. She stares him.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
Down, and the reporter goes, I didn't say, hey, I
got it. I didn't. I don't know. I'm just I
don't even like this.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
I wanted to work in the control room, but I'm handsome,
so they put me out here because they didn't want
this money maker to go to waste. But excluding all
the fake narrative, shenanigans and hypocrisies and fecklessness, is the
central truth of this bill. Once again, it's the bullshit
gospel of austerity, the gospel they preach anytime the country's
(16:56):
finances are in shambles and out of control. Our problem
is an excess at the top, it's the sloth at
the bottom.
Speaker 10 (17:04):
We don't pay people in this country.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
To be lazy.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
If somebody's able bodied and they can go get a
job in they're living in their mom's basement playing video games,
I'm sorry, you gotta go get a job, get off
the couch, Stop eating the cheetos, stop buying the medical
marijuana and watching television. First of all, nobody talks about
my audience like that.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Nobody.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Yeah, you hear those fucking cheetos man. Second of all,
it is such a fucking lazy and wrong shrope. I
don't know if you've noticed, but those people smoking dope,
sitting around playing video games, they're all fucking twitch millionaires now.
And it's this lazy bullshit and narrative that our finances
(18:01):
are screwed because of how comfortable we have made it
for the poor, a mindset perhaps perfectly encapsulated by this
human editorial cartoon. Congressman Troy Nels.
Speaker 11 (18:13):
Can't ask you about the CBO score and the idea
that eleven million, twelve million irogans.
Speaker 12 (18:18):
I don't have confidence in the CBO.
Speaker 10 (18:20):
They're scoring their wrong half the damn time I don't
give any no.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
A congressman who just voted to force people off of
medicaid and food assistance just smoking a fatty with both
hands bandaged from what I can only assume is a
friction burn from too much celebratory masturbation. There's no other
(18:51):
way around it.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Medicaid and foods dance, I got blissess only things.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
The problem in our country isn't the sliver of able
bodied people that are somehow coasting on the unearned medical
coverage they may or may not use, but the millions
and millions of people in this country who work fucking
full time jobs and still need food and medical assistance.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
That's the system that's broken.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Fix that system. What are we talking about? And yet, oh,
we're always gas lit into the framework of the deserving poor.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
And I gotta tell you.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
The deserving poor they have very much disappointed the deserving rich.
Speaker 12 (19:49):
Open AI founder Sam Altman said he was politically homeless
in the July fourth message he posted to.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
X excuse me not to be that guy. I believe
the term is politically unhoused. But go on, how have
the Democrats let you down?
Speaker 12 (20:12):
I'd rather hear from candidates about how they are going
to make everyone have the stuff billionaires have instead of
how they are going to eliminate billionaires.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
That's the pitch everyone should be. Wouldn't we all just
run out of foam? Wouldn't that? I wasn't invited, But
that's the pitch. Somehow, it is fiscally irresponsible to build
(20:44):
a stronger floor for everyone to stand on if it
may in any way lower the already astronomical ceiling height experienced.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
By the rare few.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
This bill is the most st up performance review our
country could ever liver. It's the government sitting us all
down and telling us where we've been irresponsible with the spending.
We start with the wealthy. Thank you for coming in.
(21:15):
I know it's hard when you only work one day
a week, but thank you for making the time. It's
been a tough year. But as always, wealthy, you're killing it.
In the words of a place you probably never eat.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
At, we're loving it. And so once again for.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
The I'm going to say eightieth year in a row,
you're getting a raise. Now, if you excuse me, I
have a busy day. Another review to deliver you free
loading mother. It has come to my attention that some
(21:54):
of you are having breakfast.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Lunch.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Maybe you haven't heard our deficits out of control.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
We need that lunch money for more important things.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Which reminds me, what if I gave you a tax
deduction for taking a private jet to your private jet.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
Time permits?
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Perhaps we could take it to that non existent island
I've heard so much about it.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Excuse man who hate the porridge that was here?
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Who hate the port?
Speaker 15 (22:36):
You?
Speaker 9 (22:36):
Boy?
Speaker 5 (22:39):
What day is it?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Boy? Christmas Day?
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Take this to bloom Buy the biggest Christmas goose.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
You can find, and take it to the La Port.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
I have a pilot. Look.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Blaming migrants and the able bodied poor is why Trump
won this election. But a system where working people struggle
so much is why mom Donnie won his election.
Speaker 14 (23:08):
And for all.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
And for all the people who are worried about mom
Donnie's socialist tendencies, guess what. He's the best case scenario
because this system is not sustainable, and if this doesn't change,
there's gonna be more drastic action.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Really, yeah, we're gonna need a bigger pet when we
come back.
Speaker 6 (23:39):
Steve Croft to be joining us, don't.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Go what about the talents?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
How I got tonight?
Speaker 5 (23:58):
He is an Emmy and Anybody Award winning journal has
been thirty years as a CBS correspondent for sixty minutes.
Please welcome to the program. Steve Kraft, Sir.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
How are you.
Speaker 14 (24:28):
I'm good. I can't believe I'm here.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
I'm delighted that you're here. Sixty minutes is in the news.
Speaker 14 (24:34):
It is I think what it? Sixty minutes is okay? Good, good, good.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Last person, I asked that this is an audience not
from here. How long is sixty minutes been on the air?
And before you answer, let me make you more comfortable ahead.
Speaker 14 (24:57):
I remember it.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
No, it's been on the air.
Speaker 14 (24:59):
How long is six I don't know, fifty some years.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
And it's been like a top ten, top twenty show,
not on cable, think on network now.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
In fact, in the thirty years i'd been on the show, yes,
and I had nothing specifically to do with this, but
we were the number one show in all of television.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
In all of television.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
Yes, and now, so you're not particular.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
You're not over there anymore.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
And I'm not going to ask you to speak specifically
for the official line of sixty minutes, but I'm assuming
you still have some kind of text chain I do
with folks over there. Yes, Now, you may or may
not know as they or may or may not know
what sixty minutes is. Paramount, which is the parent company
(25:48):
CBS at sixty minutes and also for Comedy Central, recently
made the unusual arrangement of settling a lawsuit that President
Trump brought for and I don't.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
Even really know what it was for. And they paid
him it was making one edit. They made an edit, yes,
you pastards.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
They paid him six sixteen million dollars. What is I
would assume internally that is devastating to the people who
work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism.
Speaker 14 (26:31):
No, it devastating is a good word. Yep.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think there's a lot of fear over there. Fear
of fear of losing their job, fear of what's happening
to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment, right,
all of those things.
Speaker 5 (26:55):
Why do you think they paid the sixteen million dollars?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Well, you know, a couple of Congressmen think that it
was a bribery.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
They think it was a bribe from Paramount.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, I should explain a little bit about what happened.
I hope I wasn't statualized. Sixteen minutes did an interview
with Kamala Harris.
Speaker 14 (27:20):
And during the interview, she.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Was the presidential candidate for this the Democratic Party, that's right,
and she had and she was asked a question about
net and Yahoo and great guy, why Yau.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And Yaghu wasn't saying and doing what we wanted him
to do. That's what was going on at the time. Yes,
and she gave fairly. She gave it a minute answer
and CBS took the first half of that answer and
gave it to the morning show on Sunday faced the
(27:54):
nation to use a sort of a teaser to get
people to watch it at night, and the second half
of that sound bite went into the story.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Now, news organizations use every part of the candidate. They
take the sound bites and they spread it over the
network so that none of it goes to waste. There
are hungry children and in countries right now with no
sound bites, that's right, and so they use those. So
they aired the first part of her answer on the.
Speaker 14 (28:27):
Morning news that was the teaser.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
Yes, and then what did they do on the sixty minutes.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
They put that sound bite the second half in the
sixty minutes piece they were different, and somebody noticed that
in the Republican Party and decided somebody, somebody, I don't
know who Donald Trump, not personally.
Speaker 14 (28:47):
All he does is with no TV, but I think
he watches Fox.
Speaker 6 (28:55):
Nothing to get mad about there.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Actually, Yeah, so anyway, I should this went out that
the sound bite in the exchange, neither of the front half.
Speaker 14 (29:06):
Or the second half answered the question.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
But Trump thought the second half was better than the
first half, and sixty minutes was deliberately trying to make
him lose the election by manipulating the news.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Sure, no, I have seen elections lost by that margin.
It's just it was a devastating half of a sound bite.
Is that standard operating perceived?
Speaker 14 (29:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (29:37):
Was anything done that you thought in retrospect that murcied
her like decontextualized her answer, tried to make her look better?
Was it all fair game? They did air the first
part that he thought made her look bad in the morning,
and then they aired the second part in the evening,
and then they made the whole thing available.
Speaker 14 (29:56):
Yeah, most people couldn't tell the difference.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
I'm going to show you some.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Yeah, Okay, now this is shot you're going to be
shocked by this. This is from It's an organization called
Fox News also within.
Speaker 14 (30:09):
I'm familiar with it, but rarely watching.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I have it on in my house all the time
because I want to give an answer bar right. So
this is an interview that it aired on Fox and Friends,
which is a show that they do in the morning
on a couch, but then they have a weekend show
also named Fox and Friends, where the people who don't
(30:33):
make it on the A team Fox and Friends get
experience so that they can become cabinet members.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
This is a question.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
That that one of their hosts asked a gentleman by
the name of Donald Trump. I want you to watch.
This is how it aired on their morning show.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
Please please take a look.
Speaker 11 (31:00):
Would you declassify the nine to eleven files?
Speaker 14 (31:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (31:03):
Would you declassified JFK files.
Speaker 14 (31:05):
Yeah, which I did. I did a lot of it.
Speaker 11 (31:07):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 14 (31:11):
Yeah, I would. Attorney General, what are you that? I
mean we talked about.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
So that's how it aired. Yeah, simple question. Would you
do clause by nine eleven?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (31:19):
Kennedy yes, Epstein yes, And then the Secretary of Defense
jumped in Ian, sir, please get me off this couch.
I want to show you the larger context of that
interview that aired later.
Speaker 6 (31:42):
Take a look.
Speaker 11 (31:43):
Would you declassify the Epstein files?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah, yeah, I would, all right, yes, I would.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
I think that less so because you know, you don't
know if you don't want to affect people's lives of
its phony stuff in there, because it's a lot of
phony stuff.
Speaker 11 (31:56):
With that whole world.
Speaker 14 (31:58):
But I think I would.
Speaker 11 (31:59):
Or do you think that would restore trust?
Speaker 6 (32:03):
Now that.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Seems up, Yes, that would never happen on sixty minutes.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
No, but I would like to know why the sixty
minutes edit was worthy of a sixteen million dollar acquiescence
of what is considered the Tiffany News gold standard network
for Paramount of News, where very clearly Fox just did
(32:30):
what seems to me to be a more egregious edit. Yes,
So explain to me what was going through the mind
of Paramount when they said, oh, yeah, we screwed up,
here's your money.
Speaker 14 (32:46):
Why not?
Speaker 6 (32:47):
Why didn't they fight?
Speaker 14 (32:48):
They never said we screwed up?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
What did?
Speaker 14 (32:50):
They just paid the money?
Speaker 5 (32:52):
So just flat out protection money.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, it was a shakedown, that's what I call I
mean some people call it an extortion. That's a legal
to her mind, not you know, but shakedown.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
Is like obviously this is opinion.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
Is this purely Paramount buying their way?
Speaker 6 (33:09):
They are.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
They are being sold right now to a gentleman who
is friends with the president, Larry Ellison and his son
David Ellison.
Speaker 6 (33:16):
The sky Dance.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Was this settlement just a payment so that this merger
can go through and not be challenged by Trump's FCC.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yes, I think that Trump when I tried to explain
this at the beginning, I said, it was like a
little complicated. Yeah, there's Sherry Redstone, who is the head
of Paramount. She's the owner of She wants to controlling share,
she wants to sell it.
Speaker 14 (33:45):
Yes, she has a couple of billion dollars.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
Got an eight billion dollar deal on the table, yes.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And two billion dollars she's going to get. So she
wanted the sail to go through. But Donald Trump thought
I'm going to settle a score here. He said that,
you know very often about I'm going to go after
my enemies. And he was upset with sixty minutes, and
(34:11):
he decided that that he was going to sue for
sixteen million dollars, and then.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
He decided to sue for twenty billion dollars.
Speaker 14 (34:19):
Well sixty, I think it was.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I think it was millions at first, then it went
to billions, say, and then it came back down to millions.
He changes his mind a lot, as you pointed out
in the in the tape intro.
Speaker 14 (34:38):
But anyway, he.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Also and which we haven't talked about, is that the
Federal Communications Commission, which approves licenses and things like that,
it is controlled by the president and he has obviously
somebody there who really likes him and will do whatever
he says and is for his agenda and all of us.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
And he's decided that he's not going to improve this deal.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
The FCC chairman said that that he wasn't going to
approve it.
Speaker 14 (35:06):
Well, he didn't say, no, I'm not going to approve it. Now.
I think we ought to have some public hearings on it.
I think we ought to like.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Take a good look at the media and how it's
performing and maybe doing something.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
So the implication is, you don't get your eight billion
dollar merger, you don't get your two billion dollar payout
unless you give me a tremendous amount of money. Now,
that strikes me as and I'm obviously not a lawyer,
but I did watch Good Fellows as that's that sounds illegal?
Speaker 14 (35:44):
Yes it does.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
It's okay, well it's a shutdown here.
Speaker 14 (35:50):
I think it's a shakedown.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
It's a shakedown.
Speaker 14 (35:54):
But now, not only the one I want to make
just one point.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yes, please, it's not just me or sixty Minutes or
you that think that this was a shakedowns. It's pretty
much every reporter that's looked at it, at this case
and said this is ridiculous. It's going to be thrown
out of any court that it goes before.
Speaker 14 (36:13):
Except maybe one in Texas.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Yeah, and that is where they brought the sin That's
where they brought the suit. And that's why I'm afraid
they'll send.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
This show if we get sued, because you said some
really nasty things about it, much worse than Kamala Harris.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
Can I tell you something and I'm gonna I'm gonna
say this, okay, and I mean this. I don't know personally.
I can't read, so this is all done phonetically. You
may be saying to me, I said some nasty things.
Here's what it's houded like to me. What is it
(36:56):
about this moment that makes his attacks on the press
more dangerous than what has always been standard fair? Hey man,
don't print that, don't do that. What is it about
this moment?
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I think he's trying. I think he likes to get
even with his political enemies. He likes to do things
that he feels will intimidate them to stop reporting bad
things about it.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
And I think that and that he'll go further than
other people would.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, I guess so further really that it's not clear
the constitution allows.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
I don't even know if that's.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
In play anymore, because they'll find a judge in Texas
who says it isn't. But so what does the news
media do in this moment too? Is this the last
gasp of a dying industry or is this the turning
point for something that is become. Let's face it, it's
(38:02):
it's in many ways this moment is able to happen
because the news media has had its trust eroded with
the American people. Yes, So how.
Speaker 6 (38:13):
Does the news media respond? Then? Well?
Speaker 14 (38:16):
I think that it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
You know, this lawsuit, the one thing that they didn't
get Trump didn't get.
Speaker 14 (38:24):
He didn't get an apology, and he had been pushing
really hard.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That's one of the reasons why it went from like
a million or you know, ten million to ten billion,
because he was demanding an apology and wanted CBS to
admit it that he had made a mistake so he
could use that against it. It erode the credibility of
the program and the network. But he did not get it,
and that was that's important. I mean, it costs. You know,
(38:52):
we haven't touched on this, but the executive producer of
CBS News, well, yeah, was forced to quit.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
And the head of news in general quick yes, because
they wouldn't apologize, because they wouldn't apologize, and because they
thought they had lost control of the you know, they
had lost their independence, and it was a very honorable
thing to do. How does the media look for Trump?
This is great because now he's got himself a news network.
(39:20):
He already announced that Ellison is going to do a
great job at CBS, and Ellison is going to give
him sixteen more million dollars in public airwaves commercials.
Speaker 14 (39:36):
I have no proof of that. If that actually happened,
I think he does it. That doesn't mean it's true, but.
Speaker 5 (39:51):
I think for news media is this sort of the
new world that we live in that they were Listen,
the news media isn't perfect. I don't think anybody disputes that.
I think there's been mistakes. CNN accused that kid years
ago in a maga hat of like harassing a Native American,
(40:12):
and that was wrong and they had to pay. I
think like they should be responsible and help. But this
seems like a different thing where corporate pressure and political
pressure have never been stronger to It doesn't feel like
scrutiny on news networks. It feels like fealty that they
(40:32):
are being held to a standard that that will never
be satisfactory to Donald Trump. No one can ever kiss
his acid enough. I mean he goes after Fox sometimes,
which is crazy.
Speaker 14 (40:44):
Sixty million dollars was tribute.
Speaker 5 (40:47):
That's how he looks at and that's and that will
contribute to the king. Thank God, I'm on basic cable,
which I don't think he has. I think I think
he only cares about network.
Speaker 6 (40:59):
Well.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
I appreciate I appreciate you coming on to discuss it
in this Uh we didn't.
Speaker 14 (41:04):
Confuse the audience.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Can I tell you something?
Speaker 5 (41:08):
The audience is from Harvard, Like I've been talking to
people all THEO.
Speaker 6 (41:14):
They don't I'm talking to these people.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
I'm gonna I'm gonna be completely harmless. We didn't confuse them,
We bored them. Former sixty Minutes correspondent Steve Croft quick break.
Speaker 14 (41:29):
We'll be right back in.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Old let's go dripping to night.
Speaker 5 (41:52):
But before we go, let's chick in with the arrows
for the rest of the week.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Ronnie Jay, run out.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Right.
Speaker 14 (42:08):
How was your.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
Fourth How.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Well as you can see, John, it was a great.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
I get you're making a little comment on Congressman Troy
Nell's with the cigar and the bandit, and I get it.
Speaker 6 (42:23):
It's very funny, very nice.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
No, who's that? No?
Speaker 5 (42:27):
No, it's my first full July as an American citizen.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
So that's you.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
So I celebrated like a real American. So you would
you injure yourself with fireworks? No, I'm not stupid, Okay.
I got in a grill touching contest.
Speaker 14 (42:53):
And I won.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
WHOA, that's right.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
Who's stupid now, Jeremy, Now, I got ten bucks to
spend on skin grass. I just had a curiosity in
the grill touching contest you entered, who went first? I did?
That's how you win, John, So, Jeremy didn't even take
(43:20):
a turn. I had already won by that point. Okay, now, John,
now help me put this in my pocket.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Absolute Ronnie chain.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Oh week.
Speaker 8 (43:30):
On Check.
Speaker 12 (43:33):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central
on Comedy Central.
Speaker 14 (43:43):
And stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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