April 23, 2024 • 38 mins
Jon Stewart weighs in on the media’s overblown coverage of Trump’s criminal trial, from sketch-artist interviews to following his motorcade via helicopter, and how the airtime contradicts their stated goal to give him less airtime. Plus, Daily Show alum Jessica Williams surprises us with some joyful benefits of following the Trump trial story. Also, esteemed author, Salman Rushdie speaks with Jon about his memoir, “Knife,” recounting his brush with death, along with the subsequent journey of healing and the fight for free expression currently happening in the United States.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Center.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's America's only sorts for news.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Daily Joke with your host show Stuard.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome in a Daly shot light of the down start.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We got a great joke for tonight. We gotta show it.
You're you're gonna be very excited that you tuned in
for the scene. I've been talking to the great Salmon Rutshty.
We'll be joining us later about his new book Tonight fabulous,
but in many other surprises. But before that, it's a
big day for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Huge.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
His campaign for president was interrupted today by the trial
about the other time that he had tried to run
for president. Let's just check in in another installment of
America's Most tremendously Wanted, the whole thing is a scam.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
After a week of jury.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Selection, today it was finally time for opening statements, and
it turns out the prosecution and the defense do not
see eye to eye. The prosecution arguing that Trump's alleged
scheme to keep an adult film actress quiet his election
interferes pure and simple. In those words, Trump defense lawyer
Todd Blanche told the jury that the former president, though
(01:56):
did not violate the law.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
This is a classic case of the State of New
York versus Oh oh no. I think it's pretty clear
you did it anyway. This trial will obviously be a
test of the fairness of the American legal system, but
it's also a test to the media's ability to cover
Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have
(02:22):
acknowledged they've performed poorly in the past. I think to
the degree that the media had lessons during sixteen, they
seem to have been learned.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It is irresponsible for cable news networks to give Donald
Trump hours and hours of free airtime.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Way too much speculation and liberal wishful thinking and attempts
to connect dots that did not connect.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It gets the media's responsibility to not get distracted.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from
the last couple of years in delineating what's significant, what's important.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So brave, well done, and I think for this trial
we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit,
or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies.
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's on.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
It's happening.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
History will be made.
Speaker 8 (03:19):
Shaping up to be the trial of the century.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Maybe the trial of the century, the trial of the century.
It just might be the trial of the century.
Speaker 9 (03:26):
The taxman is here, Donald Trump, you will finally be
forced to face the music.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
The legal walls closing in around Donald Trump. The legal
walls are starting to close in on Donald Trump. Yes,
this time, mister Bond, it truly is you're doing. Now,
if you'll excuse.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Me, I'm going to leave this room.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Obviously, when I leave, I'm not going to press this
button right here that opens all the doors and dismantles
the killing machine I've established. Don't follow me, mister Bond.
Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at
hand and try not to create an all encompassing spectacle
of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
You're looking at live pictures in New York City of
Donald Trump's motorcate.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
It's about a twenty minute drive between Trump Tower and
the Court building.
Speaker 8 (04:15):
Trump leaving Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We're now making their way Acrosstown along fifty seventh Street.
They just cross Park Avenue, making their way up towards
Lexison Avenue.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
He's heading down the FDR to the Manhattan Courthouse on
Chamber Street, arriving at this intersection of American history with defiance.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Arriving at the intersection of American history with defiance. The
brilliant juxtaposing of the gravitas of the moment with simple
traffic terms. Was he arrived at the intersection of American
history where you put a quarter in the parking meter
of Deathcinea, leaving the look you to avoid stepping in
(05:04):
the urine puddle of jurisprudence. Seriously, are we gonna follow
this guy to court every in day? Are you trying
to make this oj It's not a chase, he's commuting.
So the media's first attempt, the very first attempt on
(05:26):
the first day it self control failed and I'm sorry
to say that. I'm sorry. Hold on, we're getting breaking news.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You know, he wanted to get a jury seated, so
we had a lady Bill.
Speaker 9 (05:36):
I'm sorry to interrupt, just for one second. I apologize.
We're just showing the first image of Donald Trump from
inside the courtroom. It's a still photograph that we're showing
there just don't want to make sure our viewers know
what they're looking at.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from
a thirty year coma, this is what Donald Trump has
looked like every day for the past thirty years, same outfit.
So we have a photograph of Donald Trump in the courtroom,
but do we really know what he looks like? The
(06:20):
man is a mystery, a yetti if you will, Anything
could be a deep fake. Do we have an eyewitness account,
perhaps from a dismissed juror would.
Speaker 9 (06:28):
You describe to me what you saw with Donald Trump
while you were sitting inside of that courtroom?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Very much?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
He was a bit ahead of me and off to
the left.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
I didn't have a complete view of him today.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Dude, wait, did I have jury duty this week?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What the.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Brother dresses like me too? This is.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Anyway, coming up more of our three part interview with
a guy who nearly saw Donald Trump at the chorra.
So we have a photograph. That's freaking me out. That picture.
We have a photograph, and we have eyewitness accounts, but
do we have anything in a pastel.
Speaker 9 (07:38):
A courtroom sketch that we're getting in right now? I'm
looking at the courtroom sketch, and mister Trump looks like
he is glowering. I'm not sure if that's supposed to
be a glower or just a glance. And I don't
know how it's art it's not necessarily it's artistic journalism,
but it's not a photographer.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Why are you showing it to us? It's a sketch.
Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was? It'd
be like looking at the Last Supper and going, why
do you think Jesus looks so sad here?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What do you think is?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What do you think it's because of Judas? What if
we interview one of the waiters at one of the
tables from like a different section of the restaurant, who
maybe didn't actually see him, But what you know, we
got time to kill Well, I guess we'll never know
unless we could talk to the person who drew the sketch.
But do we have the time?
Speaker 9 (08:34):
Nothing but Christine Cornelis, who was in the courtroom today,
the official sketch artist.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I want to show one of your sketches.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
Stay, we're going through some of them, but this.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
One appears in this one that his eyes are closed.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
What was happening here.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
My apologies, ma'am.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
I was sitting fifty feet away.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I was having such a struggle to try and get
those eyeballs in.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Damn it, woman, Donald Trump, have eyeballs on.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
No, man, dun'ty oh, no, you.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Are in the room.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Tell me.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Or I will not come to your trinket shop in Newpaulse.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Tell me, woman, Look.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Mean, what the heck are we doing?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I noticed here his head is perfectly round. What is that?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I like drawing circles at this point, you're brisying yourself.
How many television hours have they devoted to? What?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A man who has not been off any of our
screens for more than thirty seconds in the last eight years.
Looks like the answer is not nearly as many hours.
As describing his every movement, Trump craned his neck to
eye prospective jurors and flashed a tight lips smile.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Leaning to the left a little bit quiet, his arms
crossed as.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
Well, hunched over with his elbows on the desk.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
Looked through papers it periodically, whispered to his attorneys, fidgeted.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And leaned back, the scowl fixed to his face while
he sat squinting.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
He was actually biting his lip during today's proceedings.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
His lips pursed in that characteristic Trump way.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
His eyeballs gone. The hulking farmer President stood up slowly.
He walked towards me with a mixture of desire, scorn,
and let's call it age related confusion. It was then
that I realized that this former president of the United
States has a front butt. Look, at some point in
(10:49):
this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen,
but none of us are going to notice because the
hour spent on his speculative facial tics. If the media
tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullshit
is earth shattering, we won't believe you when it's really interesting.
It's your classic boy who cried Wolf Blitzer.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Look, it's a trial. It's boring.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Mostly I've been on jury duty and I can do.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
That's not me. That's a different guy.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Why it's not me?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It may be me.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Look, trials are a lot of procedural shit and side
conferences and sidebars.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And what's exhibit thirty seven to two A. And you're not
out of order.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
This whole card is out of a Look, the one
person who's had the most normal reaction to the trial
so far is Donald Trump.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
Donald Trump fell asleep on multiple days during his criminal trial,
as he should.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I mean, he's been up since two am, range tweeting
he needs his anger sleep. Look, we got a long
ways to go here. It's the first day of the
first of his four hundred and thirty eight trials. To
come pace yourselves, and if you're bored, you can always
start planning how you're going to up covering his next
trial and the sober mia coppa you'll deliver during his
next term as president, because the kinds of things that
(12:34):
you are talking about now are okay?
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Boys.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. Jessica Williams, Jessica,
how are you by? Are you down at the CoreOS?
Are you there to give us a report?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:00):
I am, And here's my report. John Stewart hates fun.
This trial rocks. Why you gotta be all get off
my lawn about it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I don't necessarily sound like that, but as I was explaining, though,
the media has systematically failed to context.
Speaker 7 (13:23):
Jean, please, you're killing me, My poor sweet naive older
than I remember, John.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
What.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
We need this messy bullshit spectacle.
Speaker 8 (13:34):
Every other news story is a massive bummer.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
This Trump trial is like an open window and a
greyhound bus full of farts.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
Why are you trying to close the window?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
John?
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Why are you trying to make a smell farts?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I'm not trying to make a spell, Jo, You're not
trying to make.
Speaker 8 (13:51):
This trial is a gift.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
An extremely gross old man slash former president might go
to prison for banging a porn star and trying to
pay off, and you don't want us to cover that
shit all day long.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
John.
Speaker 8 (14:06):
The first witness is named David Pecker.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I know that.
Speaker 8 (14:17):
I mean it's David Pecker. You know, pecker is slang
for wiener.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
John, It's a peepee, a peeper, you know what a
dingle love dumble love.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Lit it when you say pepe But then the peeper, Yeah,
wouldn't that be the owner.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
Of the pep different contact, okay, or the other the peeper.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I'm not trying to be a glammar police.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
I'm just saying, Look, I don't want to get in
the weeds about it, Okay.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
I just want to make sure that I'm clear.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
That I'm talking about the name David Pecker and that it.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
Has a double meeting, and the meaning is for wiener s.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I know, I'm Sakai.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I've missed you. I missed you terribly.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
Shit, And then here you come with your old timey
pie falutin media critique, ruining our good time, just like
you ruin the twenty twelve Daily Show Christmas Party.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I didn't ruin that. What's not fun about mocktails?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And Tofurky? I didn't ruin it. Look, Jess, I hear what.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
You're saying, but I thought my commentary on the sketch
artist was quite trenchers.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
Oh you want to talk about court room sketches?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Look at this?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
When when when I miss Walter Cronkai.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
I have a pen and I scribbled nonsense on my
script before the show starts.
Speaker 8 (15:52):
Oh no, the Mets lost again?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Where did you?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
My god, Jeff, did you actually draw out of me?
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (15:59):
Dude, because it's fun to do and people like fun.
John Damn.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Anyway, I should get going. I think I see Pecker
across the.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Street, David Pecker.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
I'm not sure who's penis it is? Actually Jessic Go
where's everybody?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
When we come back, Selma Rusty will be joining us.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Don't go away.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
We're back to the Dallas Show.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
My guest Tonight a world renowned and bestselling author. His
new book is called Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Please,
welcome to the program, Salomon Rushdie, So.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
First question, obviously, how are you? This was obviously a
traumatic experience. How are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
I'm okay, you know, I mean, surprisingly yes, But sometimes
there are good surprises.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This was one.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
I'm pretty much recovered, I have to.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Say, and I know this, it's it sounds peculiar to
say this because of the traumatic experience that you endured.
I love this book. It's a beautiful work of introspection.
I feel like I know now how your mind works.
You know, I've read other of your books, but you
(17:40):
really do a wonderful job of taking us through how
you think.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have
this kind of free associating mind which goes from the
moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece
of mythology to a joke.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I had to read this book with another book next
to me to get just some of the references. It's
but it's it allows you. You know, sometimes you'll read
an author's memoir and there's a certain self consciousness to it.
But maybe because this is about a traumatic incident, I
feel like your defenses were down and it was very revelatory.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, I mean there's there's a subject, right, I mean,
it's what I felt is that it's starts. There's a
love story which turns into a murder story, which turns
back into a love story.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza,
who is really the hero maybe of the book.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Yeah, No, I mean she she did a huge amount
and I wouldn't be here in good shape without her.
And plus she's an amazing writer. Right, there's that too,
I say, with certain amount of gritted teeth.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Is there a competition in writerly families?
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Not really.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Actually, one of the nice things about this is there
isn't rely enormously supportive of each other's work.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I thought a really interesting part of the book is
spoiler alert at the end when you go back to Chautauqua.
Chautaqua is the famed community in upstate New York where
they bring in speakers and where this unfortunate event happened. Yeah,
and you go back to revisit the scene of it,
but also the jail where they are holding this person
(19:35):
that attacked you. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
It was a last minute decision. We were actually on
the plane flying up to because I had this desire
to go and revisit the scene of the crime and
show myself that I was standing up where I fell
down right, sort of important for me. But then in
the flight up there, I thought to talk was a
really small town, and if he's in the county jail,
how far is that from the institution, And to tell
(19:59):
that it was like drive. So I thought, well, let's
go to the jail.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I just it blows my But you didn't have a
desire necessarily to see this.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And I just want to see the jail. But I
don't you get that it's a it's a really boring jail.
It's a little cell block at a wall with sudden
barbed wire. But I thought, you know, he's in there.
I vouch here it feels good Win And what happened
is a weird thing happened. My feet started Dad sing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
You were dancing.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
No, my feet were Dodds.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
But what does that look like? It's just just shitting
but the body stayed Well, wife said, stop doing that.
I can't imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window
for no apparent reason.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Going is that the guy like, yeah, he's dad sing
at the cop park.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
You you know, you talk a lot about your thoughts
about this gentleman and whether you want to confront of him.
There's actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like
a Socratic litigation that you do in four parts. I
make him up, You make him up, but you don't
make him defenseless. No, the litigation that you and the
(21:17):
dialogue that you have with him is challenging.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yeah, well I thought you you know, you've got to
give the enemy an even break. If you're going to
have a serious conversation, then it's can't just be me
yelling get him, telling him what a bad person he is,
which I think.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yes, but he wasn't. It makes you wonder about you know,
you spent since nineteen eighty nine, this this fatois is
put upon you, and it's these fundamentalists, and these are
religious extremists who have decided they're going to punish you
for whatever their reasoning was. You right, though, that this
(21:53):
gentleman is sort.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Of a copy of a copy of a copy of
a copy of that twenty four He wasn't even born
right when this thing happened, and he, by his own account,
had read nothing I'd written, and yet he was willing
to commit murder.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I mean that's stupid, yes, but it's.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I wonder if you think of it, does it strike
you as a change in fundamentalism? You know, you say
he was radicalized by iman YouTube, that he watched YouTube videos.
And do you think this attack had more to do
with like John Lennon's attack or with a religious attack.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Well, I think I think in some ways it's a
very American attack. Right, he spent four years in a
basement playing video games and watching videos and it kind
of messed with his head. And also, you know, I
mean he's born in Brendon, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Slow down, I think I know where this is going. Well,
then you know you're ahead of me.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
But you know, we live it in America where people
kill each other every five minutes, right, you know, And
I think maybe in his New Jersey brain, yes, that is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
How we describe it as well. By the way, it's
got that New Jersey brain exactly. Do you think that
there is a shift. You know, we think of fundamentalism
as primarily a religious artifact. Have the algorithms made fundamentalism
something different from that?
Speaker 5 (23:36):
I think maybe they have. I mean, i'm too I'm
too old to know really, because I don't. Algorithms don't
know what to.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Do with me, right, give them a chance.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
No, I do, but they don't know what to do.
So I'm not algorithmically influenced, right, But people are. People
are all the time. And yeah, I mean I think
he was. Something happened in him which made it possible
for him to decide to murder a total stranger, right,
(24:08):
And that has to be brainwashing of some kind, right,
whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah. As I read the story, I started thinking, you know,
we're so used to this idea, that of violence with
a cause, this idea that these you know, there is
something deep inside them that can almost be noble or understandable.
This is not that it struck me more as more
in common with the school shootings we see or the
(24:39):
other things that you were. Just this thing he saw.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
And you know what's so strange about it is, first
of all, he must have known that he was messing
up his own.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Life as well, right, you know, not just mine at
twenty four.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
At twenty four, and you know, the last thing he
did before he got on the bus from Fairview, New
Jersey to Chautauqua. Last thing he did he canceled his
gym membership.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Because he knew that he had weights.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He wasn't he wasn't coming back, and why should he
keep his starting new order?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Going wow, So he's he's going through it and going like,
I don't need serious radio anymore. I don't. So this
was he suicidal or was he?
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out if whenever,
if this trial happens, we might find out more about him.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But do you dread something like that? Is that something
that still visits you?
Speaker 6 (25:30):
No?
Speaker 5 (25:31):
I mean I think you know, if I they if
they need me to testify, I'll go testify and I'll
be in the coult room with him. But my view
is he should be scared about being in the coult
room with me.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Absolutely absolutely. Do you wonder sometimes you know, and this
is not not not to get but you and I
are both getting older, and you write a lot in
the book about saddle down. I was just on jury duty.
Either way, I don't have you picture of my dappelganger,
(26:05):
but there is there's mortality. You write about Martin Amos
and Paul Ausler and people that you've lost, even during
the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer. You
had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation, in.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
The middle of all this repair work, suddenly apparently I
might have prostate cancer. I thought, that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
No, well, you write, he writes, he goes to the doctor,
or you can tell me.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
I mean I went to the doctor, and the examining
your prostate is not fun.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Again, speak for yourself. It's it depends on if you
have a Jersey brain.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump
on the prostates, and then I had to have MRI scan,
and MRI scan you know, it grades from one to five,
and five is really bad, and I came out at four.
It said cancer probable. And then it turned out that
it was not probable that it was had this bump
and that had been caused by some other.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Infection and a medicine that they had actually given you.
Speaker 5 (27:19):
Yeah, exactly. And then a second doctor the first doctor's
boss also examined by prostate more thoroughly.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
They lined up down the hallway.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
No, this was very thorough. And also he was an
Indian doctor and he was a fan of mynes.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Nothing more uncomfortable than that extra thorough Yes.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
And he said, no, I think this might be caused
by this other infection. And so so that to go
back and have another MRI scan and it said one
to five, it's one no cancer. So I had cancer
for two months and then I didn't.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's so incredible because you face this, as you write
in the book this twenty seven seconds. It was just
twenty seven seconds. And yet can't do you think about
and pardon the question, but do you think does it
matter how you die? As you watched your friends and
you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality,
(28:24):
and then to have this cancer scared, did it make
you think it mattered how you die?
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Why do you prefer not to.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I've got some bad news come over all, the bad
news for all of us.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yes, but I mean I don't know. My wife Eliza
and I have decided to be planning our hundredth birthday.
Pozzy one hundredth months, and I think it has to
be a dance Pozzy.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yes, tried just your feet, though not the whole body.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
So we tried to decide who should dj and I'll
pick somebody.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this
mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something.
You represent a courage and a freedom of artistic expression,
of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger
that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it.
(29:22):
It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one.
I don't I'm not an easy one.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
And in a way, there's bits of me that would
prefer to be well known for being, you know, good writer.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's
in there too.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
Is that in that.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
I see? But you know, it used to be when
I started out as a rise, when people would write
about my books, they would mention that they were funny.
And then after the attack on the Satanic bliss Is,
everybody stopped saying I was funny.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Really, And because that book is it's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
People who read it.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I get.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
I get two reactions we read it now, One is
where's the dirty bit because we.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Can't find it?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:12):
And the second is who knew it was funny? And
I say, people who read it?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
But it's you know, with that on you do you
feel there's an idea that you have to wear that heroism.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I don't know the heroism, but I think I have
to be part of the fight, right, I mean, I
mean there is a fight about free expression in America
too at the moment, and I'm I'm I feel like
I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
What what do you think that how that the nature
of fundamentalism has changed, and how that affects artistic expression,
Like even now when we see all the protests, you
know up at Columbia University, some students protests as others
think that's going too far and they're threatening peace and
we're crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the
(31:04):
Penn Banquet, yes, yeah, last year, last year, which is
a consortium of writers and poets and a lot of
people truly defenders of free speech. I just got a
text today.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
They've canceled, they've counseled the prize giving because they're people
attacking them for not being sufficiently anti ISRAELI will pro
Palestinian or something. I mean, everybody's so angry right now
right that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else,
So people have shout at each other.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
There was a critic, and this is going to sound
like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album,
The Torture Post Society. They had to remove the critic's
name from the critique because of.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Death threats because he didn't like the record.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I didn't read it because I love the record. Of course,
I don't want to hear any negativity.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
No, but so do I jump.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
But it speaks to in nineteen eighty nine, there was
an Ayatola and a Fatua and a group of religious
muckety MUCKs who delivered the law from high above. And
now we're all fundamentalist.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Everybody's an expert, everybody's got an opinion and a hostility
and hostility the level of anger is crazy right now?
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Do you think of you know, you have a dog
in the fight in that creative How do we and
I think about this a lot, how do we manage that?
And is that just a function of the algorithm?
Speaker 5 (32:39):
I might I think to an extent it is.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Frankly, I'm glad you asked me, because I'm the answer,
have the answer to the world's problems.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
It's actually on page if I were exiting.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
But you are thoughtful enough.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
And you've been through it enough that I know you
have an opinion.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah, I mean, I just think people have to jewel
stop having such thin skins. You know, at the moment,
we're all very easily offended. And what's more is we
also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for
attacking something, right, But actually everything offends somebody always always,
(33:18):
I mean occasionally.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You what, how dare you, sir? I am offended? You see?
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Then if you go down that road, then we can't
talk to each other anymore, right.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
You know. But having groups always had a way of
policing language or behavior. I think I'm trying to think,
has my perspective changed on it, or has the dynamic Changely.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
What's happened is the temperature has got arisen, right, I
mean yes, of course, people have always disagreed, and people
have always said you can't say that, you've got to
say this, that that's not new what's new is the
volume and the heat, and so what do we do
about taking down the volume, taking down the heat? That's
the question.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I mean, And again not to make you the avatar
of this, but this is coming from a man who,
because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your
entire life.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Well, it did certainly have an impact. Yeah, yeah, I
mean what it's sad is that I've actually got my
life back.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Really.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I mean, I've been living in New York City for
getting on for twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Right, Well, you had made a decision I'm going to
come out of this and make myself.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And for twenty three years it was fine, right, you know,
I mean, I you know, I mean I was doing
everything that writers do, book tours, readings, lectures, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Oh, I know, I'm a writer. Don't stop. I've been
there with the coffee clotches. Yeah and Oprah.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
Yeah yeah, well I haven't been with Oprah, none of
us have. But anyway, so it was a shock when
this thing out of a quarter of a century ago,
more than that, thirty years ago, sort of came out
of a crowd at me. You know, it was I
really was very surprised.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Do you find yourself now freedom that fear or is
there still that PTSD? Like, what where's your What does
that do to you? Well, I mean it does you know,
nothing good. But it's now been what twenty months or something.
I think I'm pretty much back to myself at this point.
Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again?
(35:24):
Has your mind started to dream again?
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Finish this?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And by the way, let me tell you something. And
we don't have people on where I don't either you know,
read it or takeul It's such a beautiful and incredibly
interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for writing
it because you had to endure something awful, but your
(35:51):
insight into that experience is really a remarkable gift to
give to other people. And I really do It's got
funny bits, A couple of funny bits for a writer
for a writer, uh, but it really is a fantastic
piece of work, and I and I thank you for
(36:13):
doing it. The book is called Knife. It is available
as we speak. Someone rushed you. We're going to take
a quick break and we'll be right.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Back after this to.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Hell that's on chocolate tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Before we go, we're gonna check in with your host
for the rest of the week, Ronnie Changing, Jordan Clopper.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Come on, I'll let me see you. What do you got?
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What do you got for the people this week?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Well, look, that's a law news to cover, and personally,
I'll be looking at it through the lens of my
white yes.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
And I'll be letting my insight on what matters the
most to the Asian community.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I'll be very left as an anti Trump while I'll
be offering it angry. Everyone is stupid.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Counterpoint. I don't want to say anybody, I think you're
reading each other's lines.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Oh yeah, shoot, well it's too glad we got come
into it now. Look at me, I'm Joman Clipper.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'm making Trump supporters so dumb.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I'm so small and tall. Agan.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
So it feels something like the legal walls are starting
to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
The walls once again begin to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 8 (37:46):
The walls are closing in on Trump.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
More walls are closing around him than ever before.
Speaker 7 (37:51):
We've been saying the walls are closing in for two years,
but it feels like they're actually closing right now.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
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 tenth Central on Comedy Central,
and streamful episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
This has been a Comedy Central podcastow
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Center.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's America's only sorts for news.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Daily Joke with your host show Stuard.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Welcome in a Daly shot light of the down start.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
We got a great joke for tonight. We gotta show it.
You're you're gonna be very excited that you tuned in
for the scene. I've been talking to the great Salmon Rutshty.
We'll be joining us later about his new book Tonight fabulous,
but in many other surprises. But before that, it's a
big day for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Huge.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
His campaign for president was interrupted today by the trial
about the other time that he had tried to run
for president. Let's just check in in another installment of
America's Most tremendously Wanted, the whole thing is a scam.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
After a week of jury.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Selection, today it was finally time for opening statements, and
it turns out the prosecution and the defense do not
see eye to eye. The prosecution arguing that Trump's alleged
scheme to keep an adult film actress quiet his election
interferes pure and simple. In those words, Trump defense lawyer
Todd Blanche told the jury that the former president, though
(01:56):
did not violate the law.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
This is a classic case of the State of New
York versus Oh oh no. I think it's pretty clear
you did it anyway. This trial will obviously be a
test of the fairness of the American legal system, but
it's also a test to the media's ability to cover
Donald Trump in a responsible way, a task they have
(02:22):
acknowledged they've performed poorly in the past. I think to
the degree that the media had lessons during sixteen, they
seem to have been learned.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It is irresponsible for cable news networks to give Donald
Trump hours and hours of free airtime.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
Way too much speculation and liberal wishful thinking and attempts
to connect dots that did not connect.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
It gets the media's responsibility to not get distracted.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from
the last couple of years in delineating what's significant, what's important.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So brave, well done, and I think for this trial
we will see the seeds of that introspection bear fruit,
or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies.
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's on.
Speaker 8 (03:17):
It's happening.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
History will be made.
Speaker 8 (03:19):
Shaping up to be the trial of the century.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Maybe the trial of the century, the trial of the century.
It just might be the trial of the century.
Speaker 9 (03:26):
The taxman is here, Donald Trump, you will finally be
forced to face the music.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
The legal walls closing in around Donald Trump. The legal
walls are starting to close in on Donald Trump. Yes,
this time, mister Bond, it truly is you're doing. Now,
if you'll excuse.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Me, I'm going to leave this room.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Obviously, when I leave, I'm not going to press this
button right here that opens all the doors and dismantles
the killing machine I've established. Don't follow me, mister Bond.
Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at
hand and try not to create an all encompassing spectacle
of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
You're looking at live pictures in New York City of
Donald Trump's motorcate.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
It's about a twenty minute drive between Trump Tower and
the Court building.
Speaker 8 (04:15):
Trump leaving Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
We're now making their way Acrosstown along fifty seventh Street.
They just cross Park Avenue, making their way up towards
Lexison Avenue.
Speaker 7 (04:25):
He's heading down the FDR to the Manhattan Courthouse on
Chamber Street, arriving at this intersection of American history with defiance.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Arriving at the intersection of American history with defiance. The
brilliant juxtaposing of the gravitas of the moment with simple
traffic terms. Was he arrived at the intersection of American
history where you put a quarter in the parking meter
of Deathcinea, leaving the look you to avoid stepping in
(05:04):
the urine puddle of jurisprudence. Seriously, are we gonna follow
this guy to court every in day? Are you trying
to make this oj It's not a chase, he's commuting.
So the media's first attempt, the very first attempt on
(05:26):
the first day it self control failed and I'm sorry
to say that. I'm sorry. Hold on, we're getting breaking news.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You know, he wanted to get a jury seated, so
we had a lady Bill.
Speaker 9 (05:36):
I'm sorry to interrupt, just for one second. I apologize.
We're just showing the first image of Donald Trump from
inside the courtroom. It's a still photograph that we're showing
there just don't want to make sure our viewers know
what they're looking at.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, for our viewers who are just waking up from
a thirty year coma, this is what Donald Trump has
looked like every day for the past thirty years, same outfit.
So we have a photograph of Donald Trump in the courtroom,
but do we really know what he looks like? The
(06:20):
man is a mystery, a yetti if you will, Anything
could be a deep fake. Do we have an eyewitness account,
perhaps from a dismissed juror would.
Speaker 9 (06:28):
You describe to me what you saw with Donald Trump
while you were sitting inside of that courtroom?
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Very much?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
He was a bit ahead of me and off to
the left.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
I didn't have a complete view of him today.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Dude, wait, did I have jury duty this week?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What the.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Brother dresses like me too? This is.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Anyway, coming up more of our three part interview with
a guy who nearly saw Donald Trump at the chorra.
So we have a photograph. That's freaking me out. That picture.
We have a photograph, and we have eyewitness accounts, but
do we have anything in a pastel.
Speaker 9 (07:38):
A courtroom sketch that we're getting in right now? I'm
looking at the courtroom sketch, and mister Trump looks like
he is glowering. I'm not sure if that's supposed to
be a glower or just a glance. And I don't
know how it's art it's not necessarily it's artistic journalism,
but it's not a photographer.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Why are you showing it to us? It's a sketch.
Why would anyone analyze a sketch like it was? It'd
be like looking at the Last Supper and going, why
do you think Jesus looks so sad here?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What do you think is?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What do you think it's because of Judas? What if
we interview one of the waiters at one of the
tables from like a different section of the restaurant, who
maybe didn't actually see him, But what you know, we
got time to kill Well, I guess we'll never know
unless we could talk to the person who drew the sketch.
But do we have the time?
Speaker 9 (08:34):
Nothing but Christine Cornelis, who was in the courtroom today,
the official sketch artist.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I want to show one of your sketches.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
Stay, we're going through some of them, but this.
Speaker 7 (08:42):
One appears in this one that his eyes are closed.
Speaker 8 (08:48):
What was happening here.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
My apologies, ma'am.
Speaker 8 (08:53):
I was sitting fifty feet away.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I was having such a struggle to try and get
those eyeballs in.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Damn it, woman, Donald Trump, have eyeballs on.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
No, man, dun'ty oh, no, you.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Are in the room.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Tell me.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Or I will not come to your trinket shop in Newpaulse.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Tell me, woman, Look.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Mean, what the heck are we doing?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I noticed here his head is perfectly round. What is that?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Well?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I like drawing circles at this point, you're brisying yourself.
How many television hours have they devoted to? What?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Donald Trump?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
A man who has not been off any of our
screens for more than thirty seconds in the last eight years.
Looks like the answer is not nearly as many hours.
As describing his every movement, Trump craned his neck to
eye prospective jurors and flashed a tight lips smile.
Speaker 7 (09:56):
Leaning to the left a little bit quiet, his arms
crossed as.
Speaker 8 (10:00):
Well, hunched over with his elbows on the desk.
Speaker 9 (10:02):
Looked through papers it periodically, whispered to his attorneys, fidgeted.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And leaned back, the scowl fixed to his face while
he sat squinting.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
He was actually biting his lip during today's proceedings.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
His lips pursed in that characteristic Trump way.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
His eyeballs gone. The hulking farmer President stood up slowly.
He walked towards me with a mixture of desire, scorn,
and let's call it age related confusion. It was then
that I realized that this former president of the United
States has a front butt. Look, at some point in
(10:49):
this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen,
but none of us are going to notice because the
hour spent on his speculative facial tics. If the media
tries to make us feel like the most mundane bullshit
is earth shattering, we won't believe you when it's really interesting.
It's your classic boy who cried Wolf Blitzer.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Look, it's a trial. It's boring.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Mostly I've been on jury duty and I can do.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
That's not me. That's a different guy.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Why it's not me?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
It may be me.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Look, trials are a lot of procedural shit and side
conferences and sidebars.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And what's exhibit thirty seven to two A. And you're not
out of order.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
This whole card is out of a Look, the one
person who's had the most normal reaction to the trial
so far is Donald Trump.
Speaker 7 (12:03):
Donald Trump fell asleep on multiple days during his criminal trial,
as he should.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I mean, he's been up since two am, range tweeting
he needs his anger sleep. Look, we got a long
ways to go here. It's the first day of the
first of his four hundred and thirty eight trials. To
come pace yourselves, and if you're bored, you can always
start planning how you're going to up covering his next
trial and the sober mia coppa you'll deliver during his
next term as president, because the kinds of things that
(12:34):
you are talking about now are okay?
Speaker 5 (12:38):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Boys.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. Jessica Williams, Jessica,
how are you by? Are you down at the CoreOS?
Are you there to give us a report?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:00):
I am, And here's my report. John Stewart hates fun.
This trial rocks. Why you gotta be all get off
my lawn about it.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I don't necessarily sound like that, but as I was explaining, though,
the media has systematically failed to context.
Speaker 7 (13:23):
Jean, please, you're killing me, My poor sweet naive older
than I remember, John.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
What.
Speaker 7 (13:31):
We need this messy bullshit spectacle.
Speaker 8 (13:34):
Every other news story is a massive bummer.
Speaker 7 (13:36):
This Trump trial is like an open window and a
greyhound bus full of farts.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
Why are you trying to close the window?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
John?
Speaker 8 (13:43):
Why are you trying to make a smell farts?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I'm not trying to make a spell, Jo, You're not
trying to make.
Speaker 8 (13:51):
This trial is a gift.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
An extremely gross old man slash former president might go
to prison for banging a porn star and trying to
pay off, and you don't want us to cover that
shit all day long.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
John.
Speaker 8 (14:06):
The first witness is named David Pecker.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I know that.
Speaker 8 (14:17):
I mean it's David Pecker. You know, pecker is slang
for wiener.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
John, It's a peepee, a peeper, you know what a
dingle love dumble love.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Lit it when you say pepe But then the peeper, Yeah,
wouldn't that be the owner.
Speaker 7 (14:38):
Of the pep different contact, okay, or the other the peeper.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I'm not trying to be a glammar police.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
I'm just saying, Look, I don't want to get in
the weeds about it, Okay.
Speaker 8 (14:48):
I just want to make sure that I'm clear.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
That I'm talking about the name David Pecker and that it.
Speaker 8 (14:53):
Has a double meeting, and the meaning is for wiener s.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I know, I'm Sakai.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I've missed you. I missed you terribly.
Speaker 7 (15:13):
Shit, And then here you come with your old timey
pie falutin media critique, ruining our good time, just like
you ruin the twenty twelve Daily Show Christmas Party.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
I didn't ruin that. What's not fun about mocktails?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And Tofurky? I didn't ruin it. Look, Jess, I hear what.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
You're saying, but I thought my commentary on the sketch
artist was quite trenchers.
Speaker 8 (15:37):
Oh you want to talk about court room sketches?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Look at this?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
When when when I miss Walter Cronkai.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
I have a pen and I scribbled nonsense on my
script before the show starts.
Speaker 8 (15:52):
Oh no, the Mets lost again?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Where did you?
Speaker 3 (15:56):
My god, Jeff, did you actually draw out of me?
Speaker 5 (15:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (15:59):
Dude, because it's fun to do and people like fun.
John Damn.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Anyway, I should get going. I think I see Pecker
across the.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Street, David Pecker.
Speaker 8 (16:09):
I'm not sure who's penis it is? Actually Jessic Go
where's everybody?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
When we come back, Selma Rusty will be joining us.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Don't go away.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
We're back to the Dallas Show.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
My guest Tonight a world renowned and bestselling author. His
new book is called Knife Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Please,
welcome to the program, Salomon Rushdie, So.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
Nice to see you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
First question, obviously, how are you? This was obviously a
traumatic experience. How are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
I'm okay, you know, I mean, surprisingly yes, But sometimes
there are good surprises.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
This was one.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
I'm pretty much recovered, I have to.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Say, and I know this, it's it sounds peculiar to
say this because of the traumatic experience that you endured.
I love this book. It's a beautiful work of introspection.
I feel like I know now how your mind works.
You know, I've read other of your books, but you
(17:40):
really do a wonderful job of taking us through how
you think.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Yeah, it's weird how I think. I mean, I have
this kind of free associating mind which goes from the
moon to a movie, to a book, to a piece
of mythology to a joke.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I had to read this book with another book next
to me to get just some of the references. It's
but it's it allows you. You know, sometimes you'll read
an author's memoir and there's a certain self consciousness to it.
But maybe because this is about a traumatic incident, I
feel like your defenses were down and it was very revelatory.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
Yeah, I mean there's there's a subject, right, I mean,
it's what I felt is that it's starts. There's a
love story which turns into a murder story, which turns
back into a love story.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
The love story, by the way, is with his wonderful wife, Eliza,
who is really the hero maybe of the book.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
Yeah, No, I mean she she did a huge amount
and I wouldn't be here in good shape without her.
And plus she's an amazing writer. Right, there's that too,
I say, with certain amount of gritted teeth.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Is there a competition in writerly families?
Speaker 4 (19:05):
Not really.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
Actually, one of the nice things about this is there
isn't rely enormously supportive of each other's work.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
I thought a really interesting part of the book is
spoiler alert at the end when you go back to Chautauqua.
Chautaqua is the famed community in upstate New York where
they bring in speakers and where this unfortunate event happened. Yeah,
and you go back to revisit the scene of it,
but also the jail where they are holding this person
(19:35):
that attacked you. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (19:36):
It was a last minute decision. We were actually on
the plane flying up to because I had this desire
to go and revisit the scene of the crime and
show myself that I was standing up where I fell
down right, sort of important for me. But then in
the flight up there, I thought to talk was a
really small town, and if he's in the county jail,
how far is that from the institution, And to tell
(19:59):
that it was like drive. So I thought, well, let's
go to the jail.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I just it blows my But you didn't have a
desire necessarily to see this.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And I just want to see the jail. But I
don't you get that it's a it's a really boring jail.
It's a little cell block at a wall with sudden
barbed wire. But I thought, you know, he's in there.
I vouch here it feels good Win And what happened
is a weird thing happened. My feet started Dad sing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
You were dancing.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
No, my feet were Dodds.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
But what does that look like? It's just just shitting
but the body stayed Well, wife said, stop doing that.
I can't imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window
for no apparent reason.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Going is that the guy like, yeah, he's dad sing
at the cop park.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
You you know, you talk a lot about your thoughts
about this gentleman and whether you want to confront of him.
There's actually a really wonderful section of it, almost like
a Socratic litigation that you do in four parts. I
make him up, You make him up, but you don't
make him defenseless. No, the litigation that you and the
(21:17):
dialogue that you have with him is challenging.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
Yeah, well I thought you you know, you've got to
give the enemy an even break. If you're going to
have a serious conversation, then it's can't just be me
yelling get him, telling him what a bad person he is,
which I think.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yes, but he wasn't. It makes you wonder about you know,
you spent since nineteen eighty nine, this this fatois is
put upon you, and it's these fundamentalists, and these are
religious extremists who have decided they're going to punish you
for whatever their reasoning was. You right, though, that this
(21:53):
gentleman is sort.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Of a copy of a copy of a copy of
a copy of that twenty four He wasn't even born
right when this thing happened, and he, by his own account,
had read nothing I'd written, and yet he was willing
to commit murder.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
I mean that's stupid, yes, but it's.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I wonder if you think of it, does it strike
you as a change in fundamentalism? You know, you say
he was radicalized by iman YouTube, that he watched YouTube videos.
And do you think this attack had more to do
with like John Lennon's attack or with a religious attack.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
Well, I think I think in some ways it's a
very American attack. Right, he spent four years in a
basement playing video games and watching videos and it kind
of messed with his head. And also, you know, I
mean he's born in Brendon, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Slow down, I think I know where this is going. Well,
then you know you're ahead of me.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
But you know, we live it in America where people
kill each other every five minutes, right, you know, And
I think maybe in his New Jersey brain, yes, that is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
How we describe it as well. By the way, it's
got that New Jersey brain exactly. Do you think that
there is a shift. You know, we think of fundamentalism
as primarily a religious artifact. Have the algorithms made fundamentalism
something different from that?
Speaker 5 (23:36):
I think maybe they have. I mean, i'm too I'm
too old to know really, because I don't. Algorithms don't
know what to.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Do with me, right, give them a chance.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
No, I do, but they don't know what to do.
So I'm not algorithmically influenced, right, But people are. People
are all the time. And yeah, I mean I think
he was. Something happened in him which made it possible
for him to decide to murder a total stranger, right,
(24:08):
And that has to be brainwashing of some kind, right,
whatever you want to call it, but I call it brainwashing.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah. As I read the story, I started thinking, you know,
we're so used to this idea, that of violence with
a cause, this idea that these you know, there is
something deep inside them that can almost be noble or understandable.
This is not that it struck me more as more
in common with the school shootings we see or the
(24:39):
other things that you were. Just this thing he saw.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
And you know what's so strange about it is, first
of all, he must have known that he was messing
up his own.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Life as well, right, you know, not just mine at
twenty four.
Speaker 5 (24:51):
At twenty four, and you know, the last thing he
did before he got on the bus from Fairview, New
Jersey to Chautauqua. Last thing he did he canceled his
gym membership.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Because he knew that he had weights.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
He wasn't he wasn't coming back, and why should he
keep his starting new order?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Going wow, So he's he's going through it and going like,
I don't need serious radio anymore. I don't. So this
was he suicidal or was he?
Speaker 5 (25:20):
I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll find out if whenever,
if this trial happens, we might find out more about him.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But do you dread something like that? Is that something
that still visits you?
Speaker 6 (25:30):
No?
Speaker 5 (25:31):
I mean I think you know, if I they if
they need me to testify, I'll go testify and I'll
be in the coult room with him. But my view
is he should be scared about being in the coult
room with me.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Absolutely absolutely. Do you wonder sometimes you know, and this
is not not not to get but you and I
are both getting older, and you write a lot in
the book about saddle down. I was just on jury duty.
Either way, I don't have you picture of my dappelganger,
(26:05):
but there is there's mortality. You write about Martin Amos
and Paul Ausler and people that you've lost, even during
the writing of this book, lost to esophageal cancer. You
had a cancer scare in the middle of rehabilitation, in.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
The middle of all this repair work, suddenly apparently I
might have prostate cancer. I thought, that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
No, well, you write, he writes, he goes to the doctor,
or you can tell me.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
I mean I went to the doctor, and the examining
your prostate is not fun.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Again, speak for yourself. It's it depends on if you
have a Jersey brain.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Anyway, the first examination, they thought they found a bump
on the prostates, and then I had to have MRI scan,
and MRI scan you know, it grades from one to five,
and five is really bad, and I came out at four.
It said cancer probable. And then it turned out that
it was not probable that it was had this bump
and that had been caused by some other.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Infection and a medicine that they had actually given you.
Speaker 5 (27:19):
Yeah, exactly. And then a second doctor the first doctor's
boss also examined by prostate more thoroughly.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
They lined up down the hallway.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 5 (27:31):
No, this was very thorough. And also he was an
Indian doctor and he was a fan of mynes.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Nothing more uncomfortable than that extra thorough Yes.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
And he said, no, I think this might be caused
by this other infection. And so so that to go
back and have another MRI scan and it said one
to five, it's one no cancer. So I had cancer
for two months and then I didn't.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
It's so incredible because you face this, as you write
in the book this twenty seven seconds. It was just
twenty seven seconds. And yet can't do you think about
and pardon the question, but do you think does it
matter how you die? As you watched your friends and
you thought about your fate and your brush with mortality,
(28:24):
and then to have this cancer scared, did it make
you think it mattered how you die?
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Why do you prefer not to.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I've got some bad news come over all, the bad
news for all of us.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yes, but I mean I don't know. My wife Eliza
and I have decided to be planning our hundredth birthday.
Pozzy one hundredth months, and I think it has to
be a dance Pozzy.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yes, tried just your feet, though not the whole body.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
So we tried to decide who should dj and I'll
pick somebody.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
But it strikes me because you, whether you've wanted this
mantle or not, and I'm assuming you don't, you represent something.
You represent a courage and a freedom of artistic expression,
of the importance of artistic expression, and of the danger
that artistic expression often visits upon the people who do it.
(29:22):
It's a noble shield to carry, but not an easy one.
I don't I'm not an easy one.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
And in a way, there's bits of me that would
prefer to be well known for being, you know, good writer.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Well, I have to tell you, I'm pretty sure that's
in there too.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
Is that in that.
Speaker 5 (29:40):
I see? But you know, it used to be when
I started out as a rise, when people would write
about my books, they would mention that they were funny.
And then after the attack on the Satanic bliss Is,
everybody stopped saying I was funny.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Really, And because that book is it's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
People who read it.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
I get.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
I get two reactions we read it now, One is
where's the dirty bit because we.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Can't find it?
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:12):
And the second is who knew it was funny? And
I say, people who read it?
Speaker 3 (30:20):
But it's you know, with that on you do you
feel there's an idea that you have to wear that heroism.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I don't know the heroism, but I think I have
to be part of the fight, right, I mean, I
mean there is a fight about free expression in America
too at the moment, and I'm I'm I feel like
I'm in that fight. I have a dog in that fight.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
What what do you think that how that the nature
of fundamentalism has changed, and how that affects artistic expression,
Like even now when we see all the protests, you
know up at Columbia University, some students protests as others
think that's going too far and they're threatening peace and
we're crossing all those difficult lines. You spoke at the
(31:04):
Penn Banquet, yes, yeah, last year, last year, which is
a consortium of writers and poets and a lot of
people truly defenders of free speech. I just got a
text today.
Speaker 5 (31:18):
They've canceled, they've counseled the prize giving because they're people
attacking them for not being sufficiently anti ISRAELI will pro
Palestinian or something. I mean, everybody's so angry right now
right that nobody can listen or talk to anybody else,
So people have shout at each other.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Listen.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
There was a critic, and this is going to sound
like a joke, a critic of Taylor Swift's new music album,
The Torture Post Society. They had to remove the critic's
name from the critique because of.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Death threats because he didn't like the record.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I didn't read it because I love the record. Of course,
I don't want to hear any negativity.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
No, but so do I jump.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
But it speaks to in nineteen eighty nine, there was
an Ayatola and a Fatua and a group of religious
muckety MUCKs who delivered the law from high above. And
now we're all fundamentalist.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
Everybody's an expert, everybody's got an opinion and a hostility
and hostility the level of anger is crazy right now?
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Do you think of you know, you have a dog
in the fight in that creative How do we and
I think about this a lot, how do we manage that?
And is that just a function of the algorithm?
Speaker 5 (32:39):
I might I think to an extent it is.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
Frankly, I'm glad you asked me, because I'm the answer,
have the answer to the world's problems.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
It's actually on page if I were exiting.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
But you are thoughtful enough.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
And you've been through it enough that I know you
have an opinion.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Yeah, I mean, I just think people have to jewel
stop having such thin skins. You know, at the moment,
we're all very easily offended. And what's more is we
also believe that being offended is a sufficient reason for
attacking something, right, But actually everything offends somebody always always,
(33:18):
I mean occasionally.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
You what, how dare you, sir? I am offended? You see?
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Then if you go down that road, then we can't
talk to each other anymore, right.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
You know. But having groups always had a way of
policing language or behavior. I think I'm trying to think,
has my perspective changed on it, or has the dynamic Changely.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
What's happened is the temperature has got arisen, right, I
mean yes, of course, people have always disagreed, and people
have always said you can't say that, you've got to
say this, that that's not new what's new is the
volume and the heat, and so what do we do
about taking down the volume, taking down the heat? That's
the question.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I mean, And again not to make you the avatar
of this, but this is coming from a man who,
because of threats from fundamentalists, had to basically alter your
entire life.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Well, it did certainly have an impact. Yeah, yeah, I
mean what it's sad is that I've actually got my
life back.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Really.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I mean, I've been living in New York City for
getting on for twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Right, Well, you had made a decision I'm going to
come out of this and make myself.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
And for twenty three years it was fine, right, you know,
I mean, I you know, I mean I was doing
everything that writers do, book tours, readings, lectures, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Oh, I know, I'm a writer. Don't stop. I've been
there with the coffee clotches. Yeah and Oprah.
Speaker 5 (34:43):
Yeah yeah, well I haven't been with Oprah, none of
us have. But anyway, so it was a shock when
this thing out of a quarter of a century ago,
more than that, thirty years ago, sort of came out
of a crowd at me. You know, it was I
really was very surprised.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Do you find yourself now freedom that fear or is
there still that PTSD? Like, what where's your What does
that do to you? Well, I mean it does you know,
nothing good. But it's now been what twenty months or something.
I think I'm pretty much back to myself at this point.
Do you feel like you're in that writing rhythm again?
(35:24):
Has your mind started to dream again?
Speaker 5 (35:27):
Finish this?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
And by the way, let me tell you something. And
we don't have people on where I don't either you know,
read it or takeul It's such a beautiful and incredibly
interesting and revelatory book. I really thank you for writing
it because you had to endure something awful, but your
(35:51):
insight into that experience is really a remarkable gift to
give to other people. And I really do It's got
funny bits, A couple of funny bits for a writer
for a writer, uh, but it really is a fantastic
piece of work, and I and I thank you for
(36:13):
doing it. The book is called Knife. It is available
as we speak. Someone rushed you. We're going to take
a quick break and we'll be right.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Back after this to.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Hell that's on chocolate tonight.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Before we go, we're gonna check in with your host
for the rest of the week, Ronnie Changing, Jordan Clopper.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Come on, I'll let me see you. What do you got?
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What do you got for the people this week?
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Well, look, that's a law news to cover, and personally,
I'll be looking at it through the lens of my
white yes.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
And I'll be letting my insight on what matters the
most to the Asian community.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
I'll be very left as an anti Trump while I'll
be offering it angry. Everyone is stupid.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Counterpoint. I don't want to say anybody, I think you're
reading each other's lines.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Oh yeah, shoot, well it's too glad we got come
into it now. Look at me, I'm Joman Clipper.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
I'm making Trump supporters so dumb.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I'm so small and tall. Agan.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
So it feels something like the legal walls are starting
to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
The walls once again begin to close in on Donald Trump.
Speaker 8 (37:46):
The walls are closing in on Trump.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
More walls are closing around him than ever before.
Speaker 7 (37:51):
We've been saying the walls are closing in for two years,
but it feels like they're actually closing right now.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
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 tenth Central on Comedy Central,
and streamful episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
This has been a Comedy Central podcastow
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