March 14, 2023 • 47 mins
Kal Penn takes on the latest news, including Biden approving a drilling project and offering pardons for weed convictions, the city of Newark entering a sister city deal with a fake city, flamingoes forming cliques, and a swimming pool sized asteroid heading towards Earth. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari discusses how his worldview on the climate crisis changed after experiencing unprecedented floods first-hand.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow from New York City,
the only city in America. HiT's the show, then Hetting News,
He's the Daily Show with your home cow Man. Welcome
(00:33):
to the Daily Show. I'm cal Penn. I'm back for
night too. Now listen after last night's show, this is
very sweet. I got so many encouraging words from some
of my political colleagues, and I wanted to read some
of them from for you. This is an email I
got from from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Uh. It says, cal,
if you don't donate five dollars by tonight, we're all
(00:54):
gonna die. Thank you, Nancy. That was so touching. Anyway,
we've got a great show for you tonight. Our guest
tonight is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. But first let's
get into the headlines. Okay, let's kick things off with
a big announcement from President Joe Biden. You remember during
(01:17):
the twenty twenty campaign, Biden said this, by the way,
no more drilling non federal lands period period period period,
period period period COMMA. Because now Biden has approved a
major oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska, which
(01:39):
is disappointing, but Hey, when you're that age, that's the
only kind of drilling you can do. No, come on,
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm kidding this guy. Fin.
The crazy part about this drilling project is that they'll
be installing a device called a thermosypher that keeps the
(02:01):
perma frost solid enough for drilling while it simultaneously melts
due to global warming. Guest Cottaco Phillips has an irony division.
I mean keeping the perma frost alive so they can
kill it slowly. That's like some silence of the Lamb's
Serial killer. Shit, would your planet? I'd see the planet.
(02:32):
I worked at the White House, Now, Litsten, listen the
good news. The good news is that Biden is also
flip flopping in a good way, because back in the day,
Biden used to think marijuana was a gateway drug, but
now he's doing stuff like this. President Biden is offering
(02:52):
help to people who have a federal conviction for simple
marijuana possession so can now apply for a presidential pardon.
To qualify, applicants must have been charged or convicted in
federal court or DC Superior Court before October sixth of
last year. This is huge and this is long overtoor
yeah and look heartfelt. This is a moment of special
(03:17):
congrats to the advocates who have been pushing for this
for so long. They really did it now. They convinced
someone with five decades of experience in Washington to change
his mind. That's not easy. That would be like convincing
Mitch McConnell to let Democrats appoint judges, or convincing Chuck
Schumer that his glasses should be resting on the top
(03:37):
of his nose. The top In any case, if you're
wondering what the Oval Office looks like now that Joe
Biden is a total stoner, it probably looks something like this.
It's the same. It's twenty twenty three. People who smoke
weed don't put tapestries on their wall anymore. I mean, yeah,
(03:58):
the portrait of George Washington does glow in black light now,
but that's it mostly the same anyway. Let's move on
to some science news. Apparently NASA is tracking an asteroid
that could slam into Earth on Valentine's Day in twenty
forty six, which means that friend of yours who always
does those sad Valentine's Day posts like I'm gonna die
(04:19):
alone actually is yeah, but if you're in a relationship,
then in a way, it would kind of be beautiful
to die on Valentine's Day, you know, making sweet love
with your partner one last time, or if you're married,
laying in bed too full from dinner to have sex
(04:39):
watching Paul Blart one last time. Either way super romantic.
In other scientific news, researchers did a study on flamingos
and it turns out that flamingo's form clicks just like
high schoolers. This is one of those studies where I
feel like we need to know more about the science
(05:00):
who did this study, because maybe the flamingos just didn't
want to hang out with them specifically. Seriously, though this
sounds terrible. It's tough enough being a flamingo, now you
also have to deal with flamingo mean girls. They must
be so cruel. Do you see how short her neck is?
(05:24):
Oh my god, it's giving EMU. And look at her legs,
they're like a whole centimeter thick. It's like paging doctor Cankos.
I heard she got a beak enhancement and the zookeeper
paid for it. They're like totally fine, right, Oh wait,
wait she's coming over. Here's coming over here. Hi, Jenny,
(05:46):
Oh my god, you know what, you look incredible? Okay, bye,
I literally hate her. And finally, thank you preticulous. And finally,
let's check in on my home state of New Jersey.
I'm sure, I'm sure they're not doing anything incredibly stupid.
(06:12):
The city of Newark is admitting it got scammed. Earlier
this year, Mayor ros Baraka invited who he thought was
the Hindu nation of Kailasa at a city hall for
a cultural trade agreement and to become sister cities. But
it turns out Kailasa isn't a real nation, but rather
the invention of a scam artist and fugitives from India
who's been on the run since twenty nineteen. I have
(06:35):
the immunity of non prosecute and immunity and protection as
the end of the state. He was arrested their years earlier,
accused of sexual assault charges by five women who say
he abused them at a religious retreat back in New Jersey.
A few days after this ceremony, the city says it
realized it had been deceived, calling it quote a regrettable
(06:56):
incident this Newark. How can an entire city get catfished?
Not a single person realized they never heard of this
country before, not on a globe, not at the Olympics,
not as a stage and street fighter. Look, if you
(07:17):
can't find it as a cuisine on grubhub, it's not
a real country. There must have been so many red flags,
the biggest one being that anyone wanted to be sister
cities with Newark. Although, look, to be fair, just because
the country was started by a sex criminal doesn't mean
it's fake. Just ask Thomas Jefferson for more on this.
(07:40):
Please give it up for Daisy Leidecks. Why did you
make of this story? Oh well, Calum, as a white person,
I would like to know what you think of this story,
(08:02):
because for me, I don't know. This is a little dicey.
I don't want to upset anybody with any statements about
whether Kailasa is a real country. Okay, well it's not.
It's not a real country. It's a cult right right
right then? Even so, I honor its culture and it's
rich traditions, because what is culture if not culture? Does
(08:26):
he come on, look look how they're dressed. Does that
look real to you. Yes, no, no, no, no, those
are just costumes. Whoa cal Their culture is not a costume.
That is literally a costume. Does he? I understand what
(08:49):
you're trying to do. You want to be an ally
I definitely appreciate that. But Kailasa does not deserve your
ally ship. It's leader as a sexual predator. Oh absolutely yes,
and I can them all sexual predators. At the same time,
it is important to support diversity among sexual predators. No, no, no,
(09:13):
it's not. Does he stopped? This is a cult and
they scammed the city of Newark. Of course they did. Yes, yes,
they did. And they've been forced into a cult, into
cult behaviors by Western imperialism. And isn't that the real scam? No? No, no,
well yes, yes, but but no, wait, now you're confusing me.
Hold on, there is no Western imperialism against Kailasa. There
(09:37):
is no Kailasa. There are no Kyla sans. We say
kilosans X. Now no we don't. Does he? Look? Look,
I am giving you permission to criticize this fake country
on behalf of brown people. It's okay. I'm not worried
about brown people. Cow, I'm worried about other white people.
(10:00):
If I disrespect this fake nation, they'll make my real
Twitter a living hell. Does Kailassa look like a scammy called? Yes?
Do I trust white people on Twitter to know the difference? No,
Which is why I am proud to announce that The
Daily Show, hosted by Cal Penn is now also a
sister city with Kailasa No One. Oh my god, don't
(10:35):
get out of your room. Don't you want? Everyone must?
I'll be taking you on a tour by vibe. Oh
my gosh, here, welcome back to The Daily Show. Look,
(11:03):
a lot of people would be surprised to know that
one of my favorite sports is a NASCAR Now. I
know I don't look like your stereotypical NASCAR fan, but
I also don't look like your stereotypical Abercrombie and Fitch homosexual. Yeah,
here we are. So what do I love about Nascar?
Take a look? Yeah, I know you're looking at me,
and you're like, seriously, Cal, you've been a NASCAR fan
for twelve years? Yes, my full of Blue state libs.
(11:26):
Grab a beer and come with me. Nascar has it
all day drinking, grilling, whoever this guy is and whoever
this guy is wait, is that kid rock WHOA? You
get here in this track and you fill the rumble
inside you when those cars are going around. I'm getting
(11:48):
chills just thinking about it right now. I felt the
rumble in my dick. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't mad about it.
I'm mad about it either. Yes, Okay, here's the deal.
NASCAR is different from what you probably think. I feel
like people think it's just really like a redneck thing,
and I mean it kind of is, but it's for everyone,
you know. I'm like, I've watched NASCAR since I was
(12:08):
like twelve or before then because of because of my
parents going to NASCAR races. Black people love racing. People
may not realize how much African Americans love, not just NASCAR,
any form of racing. Bubba Wallace is one of the
biggest stars in the sport, and he happens to agree.
I think, you know, from from outside looking in, especially minorities,
feel the stigma's been there that they're not welcome. And
(12:31):
I've always been like, that's not really true. You know,
I've been in nascars my career. Who's been twenty years? Yeah?
Years nine? Okay, Wow, I can tell you right now
there is no New Jersey Parrot would let their kid
drive at nine. So I always get the question what's
it like being an Indian American actor? I would imagine
it also drives you insane to get the question, Oh,
(12:52):
what's it like being a black driver? So, what's it
like being a black driver? So quick bite and news
outlets they have to get their viewership up, and all
the way they do that is black driver. Yeah. I
don't walk around saying I'm a black driver. Yeah. So yeah,
you embrace it and you go out and enjoy what
you do. After I got my media clickbait, we moved
(13:13):
on to an issue that every day Americans actually care about.
All Right, A lot of people really want to know this.
How do you pee in four hundred miles? I can't
go forty five minutes without having ye, So, have you
ever been in a high a journalan moment? Well once
I once wrote a cheetah in the movie I know exactly,
So you're really in the zone then for for that
that's also and they always say if you do pee
(13:34):
in the car, then you got to be there Monday
morning to clean it out. Oh do you want to
clean it out? You don't have somebody for that. They're
not gonna do it. Here's here's here's here's another stereotype.
Drivers aren't real athletes. They just lazily sit there making
left turns. The athleticism side of it. To me, you
know our heart rates, you know, peek at about one
seven year ago and then during the race you're around
(13:56):
the one forty area. I mean that's all. That's a
high heart rate for a sustained long period time. And
hydration is huge. I can lose up to about seven
pounds in the race car on him one race? Yes, sir, oh,
can I drive this race? I would love to look.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. And
the drivers aren't the only jocks on the track. Meet
DeLanda when Dano, a former college athlete who trained as
(14:18):
a tire changer after being recruited through NASCAR's diversity initiative.
Everybody knows how to change a time. Well, I don't
know how to change the tirement. But what's the big
deal about changing tires. It's just about how fast you
can do it. One tire can take like maybe two
or three seconds. We did reps after raps otter reps
every time because I think two towns on the seconds
cost a lot of money for our team if you
(14:39):
make a mistake. As someone who was recently told he
had a good physique, I knew that joining the pit
crew would be easy. So like the jackman's jack in
the car up, I'm like, deck, that's it up. He
jacks it up. The guy's giving up some gas. I
grabbed the other tire because that gonna take it out,
and I bring it back like this and I kick
it over there, and then everyone's like, we're almost gonna
go win. So I grabba like that, bring it back
(15:00):
over here, and I'm like, okay, great job, and the
driver takes off. So he wins the race and we
win a lot of money. Yeah, and theory, I think
we missed a couple of steps, but yeah, and that's
a penalty. After crushing it with the pit crew, I
wanted to see if there were any indoor jobs with
air condition. There's just so much more data and science
that goes into it than I think anybody really realizes
(15:21):
when they see cars car around in circles, right, So
data comes from the cars, and then the car has
its speed, it's got it's it's rpm and the gear
that it's in. That's like, is the car loose, like
wants to spin out? Or is it tight? We look
at what the driver is doing with the wheel and
then we try and tell him, Hey, you need to
turn the wheel less or you need to be on
the gas more. This sounds like cheating. Tom Brady fans
(15:44):
would love this absolutely. As a number crunching genius Jr.
Represents the new NASCAR and has that a front row
seat to the sports evolution, the sports way different than
it has been in the past. You know, my husband
and I talk about it all the time, even myself
working for Bubba. You know, I think a lot of
people have always thought that this sport was kind of
out of reach, not only because of they couldn't get
into the sport, but also because they wouldn't be accepted
(16:05):
by the sport. I mean, I think that just being
out there and being vocal is super important. And I
never thought twelve year old me would be doing it. Well,
this was twelve year old me, and he would have
been terrified by what I'm about to do. Where do
I connect the bluetooth for the podcast? Oh? I was
These things are meant for it to go fast, So
anything extra, we just pull out of the car. Okay,
(16:26):
I can't drive stick? Is that a problem? Now you're good? Okay.
He basically just put you forth here to push you off. Man,
do only the snowflake drivers get the push since we
can't drive stick? Pretty much? Here we go. This is
real inclusion NASCAR making space for athletes like me who
can't drive stick. About to get a gap, to give
(16:46):
a gap, to give a gap, give a gap. Recredible hunting,
all of it, an run? Want to back D're in
a car okay than one out there? All good? Share
(17:10):
that fruit dry? Yeah? Yeah, but then I was like
getting into it, and then after I paid my pants,
it was such a relief. That was awesome. Okay, that
was fun and I lost two pounds. But there is
a more social way to enjoy racing. Hey, guys, can
I come up? Thank you? This is the infield where
(17:32):
families camp out for the weekend to watch the races
up close. Sure, thank you, cheers, thank you guys. How
long have you been coming here? For twenty three years?
We're all family. You definitely have the best view, and
that's really what NASCAR is all about. Family, speed and
crushing beers on top of an RVW with a group
(17:53):
of new friends. All right, stay tuned because when we
come back, but Foreign Minister of Pakistan we'll be joining me,
so don't go away, ye, welcome back to the Daily Show.
(18:24):
My guest tonight is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Please
welcome Billiwal Bhutto Zardari. Hell n to see him, a welcome,
thank you, thank you for having me of course, thanks
(18:46):
for being here for for folks who don't know. Your
mom was former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated
in two thousand and seven. But now you are the
youngest foreign minister in Pakistan's history. You're thirty four, true, yeah,
and you're a very young country. I think the median
age in Pakistan is only twenty something like that, right,
sixty percent of our population and beneath the age of
(19:08):
thirty five. Wow. So how does how does your age
create an opportunity for leadership in a country that's so young. Oh,
that's an interesting question. I think that most of if
you look at the politics and Parkistan are the political
landscape landscape, it's one or two generations above me that
are that are the main players. So I'm sure that
given that I am so young, I think bring a
(19:28):
unique perspective, And I think that's so important because everybody
who's in power right now or in positions of influence
and making decision for our country, they'll live for ten
twenty years. We have to think about sort of the
long picture now, climate change and poverty and all the
income in inequality and discrimination that people are facing across
(19:50):
the country. How are we going to address those issues
in the long term. Do you feel like there's every
generational divide between the people who you think? Absolutely, I
think it's a It's been an experience working with people
from a whole host of different age groups, and absolutely
I felt a sort of throughout my political career just
as a result of my age. Perhaps the same idea
(20:12):
is same suggestions given from other people of a most
senior age will be taken more seriously as opposed to
coming from a younger perspective. But at the same time,
I think I'd like to say I've proven over the
course of time, whether I was in opposition or a
foreign minister, that ages just in number and we can
still get quite a lot done. So it's it's time
(20:34):
we're having you here tonight, tropical right now. You know,
Pakistan is facing some unrest over the imminent arrest of
former Prime Minister in Ron Khan. Mister Kan says that
your government wants him arrested so that he's disqualified from
upcoming elections. Is that true? Okay? So, unfortunately, Pakistan is
facing a perfect store. Not only do we have heightened
(20:58):
by heightened partisanship and political polarization to the extent that
political parties or political stakeholders aren't even in a position
to sit in a room and discuss issues amongst themselves.
We're also facing an economic crisis. We're facing a security
threat and security crisis, and that fall out from into
(21:19):
the fall of the of Khan government and the increasing
the terrorist attacks that are taking place with increasing frequency
in Pakistan. We just face the biggest climate catastrophe of
our history, where a third of the land mass of
our country was under water. That's something that my generation
generations to come are going to be paying the price
for the decisions that others have taken. And unfortunately, in
(21:42):
all this chaos and in all these while we're facing
these simultaneous crises, we have the question of mister Khan,
who believes that the Pakistani constitution doesn't apply to him,
the Pakistani law doesn't apply to him, that he can
get up and leave, is resigned from parliament and a
runaway in the system. In this particular instance, it's not
(22:02):
a question of me wanting to arrest mister Khan. I
come from a family who faced genuine arrest in the
face of military dictatorships. My mom my mother, when she
was younger than me, she battled it in this Islamist
dictator at the time who threw her in prison. My
father spent eleven and a half years in prison and
(22:24):
was tortured without a conviction. I would never want any
politician in my country or any country to go to
go to jail for political reasons. In mister Khan's case,
he's under the threat of arrest because of his ego.
He says, the courts are saying that he has to
come to court and fight his cases, whatever cases are,
he gets them, and he says, I'm a rand Khan
(22:45):
and I'm too important and I'm not going to turn
up to court. And what we've seen over the last
couple of weeks has been a complete mockery of the
judicial system in Pakistan or rule or law of the
constitution in Pakistan, where had he gone to court. There's
probably no reason he had to fear imminent arrest because
he's violated court orders time and time again. Finally, the
courts have instructed the police to produce him before court,
(23:09):
but he's called on his citizen, on his workers, on
his supporters to come and confront the police. The police
went to him with no intention of violence. And as
you may be aware of Pakistan's histories full of politicians
who have gone to prison right, wrong or otherwise, in
this case, mister Khan is refusing to even present himself
before court, refusing to defend himself. I'm sure if he's innocent,
(23:32):
he'll be able to clear his names through the judicial system.
So we caught in a situation with his this political
chaos playing out on the streets and distracting from the
real issues that are affecting everyday Pakistani's What does that
say about the state of democracy in Pakistan? Is it
fragile right now? Now? Absolutely? Pakistan has been most of
(23:54):
our history into direct military dictatorship. After the assassination of
my mother is a brief period of democratic transition. Political
parties came together, they reached a consensus that you know,
we removed all the detator's laws from the constitution, devolved
power to parliament, had peaceful transfer of power for the
first time in our history from one government to another.
(24:16):
And those people or those forces that benefit from undemocratic
rule in Barkistan didn't like that. So they they they
supported mister Khan and brought him into power. And that's
now blown up not only in those individuals face, but
has had severe consequences for our country. You talked about
(24:37):
your own family, and so I just wanted to expand
on that because I think for an American audience especially,
you see a lot of politicians, not just in Barkistan
but obviously many countries, regardless of political party, who are
accused of corruption, accused of other charges in and out
of prison or violence. How do you know whether someone
has committed a credible violation of law or whether something
(24:59):
is politic motivated. What's the litmus there? And how do
your voters, not just from your party but overall in Pakistan,
how do they respond to that? And how do you
take that tip with it? So that is something that
I've lived with my entire life because my mother was
Prime Minister of Pakistan for a few years, but she
spent most of her life in opposition, either in country,
in prison or in exile, fighting not one but two
(25:22):
military dictatorships. She spent those thirty years of her life
fighting politically motivated cases where the perception was built in
the media and otherwise at this corruption and whole host
of allegations. After she was assassinated, her name has been
cleared from each in every single case, and that was
lodged against her in her lifetime, and I as her son,
(25:45):
and who's someone who lived through that, really wish that
had happened while she was still hearing amongst us. Unfortunately,
that was the tradition of Pakistani politics. After my mother's assassination,
the big political parties in Pakistan came to again. Then
they said, look, if we're going to be fighting amongst
ourselves all the time and taking our political differences as
(26:06):
personal differences, and whoever's in power they arrest the opposition,
then we're never going to get anything done as a country.
And we saw a gap of ten years where we
didn't go after each other with two different political parties
came into power, they saved up, they served out their term,
We're voted out and the people and the next political
party claim into place. Mister Khan is the one who
(26:29):
unfortunately broke those precedences. So you're talking about essentially what
sounds like a fragile democracy and things that are are malleable,
and moving back and forth to what extent does that
impact economics in Pakistan? I know that right now the
IMF and you are, you know, sort of at odds,
and I know that you know they're withholding some money
(26:50):
until tax reforms are met. I believe that was correct.
Me if I'm wrong, that was negotiated by previous government.
But now you're in power, you're dailing. The carpet party
needs to follow up on what was negotiated. So how
does that political instability then affect? So two things. As
far as how democratic are we right now? I would
say we're in a democratic transition and I hope that
(27:13):
this goes well and we transition towards a more democratic
society because I believe that Pakistan is facing a whole
host of problems. But no matter the problem, the answer
is in more democracy. But I might be wrong and
it could go the other way. As far as our
economic situation is concerned, as I mentioned, we're in the
perfect storm. You're absolutely right. The deal with the IMF
(27:34):
is made by the previous government, and the previous government
violated that deal with the IMF that put Pakistan in
an extremely precarious economic situation. We've also liked the rest
of the field feeling the economic impacts of the war
in Ukraine, of the COVID pandemic, and at the same time,
as a result the fall of Carbol a year ago,
(27:55):
we've seen the return to terrorism in our country, an
increase in terrorist activity that has its own impact on economics,
and the climate catastrophe, the floods that took out five
million acres of standing crops one in seven pakistanis that's
thirty three million people were affected. Many people are still affected.
(28:17):
All of these things coming together, sorry, all of these
things coming together put our economy under incredible strain and stress.
And you're absolutely right. Our negotiations are still ongoing and
have not been concluded with the IMF. And I completely
I'm actually left to center political party, who within our
own politics, calls for, you know, an increase in tax
(28:40):
revenue equal sort of addressing the income inequalities, etc. But
at this point of time, I think then, when Pakistan
is facing such a perfect storm, some problems of our
own creation, but some like the flood and others that
are not of our own, that the conversation with the
IMF really should take that into account. And I don't
think it is at the moment. But in terms of
(29:03):
how the tax structure works in Pakistan, I don't want
to get two in the weeds on tax structure. I
know that's not that's not your job. But one of
the things that I was arounded of when I was
when I was prepping for a conversation, I know that
you're from a historically from a relatively wealthy landowning family,
and there are many in Pakistan. Do you know who
Bernie Sanders is? Yes, Okay, so Bernie. You know Bernie's
a big fan of making sure the one percent pay
(29:25):
their fair share and all that big topic here. Is
there a version of that in Pakistan? Can the wealthiest
families do something to sort of help economically? That's so
interesting that you are answer that question from the mainstream
political parties in Pakistan with the Pakistan People's Party and
we are the left of center political party today. We're
a left of center political party. When we started out,
(29:47):
we were actually a socialist a political party, and my
grandfather was heading the party at the time. Became the
country's prime minister, and that's exactly what he did. He
rebelled against his own class because he is a rich,
wealthy landlord that owned masses of land. But he led
(30:07):
land reforms which took away vast amounts of lands with
the wealthy and redistributed it amongst the landlist people of
the area. He read industrial reforms where twenty two families
in Pakistan had like a death grip on our economy
and they own all the industry in our country. So
then he nationalized the industry so that it worked for
(30:30):
the many and not for the few. Mala Bernie. At
the moment, unfortunately, where we are in Pakistan is very
far away from the vision that the founders of my
party laid out or the efforts that my mother did
as far as addressing the gap between the rich and poor.
And what we have is a system where the elites
(30:52):
like myself can whether these storms without much pain or
without feeling much difference, but whether it is our deals
with the IMF or our own internal economic policy. There's
an outside burden on the poorest of the poor. There's
an outside version, a burden on the bottom of the pyramid,
(31:12):
and what we'd like to see. I believe the only
way for us to have a functioning economy that works
for everyone would be not only for everyone to pay
their fair share as far as taxation is concerned, but
we do need a fundamental reform about how we talk
about our economy and what decisions we take domestically in
(31:33):
order to achieve that. I know that last year you
did a lot of work raising awareness on the fact
that a third of your country was underwater from those
devastating floods. That's obviously faded from international news since then.
Can you give us an update on the status of
the people affected? No, thank you so much for asking.
We're a country that is experienced floods and monsoons consistently.
(31:57):
This was something apocalyptic out of sort of you know
Olah Noah's Arks floods scale. I've never seen anything like it,
and we're still battling with the consequences. I absolutely been
raising awareness. I'm very grateful that the international community stood
with Pakistan on not one but two occasions. One at
(32:18):
the COP where Pakistan was the chair of the Developing
Countries Group of g seventy seven and we helped push
for lost and damage to be included on a COPS agenda,
which I think is a big achievement as far as
the climate movement is concerned and the future of developing countries.
And the second is when we had held a Resilient
Climate Resilient Pakistan conference in Geneva, where the international community
(32:40):
stood with us and pledged some money for reconstruction. As
far as attention is concerned, of course, international media attention
span is very small and that has moved on. But
the sad thing is that domestic attention is moved on.
I come from the province of Synth which is the
most devastated. Two thirds of our province was on water
(33:00):
is a result of this floods. The political conversation is
moved on. We're talking about whether in around Kahn's going
to get arrested or not, and we're not talking about
the millions of people who are at the moment in
danger of you know, I don't like to throw about
where it's like famine, but there's a food food scarcity
issue for them, the people that are thrown into poverty.
(33:21):
I mean there's this impression right that it's a completely
impoverished people that had no hope and this still poe.
I mean, it's awful that anybody get affected by floods,
but I just want to emphasize that of these people,
thirty three million people that were affected, some of these
people would. I mean, they're not living the most elitist lives,
the most well off lives, but they were getting by.
(33:44):
They had their little shop, they had their little bit
of land that they were eking a living out of,
and they've been thrown into poverty. And it's going to
take us a while to claw back from that. And
until we do so, unfortunately, I wish I could stand
here and say that my country was paying the attention
that it should to this issue, but unfortunately I'm afraid
(34:07):
to him and we're being distracted. Uh. I want to
ask you about solutions. Also, you mentioned loss and damage.
We said and damage. Can you talk about what that is?
And then also what are what are sort of the
plans on an addressing climate longer term for book? Okay,
so the two arguments around the sort of the loss
and damage to bake it. Coppon the sort of the
(34:27):
more basic, sort of more activists approach that that conversation
is that rich countries, industrialized countries have created this crisis
and their whole host of countries climate climate crisis, the
climate crisis, and it is a results of it's their industrialization, right,
It's the rich worlds industrialization that the poor world is
(34:47):
paying the cost of in the form of massive floods
or massive droughts and um and there should be some
loss of damage for this. Some people advocate for Repper.
I'm actually not one of those people. I like to
be sort of you know, left in our approach to
politics and things, but I also like to get things done.
(35:08):
I mean reparations was I feel like India, Pakistan and
the US from the UK, That's exactly what I mean, right,
So we haven't got any post colonial reparations and slavery reparations.
The conversation hasn't going anyway. I mean, fair enough, the
activists who want to argue for that should and it's
it's a legitimate point to make. But I think a
practical approach is for us to say, okay, loss and
(35:30):
damage exists. Let's decide who's going to pay for it later.
But actually it's a problem that we all have to
address together, and international financial institutions are just not equipped
to deal with even one climate tragedy to the scale
of what we faced now. The unfortunate thing is not
just one country. We have historic floods in Pakistan, so
we have historic droughts in China. And at the same
(35:52):
time you've got forest fires here in California or it's flooding,
and so we need to rework international financial institutions. Rather
than looking this as reparations, how are we going to
work together to come up with the money to address
loss and damage as a result of climate change. The
fight to put loss and damage onto the agenda is
(36:14):
a thirty year old fight. At the last clop it
was achieved under the chairmanship of Egypt that it's now
going to be on the agenda. It's going to take
a while for this to be argued out in the
international community to come to decision. It's an important, instant,
important achievement. But rather than I don't want us to
pit the global North against the global South and try
(36:37):
and find solutions to climate change like that, I believe
that this is a problem too big for just America
to deal in on their own or just China to
deal with on their own. This is something that the
world has to come together and decide. Are we going
to be distracted by war and conflict and politics as
usual or are we going to find a solution to
this problem? And I have just fect that, and I
(37:02):
can say that like experiencing I've just experienced this from
the Pakistani perspective, from this one flood that wiped out
so much and caused so much devastation that we're not
equipped for that. I see how, whether it's domestic politics
or geopolitics get in the way of things we even
(37:23):
can do now. So I hope that, I mean, I
know that your president has done a lot of stuff
domestically on climate and I really hope that that sort
of approach, that sort of mentality is translated out into
the world stage and we can work together to sort
this out. Otherwise, Pakistan is we've contributed less than zero
point one percent to the global carbon footprint, but we're
(37:44):
amongst the ten most climate stress countries on the planet.
Did you know that there's a third pole, There's a
North Pole in a South Pole that we all knew
about and we're worried about it's melting. The third pole
is in Pakistan, in the Himalayan regions of ours. We
like our numbers to go up. So just the third
(38:04):
pole is technically in Pakistan. God just a number of
glaciers on the peaks of the mountain ranges between our
two countries, and i'm as a result of climate change.
Obviously the North and South Pole are going to be melting,
but the third Pole is going to be melting. Our
rivers are fed by these glaciers. So what that means
is in the short term, as these as this pole melts,
(38:25):
as these glaciers melts, we will be faced by floods.
The flood that we just experienced, by the way, not
a river or in flood, a flood that came from
the skies. We're predicted to face far more greater flooding
from the rivers as these glaciers melt. Once these glaciers melt,
our water source is done. We won't be able to
provide drinking water for the people that live in my country.
(38:46):
This is one country's problem when it comes to crimate change.
There are a whole host of other countries that are
facing for them and for us, the crisis is here
and now this is not a tomorrow issue. For all
of these issues. Is their capacity to take both in
the short or long term for you or is that
something that is being worked out? And I'm asking that
also in the context of you are clearly very passionate
(39:07):
about this issue. This almost goes back to my first
question about you. Being a young leader in Pakistan, I
would imagine you feel this issue a lot more than
others night. So the two things. First of all, I'm
very proud of the fact that my mother's last manifesto
in two thousand and seven before she's assassinated, she was
the first Pakistani politician to have climate on her agenda.
(39:28):
And I often think that had we started addressing things
then in two thousand and seventy eighty nine, maybe we
wouldn't be here today. But despite all of that, I
was not the you know, the most hyper of climate activist, like, Okay,
I got it, we'll do some way and we'll do
some solar and hopefully things will be fine. My worldview
changed overnight. When my home, the village is around it,
(39:50):
the people that I know it was suddenly just water
as far as the eye could see it. It's and now, yeah, frankly,
I go, Greta, I'm completely I think it is. We've
been four four from uh. Until you know, until it
doesn't happen to you, you don't really know what's coming.
(40:12):
And now that it has happened to us, the thought
that this could happen regularly, it devastated me because I've
never felt so disempowered in that moment. What do you
do when overnight thirty three million people need you to help.
You don't have the tenths, you don't have the rations,
You can't you don't we we're usually used to drought,
we don't have boats. How do we get out to this?
(40:34):
It was the most difficult period in my public life.
And it's it's not on the agenda, it's not in
the media conversation, but on the ground, it's we're feeling
this like, oh, this is why I wanted to ask
you about it. I thought it was a work that
you're doing. Um, you know, the Thalbon is back in
power in Afghanistan. I think my biggest curiosity since they
(40:59):
are the government in Afghanistan or your neighbor. What's it
like negotiating with them? What's it like when you have to?
So that's an interesting question. Okay, So the Taliban in
Afghanistan are now in the interim government there, and that
is a result of the Doha Deal process that they
(41:20):
negotiated directly with the United States, and we be in
their neighbor, even though like the rest of the world,
we haven't recognized them diplomatically, etc. Are forced to engage
with the reality on our border. We can't afford to
sort of wash our hands and turn our backs and
pretend that nothing is changed, and we are advocating not
(41:44):
only for ourselves but for the international community to also
engage with them. I believe that we were off to
a positive staff initially, but given what's happened with women's
education and they're right to access education, it's becoming incredibly
difficult for me or others like me who do want
to engage with them, do want to find solutions to
(42:06):
the problems the people of Afghanistan are facing, because they're
taking these decisions that at the very least, I mean
to say it the most diplomatically then I can. I mean,
it's not helping us help them, and our consistent concern
is that whatever happens in Ivanistan, Pakistan is going to
be the first people to fill the consequences. This is
(42:29):
old saying that if Carbal sneezes a slam bath, catches
a cult and we're already seeing that we have. The
United Nations says that ninety seven percent of the population
in Avanistan are falling beneath the poverty line. That means
that the number of refugees and their extra doors is
(42:50):
going to be affected. Pakistan has already accepted millions of
refugees in the past, but thousands, hundreds of thousands of
refugees have come over since the fall of Carbal. The
more the economic situation deteriorates in Afghanistan, the more canon
cannon for the terrorist groups over there are going to have,
the more people they're going to be able to recruit
to their cause. And we have seen since the fall
(43:12):
of Kapo a steady uptick of terrorist activity in Pakistan.
If there's a regime that says that girls can't get
education in Afghanistan, it's not going to be too wrong
till politicians are going to start popping up in my
neck of the would saying that we should also not
let girls have access to education. So I think, a
it's incredibly important to engage with them a bit. At
(43:35):
the same time, my request to them and through your
TV show to them, would be like, let girls learn guys.
The Yeah, the contrast that you just set up is
(43:55):
certainly pronounced. And you know, most Americans, I think, still
associate Pakistan with harboring bin laden with issues of terror.
How do we move beyond that in terms of US
Pakistan relations? You know what's next? Look, I get, so,
how do we move beyond that? I think that at
that whatever happened during the sort of the war on
(44:16):
Terror and the entire period that followed, there's like a
there's a fog of war and that colors everyone's decision
making everyone's perception. What we have now is a reality
in Afghanistan, a reality that has very serious consequences, first
for Pakistan, but all the issues I mentioned, whether it's
the refugees or terrorism, it's a Pakistan's problem today, Tomorrow
(44:39):
it'll be other country's problem. We have to get serious
about engaging on the topic of Afbanistan. I believe that
in the based on the facts on the ground, the
position and perspective of Pakistan in the United States. Actually
we meet eye to eye. We see things quite simple.
I mean, we're basically on the same page. And whatever
(45:00):
has happened in the past, we should be able to
have honest conversations about that. And there can be many
studies and analysis about what went wrong where. But it's
also time for us to get working together and what
we're going to do about the future, what we're going
to do a boy the present day, and that's what
I've been working on with my counterparts. Actually, Blincoln, I
have one last question for you. You know, I know,
regardless of your political party or your political opposition, clearly
(45:21):
you are the youngest person to serve in this role.
What's your message to other young people who feel called
to serve? I would never give up and give it
your best shot. I can't tell you the amount of times.
For example, when we removed mister Khan from his prime ministership,
it was the first time in Pakistan's history that a
dictator didn't come in and kick out a prime minister,
(45:43):
that a judge didn't order the removal or a prime minister.
But for the first time our parliament voted them out
and that idea, that proposition came from me, but it
took me two years to convince everybody else because no
one believed that it would happen, and ultimately it did.
So the one thing that I've from what I'm doing
that it's difficult and it's tough and all those other things.
(46:05):
But the more young people we have who get to
look at things for the long term and not just
sort of the imminent future, the short term solution, but
actually have to live with the consequences of their decisions,
the better decisions we can make. Thank you for joining us,
and thank you for your candor. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for support, so I appreciate it. Okay, we're
gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back
(46:27):
after this. Thank you so much. Really detail but finally starting.
All right, that's our shel for tonight. But before we go,
(46:48):
please consider supporting South Asian Youth Action. They provide accessible, safe,
and culturally affirming year round programming to New York City students.
If you can support them in their work, please donate
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(47:09):
tenth Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime
on Fairmount Plubs. This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow from New York City,
the only city in America. HiT's the show, then Hetting News,
He's the Daily Show with your home cow Man. Welcome
(00:33):
to the Daily Show. I'm cal Penn. I'm back for
night too. Now listen after last night's show, this is
very sweet. I got so many encouraging words from some
of my political colleagues, and I wanted to read some
of them from for you. This is an email I
got from from Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Uh. It says, cal,
if you don't donate five dollars by tonight, we're all
(00:54):
gonna die. Thank you, Nancy. That was so touching. Anyway,
we've got a great show for you tonight. Our guest
tonight is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. But first let's
get into the headlines. Okay, let's kick things off with
a big announcement from President Joe Biden. You remember during
(01:17):
the twenty twenty campaign, Biden said this, by the way,
no more drilling non federal lands period period period period,
period period period COMMA. Because now Biden has approved a
major oil drilling project on federal land in Alaska, which
(01:39):
is disappointing, but Hey, when you're that age, that's the
only kind of drilling you can do. No, come on,
I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm kidding this guy. Fin.
The crazy part about this drilling project is that they'll
be installing a device called a thermosypher that keeps the
(02:01):
perma frost solid enough for drilling while it simultaneously melts
due to global warming. Guest Cottaco Phillips has an irony division.
I mean keeping the perma frost alive so they can
kill it slowly. That's like some silence of the Lamb's
Serial killer. Shit, would your planet? I'd see the planet.
(02:32):
I worked at the White House, Now, Litsten, listen the
good news. The good news is that Biden is also
flip flopping in a good way, because back in the day,
Biden used to think marijuana was a gateway drug, but
now he's doing stuff like this. President Biden is offering
(02:52):
help to people who have a federal conviction for simple
marijuana possession so can now apply for a presidential pardon.
To qualify, applicants must have been charged or convicted in
federal court or DC Superior Court before October sixth of
last year. This is huge and this is long overtoor
yeah and look heartfelt. This is a moment of special
(03:17):
congrats to the advocates who have been pushing for this
for so long. They really did it now. They convinced
someone with five decades of experience in Washington to change
his mind. That's not easy. That would be like convincing
Mitch McConnell to let Democrats appoint judges, or convincing Chuck
Schumer that his glasses should be resting on the top
(03:37):
of his nose. The top In any case, if you're
wondering what the Oval Office looks like now that Joe
Biden is a total stoner, it probably looks something like this.
It's the same. It's twenty twenty three. People who smoke
weed don't put tapestries on their wall anymore. I mean, yeah,
(03:58):
the portrait of George Washington does glow in black light now,
but that's it mostly the same anyway. Let's move on
to some science news. Apparently NASA is tracking an asteroid
that could slam into Earth on Valentine's Day in twenty
forty six, which means that friend of yours who always
does those sad Valentine's Day posts like I'm gonna die
(04:19):
alone actually is yeah, but if you're in a relationship,
then in a way, it would kind of be beautiful
to die on Valentine's Day, you know, making sweet love
with your partner one last time, or if you're married,
laying in bed too full from dinner to have sex
(04:39):
watching Paul Blart one last time. Either way super romantic.
In other scientific news, researchers did a study on flamingos
and it turns out that flamingo's form clicks just like
high schoolers. This is one of those studies where I
feel like we need to know more about the science
(05:00):
who did this study, because maybe the flamingos just didn't
want to hang out with them specifically. Seriously, though this
sounds terrible. It's tough enough being a flamingo, now you
also have to deal with flamingo mean girls. They must
be so cruel. Do you see how short her neck is?
(05:24):
Oh my god, it's giving EMU. And look at her legs,
they're like a whole centimeter thick. It's like paging doctor Cankos.
I heard she got a beak enhancement and the zookeeper
paid for it. They're like totally fine, right, Oh wait,
wait she's coming over. Here's coming over here. Hi, Jenny,
(05:46):
Oh my god, you know what, you look incredible? Okay, bye,
I literally hate her. And finally, thank you preticulous. And finally,
let's check in on my home state of New Jersey.
I'm sure, I'm sure they're not doing anything incredibly stupid.
(06:12):
The city of Newark is admitting it got scammed. Earlier
this year, Mayor ros Baraka invited who he thought was
the Hindu nation of Kailasa at a city hall for
a cultural trade agreement and to become sister cities. But
it turns out Kailasa isn't a real nation, but rather
the invention of a scam artist and fugitives from India
who's been on the run since twenty nineteen. I have
(06:35):
the immunity of non prosecute and immunity and protection as
the end of the state. He was arrested their years earlier,
accused of sexual assault charges by five women who say
he abused them at a religious retreat back in New Jersey.
A few days after this ceremony, the city says it
realized it had been deceived, calling it quote a regrettable
(06:56):
incident this Newark. How can an entire city get catfished?
Not a single person realized they never heard of this
country before, not on a globe, not at the Olympics,
not as a stage and street fighter. Look, if you
(07:17):
can't find it as a cuisine on grubhub, it's not
a real country. There must have been so many red flags,
the biggest one being that anyone wanted to be sister
cities with Newark. Although, look, to be fair, just because
the country was started by a sex criminal doesn't mean
it's fake. Just ask Thomas Jefferson for more on this.
(07:40):
Please give it up for Daisy Leidecks. Why did you
make of this story? Oh well, Calum, as a white person,
I would like to know what you think of this story,
(08:02):
because for me, I don't know. This is a little dicey.
I don't want to upset anybody with any statements about
whether Kailasa is a real country. Okay, well it's not.
It's not a real country. It's a cult right right
right then? Even so, I honor its culture and it's
rich traditions, because what is culture if not culture? Does
(08:26):
he come on, look look how they're dressed. Does that
look real to you. Yes, no, no, no, no, those
are just costumes. Whoa cal Their culture is not a costume.
That is literally a costume. Does he? I understand what
(08:49):
you're trying to do. You want to be an ally
I definitely appreciate that. But Kailasa does not deserve your
ally ship. It's leader as a sexual predator. Oh absolutely yes,
and I can them all sexual predators. At the same time,
it is important to support diversity among sexual predators. No, no, no,
(09:13):
it's not. Does he stopped? This is a cult and
they scammed the city of Newark. Of course they did. Yes, yes,
they did. And they've been forced into a cult, into
cult behaviors by Western imperialism. And isn't that the real scam? No? No, no,
well yes, yes, but but no, wait, now you're confusing me.
Hold on, there is no Western imperialism against Kailasa. There
(09:37):
is no Kailasa. There are no Kyla sans. We say
kilosans X. Now no we don't. Does he? Look? Look,
I am giving you permission to criticize this fake country
on behalf of brown people. It's okay. I'm not worried
about brown people. Cow, I'm worried about other white people.
(10:00):
If I disrespect this fake nation, they'll make my real
Twitter a living hell. Does Kailassa look like a scammy called? Yes?
Do I trust white people on Twitter to know the difference? No,
Which is why I am proud to announce that The
Daily Show, hosted by Cal Penn is now also a
sister city with Kailasa No One. Oh my god, don't
(10:35):
get out of your room. Don't you want? Everyone must?
I'll be taking you on a tour by vibe. Oh
my gosh, here, welcome back to The Daily Show. Look,
(11:03):
a lot of people would be surprised to know that
one of my favorite sports is a NASCAR Now. I
know I don't look like your stereotypical NASCAR fan, but
I also don't look like your stereotypical Abercrombie and Fitch homosexual. Yeah,
here we are. So what do I love about Nascar?
Take a look? Yeah, I know you're looking at me,
and you're like, seriously, Cal, you've been a NASCAR fan
for twelve years? Yes, my full of Blue state libs.
(11:26):
Grab a beer and come with me. Nascar has it
all day drinking, grilling, whoever this guy is and whoever
this guy is wait, is that kid rock WHOA? You
get here in this track and you fill the rumble
inside you when those cars are going around. I'm getting
(11:48):
chills just thinking about it right now. I felt the
rumble in my dick. Yeah, exactly. I wasn't mad about it.
I'm mad about it either. Yes, Okay, here's the deal.
NASCAR is different from what you probably think. I feel
like people think it's just really like a redneck thing,
and I mean it kind of is, but it's for everyone,
you know. I'm like, I've watched NASCAR since I was
(12:08):
like twelve or before then because of because of my
parents going to NASCAR races. Black people love racing. People
may not realize how much African Americans love, not just NASCAR,
any form of racing. Bubba Wallace is one of the
biggest stars in the sport, and he happens to agree.
I think, you know, from from outside looking in, especially minorities,
feel the stigma's been there that they're not welcome. And
(12:31):
I've always been like, that's not really true. You know,
I've been in nascars my career. Who's been twenty years? Yeah?
Years nine? Okay, Wow, I can tell you right now
there is no New Jersey Parrot would let their kid
drive at nine. So I always get the question what's
it like being an Indian American actor? I would imagine
it also drives you insane to get the question, Oh,
(12:52):
what's it like being a black driver? So, what's it
like being a black driver? So quick bite and news
outlets they have to get their viewership up, and all
the way they do that is black driver. Yeah. I
don't walk around saying I'm a black driver. Yeah. So yeah,
you embrace it and you go out and enjoy what
you do. After I got my media clickbait, we moved
(13:13):
on to an issue that every day Americans actually care about.
All Right, A lot of people really want to know this.
How do you pee in four hundred miles? I can't
go forty five minutes without having ye, So, have you
ever been in a high a journalan moment? Well once
I once wrote a cheetah in the movie I know exactly,
So you're really in the zone then for for that
that's also and they always say if you do pee
(13:34):
in the car, then you got to be there Monday
morning to clean it out. Oh do you want to
clean it out? You don't have somebody for that. They're
not gonna do it. Here's here's here's here's another stereotype.
Drivers aren't real athletes. They just lazily sit there making
left turns. The athleticism side of it. To me, you
know our heart rates, you know, peek at about one
seven year ago and then during the race you're around
(13:56):
the one forty area. I mean that's all. That's a
high heart rate for a sustained long period time. And
hydration is huge. I can lose up to about seven
pounds in the race car on him one race? Yes, sir, oh,
can I drive this race? I would love to look.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. And
the drivers aren't the only jocks on the track. Meet
DeLanda when Dano, a former college athlete who trained as
(14:18):
a tire changer after being recruited through NASCAR's diversity initiative.
Everybody knows how to change a time. Well, I don't
know how to change the tirement. But what's the big
deal about changing tires. It's just about how fast you
can do it. One tire can take like maybe two
or three seconds. We did reps after raps otter reps
every time because I think two towns on the seconds
cost a lot of money for our team if you
(14:39):
make a mistake. As someone who was recently told he
had a good physique, I knew that joining the pit
crew would be easy. So like the jackman's jack in
the car up, I'm like, deck, that's it up. He
jacks it up. The guy's giving up some gas. I
grabbed the other tire because that gonna take it out,
and I bring it back like this and I kick
it over there, and then everyone's like, we're almost gonna
go win. So I grabba like that, bring it back
(15:00):
over here, and I'm like, okay, great job, and the
driver takes off. So he wins the race and we
win a lot of money. Yeah, and theory, I think
we missed a couple of steps, but yeah, and that's
a penalty. After crushing it with the pit crew, I
wanted to see if there were any indoor jobs with
air condition. There's just so much more data and science
that goes into it than I think anybody really realizes
(15:21):
when they see cars car around in circles, right, So
data comes from the cars, and then the car has
its speed, it's got it's it's rpm and the gear
that it's in. That's like, is the car loose, like
wants to spin out? Or is it tight? We look
at what the driver is doing with the wheel and
then we try and tell him, Hey, you need to
turn the wheel less or you need to be on
the gas more. This sounds like cheating. Tom Brady fans
(15:44):
would love this absolutely. As a number crunching genius Jr.
Represents the new NASCAR and has that a front row
seat to the sports evolution, the sports way different than
it has been in the past. You know, my husband
and I talk about it all the time, even myself
working for Bubba. You know, I think a lot of
people have always thought that this sport was kind of
out of reach, not only because of they couldn't get
into the sport, but also because they wouldn't be accepted
(16:05):
by the sport. I mean, I think that just being
out there and being vocal is super important. And I
never thought twelve year old me would be doing it. Well,
this was twelve year old me, and he would have
been terrified by what I'm about to do. Where do
I connect the bluetooth for the podcast? Oh? I was
These things are meant for it to go fast, So
anything extra, we just pull out of the car. Okay,
(16:26):
I can't drive stick? Is that a problem? Now you're good? Okay.
He basically just put you forth here to push you off. Man,
do only the snowflake drivers get the push since we
can't drive stick? Pretty much? Here we go. This is
real inclusion NASCAR making space for athletes like me who
can't drive stick. About to get a gap, to give
(16:46):
a gap, to give a gap, give a gap. Recredible hunting,
all of it, an run? Want to back D're in
a car okay than one out there? All good? Share
(17:10):
that fruit dry? Yeah? Yeah, but then I was like
getting into it, and then after I paid my pants,
it was such a relief. That was awesome. Okay, that
was fun and I lost two pounds. But there is
a more social way to enjoy racing. Hey, guys, can
I come up? Thank you? This is the infield where
(17:32):
families camp out for the weekend to watch the races
up close. Sure, thank you, cheers, thank you guys. How
long have you been coming here? For twenty three years?
We're all family. You definitely have the best view, and
that's really what NASCAR is all about. Family, speed and
crushing beers on top of an RVW with a group
(17:53):
of new friends. All right, stay tuned because when we
come back, but Foreign Minister of Pakistan we'll be joining me,
so don't go away, ye, welcome back to the Daily Show.
(18:24):
My guest tonight is the Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Please
welcome Billiwal Bhutto Zardari. Hell n to see him, a welcome,
thank you, thank you for having me of course, thanks
(18:46):
for being here for for folks who don't know. Your
mom was former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated
in two thousand and seven. But now you are the
youngest foreign minister in Pakistan's history. You're thirty four, true, yeah,
and you're a very young country. I think the median
age in Pakistan is only twenty something like that, right,
sixty percent of our population and beneath the age of
(19:08):
thirty five. Wow. So how does how does your age
create an opportunity for leadership in a country that's so young. Oh,
that's an interesting question. I think that most of if
you look at the politics and Parkistan are the political
landscape landscape, it's one or two generations above me that
are that are the main players. So I'm sure that
given that I am so young, I think bring a
(19:28):
unique perspective, And I think that's so important because everybody
who's in power right now or in positions of influence
and making decision for our country, they'll live for ten
twenty years. We have to think about sort of the
long picture now, climate change and poverty and all the
income in inequality and discrimination that people are facing across
(19:50):
the country. How are we going to address those issues
in the long term. Do you feel like there's every
generational divide between the people who you think? Absolutely, I
think it's a It's been an experience working with people
from a whole host of different age groups, and absolutely
I felt a sort of throughout my political career just
as a result of my age. Perhaps the same idea
(20:12):
is same suggestions given from other people of a most
senior age will be taken more seriously as opposed to
coming from a younger perspective. But at the same time,
I think I'd like to say I've proven over the
course of time, whether I was in opposition or a
foreign minister, that ages just in number and we can
still get quite a lot done. So it's it's time
(20:34):
we're having you here tonight, tropical right now. You know,
Pakistan is facing some unrest over the imminent arrest of
former Prime Minister in Ron Khan. Mister Kan says that
your government wants him arrested so that he's disqualified from
upcoming elections. Is that true? Okay? So, unfortunately, Pakistan is
facing a perfect store. Not only do we have heightened
(20:58):
by heightened partisanship and political polarization to the extent that
political parties or political stakeholders aren't even in a position
to sit in a room and discuss issues amongst themselves.
We're also facing an economic crisis. We're facing a security
threat and security crisis, and that fall out from into
(21:19):
the fall of the of Khan government and the increasing
the terrorist attacks that are taking place with increasing frequency
in Pakistan. We just face the biggest climate catastrophe of
our history, where a third of the land mass of
our country was under water. That's something that my generation
generations to come are going to be paying the price
for the decisions that others have taken. And unfortunately, in
(21:42):
all this chaos and in all these while we're facing
these simultaneous crises, we have the question of mister Khan,
who believes that the Pakistani constitution doesn't apply to him,
the Pakistani law doesn't apply to him, that he can
get up and leave, is resigned from parliament and a
runaway in the system. In this particular instance, it's not
(22:02):
a question of me wanting to arrest mister Khan. I
come from a family who faced genuine arrest in the
face of military dictatorships. My mom my mother, when she
was younger than me, she battled it in this Islamist
dictator at the time who threw her in prison. My
father spent eleven and a half years in prison and
(22:24):
was tortured without a conviction. I would never want any
politician in my country or any country to go to
go to jail for political reasons. In mister Khan's case,
he's under the threat of arrest because of his ego.
He says, the courts are saying that he has to
come to court and fight his cases, whatever cases are,
he gets them, and he says, I'm a rand Khan
(22:45):
and I'm too important and I'm not going to turn
up to court. And what we've seen over the last
couple of weeks has been a complete mockery of the
judicial system in Pakistan or rule or law of the
constitution in Pakistan, where had he gone to court. There's
probably no reason he had to fear imminent arrest because
he's violated court orders time and time again. Finally, the
courts have instructed the police to produce him before court,
(23:09):
but he's called on his citizen, on his workers, on
his supporters to come and confront the police. The police
went to him with no intention of violence. And as
you may be aware of Pakistan's histories full of politicians
who have gone to prison right, wrong or otherwise, in
this case, mister Khan is refusing to even present himself
before court, refusing to defend himself. I'm sure if he's innocent,
(23:32):
he'll be able to clear his names through the judicial system.
So we caught in a situation with his this political
chaos playing out on the streets and distracting from the
real issues that are affecting everyday Pakistani's What does that
say about the state of democracy in Pakistan? Is it
fragile right now? Now? Absolutely? Pakistan has been most of
(23:54):
our history into direct military dictatorship. After the assassination of
my mother is a brief period of democratic transition. Political
parties came together, they reached a consensus that you know,
we removed all the detator's laws from the constitution, devolved
power to parliament, had peaceful transfer of power for the
first time in our history from one government to another.
(24:16):
And those people or those forces that benefit from undemocratic
rule in Barkistan didn't like that. So they they they
supported mister Khan and brought him into power. And that's
now blown up not only in those individuals face, but
has had severe consequences for our country. You talked about
(24:37):
your own family, and so I just wanted to expand
on that because I think for an American audience especially,
you see a lot of politicians, not just in Barkistan
but obviously many countries, regardless of political party, who are
accused of corruption, accused of other charges in and out
of prison or violence. How do you know whether someone
has committed a credible violation of law or whether something
(24:59):
is politic motivated. What's the litmus there? And how do
your voters, not just from your party but overall in Pakistan,
how do they respond to that? And how do you
take that tip with it? So that is something that
I've lived with my entire life because my mother was
Prime Minister of Pakistan for a few years, but she
spent most of her life in opposition, either in country,
in prison or in exile, fighting not one but two
(25:22):
military dictatorships. She spent those thirty years of her life
fighting politically motivated cases where the perception was built in
the media and otherwise at this corruption and whole host
of allegations. After she was assassinated, her name has been
cleared from each in every single case, and that was
lodged against her in her lifetime, and I as her son,
(25:45):
and who's someone who lived through that, really wish that
had happened while she was still hearing amongst us. Unfortunately,
that was the tradition of Pakistani politics. After my mother's assassination,
the big political parties in Pakistan came to again. Then
they said, look, if we're going to be fighting amongst
ourselves all the time and taking our political differences as
(26:06):
personal differences, and whoever's in power they arrest the opposition,
then we're never going to get anything done as a country.
And we saw a gap of ten years where we
didn't go after each other with two different political parties
came into power, they saved up, they served out their term,
We're voted out and the people and the next political
party claim into place. Mister Khan is the one who
(26:29):
unfortunately broke those precedences. So you're talking about essentially what
sounds like a fragile democracy and things that are are malleable,
and moving back and forth to what extent does that
impact economics in Pakistan? I know that right now the
IMF and you are, you know, sort of at odds,
and I know that you know they're withholding some money
(26:50):
until tax reforms are met. I believe that was correct.
Me if I'm wrong, that was negotiated by previous government.
But now you're in power, you're dailing. The carpet party
needs to follow up on what was negotiated. So how
does that political instability then affect? So two things. As
far as how democratic are we right now? I would
say we're in a democratic transition and I hope that
(27:13):
this goes well and we transition towards a more democratic
society because I believe that Pakistan is facing a whole
host of problems. But no matter the problem, the answer
is in more democracy. But I might be wrong and
it could go the other way. As far as our
economic situation is concerned, as I mentioned, we're in the
perfect storm. You're absolutely right. The deal with the IMF
(27:34):
is made by the previous government, and the previous government
violated that deal with the IMF that put Pakistan in
an extremely precarious economic situation. We've also liked the rest
of the field feeling the economic impacts of the war
in Ukraine, of the COVID pandemic, and at the same time,
as a result the fall of Carbol a year ago,
(27:55):
we've seen the return to terrorism in our country, an
increase in terrorist activity that has its own impact on economics,
and the climate catastrophe, the floods that took out five
million acres of standing crops one in seven pakistanis that's
thirty three million people were affected. Many people are still affected.
(28:17):
All of these things coming together, sorry, all of these
things coming together put our economy under incredible strain and stress.
And you're absolutely right. Our negotiations are still ongoing and
have not been concluded with the IMF. And I completely
I'm actually left to center political party, who within our
own politics, calls for, you know, an increase in tax
(28:40):
revenue equal sort of addressing the income inequalities, etc. But
at this point of time, I think then, when Pakistan
is facing such a perfect storm, some problems of our
own creation, but some like the flood and others that
are not of our own, that the conversation with the
IMF really should take that into account. And I don't
think it is at the moment. But in terms of
(29:03):
how the tax structure works in Pakistan, I don't want
to get two in the weeds on tax structure. I
know that's not that's not your job. But one of
the things that I was arounded of when I was
when I was prepping for a conversation, I know that
you're from a historically from a relatively wealthy landowning family,
and there are many in Pakistan. Do you know who
Bernie Sanders is? Yes, Okay, so Bernie. You know Bernie's
a big fan of making sure the one percent pay
(29:25):
their fair share and all that big topic here. Is
there a version of that in Pakistan? Can the wealthiest
families do something to sort of help economically? That's so
interesting that you are answer that question from the mainstream
political parties in Pakistan with the Pakistan People's Party and
we are the left of center political party today. We're
a left of center political party. When we started out,
(29:47):
we were actually a socialist a political party, and my
grandfather was heading the party at the time. Became the
country's prime minister, and that's exactly what he did. He
rebelled against his own class because he is a rich,
wealthy landlord that owned masses of land. But he led
(30:07):
land reforms which took away vast amounts of lands with
the wealthy and redistributed it amongst the landlist people of
the area. He read industrial reforms where twenty two families
in Pakistan had like a death grip on our economy
and they own all the industry in our country. So
then he nationalized the industry so that it worked for
(30:30):
the many and not for the few. Mala Bernie. At
the moment, unfortunately, where we are in Pakistan is very
far away from the vision that the founders of my
party laid out or the efforts that my mother did
as far as addressing the gap between the rich and poor.
And what we have is a system where the elites
(30:52):
like myself can whether these storms without much pain or
without feeling much difference, but whether it is our deals
with the IMF or our own internal economic policy. There's
an outside burden on the poorest of the poor. There's
an outside version, a burden on the bottom of the pyramid,
(31:12):
and what we'd like to see. I believe the only
way for us to have a functioning economy that works
for everyone would be not only for everyone to pay
their fair share as far as taxation is concerned, but
we do need a fundamental reform about how we talk
about our economy and what decisions we take domestically in
(31:33):
order to achieve that. I know that last year you
did a lot of work raising awareness on the fact
that a third of your country was underwater from those
devastating floods. That's obviously faded from international news since then.
Can you give us an update on the status of
the people affected? No, thank you so much for asking.
We're a country that is experienced floods and monsoons consistently.
(31:57):
This was something apocalyptic out of sort of you know
Olah Noah's Arks floods scale. I've never seen anything like it,
and we're still battling with the consequences. I absolutely been
raising awareness. I'm very grateful that the international community stood
with Pakistan on not one but two occasions. One at
(32:18):
the COP where Pakistan was the chair of the Developing
Countries Group of g seventy seven and we helped push
for lost and damage to be included on a COPS agenda,
which I think is a big achievement as far as
the climate movement is concerned and the future of developing countries.
And the second is when we had held a Resilient
Climate Resilient Pakistan conference in Geneva, where the international community
(32:40):
stood with us and pledged some money for reconstruction. As
far as attention is concerned, of course, international media attention
span is very small and that has moved on. But
the sad thing is that domestic attention is moved on.
I come from the province of Synth which is the
most devastated. Two thirds of our province was on water
(33:00):
is a result of this floods. The political conversation is
moved on. We're talking about whether in around Kahn's going
to get arrested or not, and we're not talking about
the millions of people who are at the moment in
danger of you know, I don't like to throw about
where it's like famine, but there's a food food scarcity
issue for them, the people that are thrown into poverty.
(33:21):
I mean there's this impression right that it's a completely
impoverished people that had no hope and this still poe.
I mean, it's awful that anybody get affected by floods,
but I just want to emphasize that of these people,
thirty three million people that were affected, some of these
people would. I mean, they're not living the most elitist lives,
the most well off lives, but they were getting by.
(33:44):
They had their little shop, they had their little bit
of land that they were eking a living out of,
and they've been thrown into poverty. And it's going to
take us a while to claw back from that. And
until we do so, unfortunately, I wish I could stand
here and say that my country was paying the attention
that it should to this issue, but unfortunately I'm afraid
(34:07):
to him and we're being distracted. Uh. I want to
ask you about solutions. Also, you mentioned loss and damage.
We said and damage. Can you talk about what that is?
And then also what are what are sort of the
plans on an addressing climate longer term for book? Okay,
so the two arguments around the sort of the loss
and damage to bake it. Coppon the sort of the
(34:27):
more basic, sort of more activists approach that that conversation
is that rich countries, industrialized countries have created this crisis
and their whole host of countries climate climate crisis, the
climate crisis, and it is a results of it's their industrialization, right,
It's the rich worlds industrialization that the poor world is
(34:47):
paying the cost of in the form of massive floods
or massive droughts and um and there should be some
loss of damage for this. Some people advocate for Repper.
I'm actually not one of those people. I like to
be sort of you know, left in our approach to
politics and things, but I also like to get things done.
(35:08):
I mean reparations was I feel like India, Pakistan and
the US from the UK, That's exactly what I mean, right,
So we haven't got any post colonial reparations and slavery reparations.
The conversation hasn't going anyway. I mean, fair enough, the
activists who want to argue for that should and it's
it's a legitimate point to make. But I think a
practical approach is for us to say, okay, loss and
(35:30):
damage exists. Let's decide who's going to pay for it later.
But actually it's a problem that we all have to
address together, and international financial institutions are just not equipped
to deal with even one climate tragedy to the scale
of what we faced now. The unfortunate thing is not
just one country. We have historic floods in Pakistan, so
we have historic droughts in China. And at the same
(35:52):
time you've got forest fires here in California or it's flooding,
and so we need to rework international financial institutions. Rather
than looking this as reparations, how are we going to
work together to come up with the money to address
loss and damage as a result of climate change. The
fight to put loss and damage onto the agenda is
(36:14):
a thirty year old fight. At the last clop it
was achieved under the chairmanship of Egypt that it's now
going to be on the agenda. It's going to take
a while for this to be argued out in the
international community to come to decision. It's an important, instant,
important achievement. But rather than I don't want us to
pit the global North against the global South and try
(36:37):
and find solutions to climate change like that, I believe
that this is a problem too big for just America
to deal in on their own or just China to
deal with on their own. This is something that the
world has to come together and decide. Are we going
to be distracted by war and conflict and politics as
usual or are we going to find a solution to
this problem? And I have just fect that, and I
(37:02):
can say that like experiencing I've just experienced this from
the Pakistani perspective, from this one flood that wiped out
so much and caused so much devastation that we're not
equipped for that. I see how, whether it's domestic politics
or geopolitics get in the way of things we even
(37:23):
can do now. So I hope that, I mean, I
know that your president has done a lot of stuff
domestically on climate and I really hope that that sort
of approach, that sort of mentality is translated out into
the world stage and we can work together to sort
this out. Otherwise, Pakistan is we've contributed less than zero
point one percent to the global carbon footprint, but we're
(37:44):
amongst the ten most climate stress countries on the planet.
Did you know that there's a third pole, There's a
North Pole in a South Pole that we all knew
about and we're worried about it's melting. The third pole
is in Pakistan, in the Himalayan regions of ours. We
like our numbers to go up. So just the third
(38:04):
pole is technically in Pakistan. God just a number of
glaciers on the peaks of the mountain ranges between our
two countries, and i'm as a result of climate change.
Obviously the North and South Pole are going to be melting,
but the third Pole is going to be melting. Our
rivers are fed by these glaciers. So what that means
is in the short term, as these as this pole melts,
(38:25):
as these glaciers melts, we will be faced by floods.
The flood that we just experienced, by the way, not
a river or in flood, a flood that came from
the skies. We're predicted to face far more greater flooding
from the rivers as these glaciers melt. Once these glaciers melt,
our water source is done. We won't be able to
provide drinking water for the people that live in my country.
(38:46):
This is one country's problem when it comes to crimate change.
There are a whole host of other countries that are
facing for them and for us, the crisis is here
and now this is not a tomorrow issue. For all
of these issues. Is their capacity to take both in
the short or long term for you or is that
something that is being worked out? And I'm asking that
also in the context of you are clearly very passionate
(39:07):
about this issue. This almost goes back to my first
question about you. Being a young leader in Pakistan, I
would imagine you feel this issue a lot more than
others night. So the two things. First of all, I'm
very proud of the fact that my mother's last manifesto
in two thousand and seven before she's assassinated, she was
the first Pakistani politician to have climate on her agenda.
(39:28):
And I often think that had we started addressing things
then in two thousand and seventy eighty nine, maybe we
wouldn't be here today. But despite all of that, I
was not the you know, the most hyper of climate activist, like, Okay,
I got it, we'll do some way and we'll do
some solar and hopefully things will be fine. My worldview
changed overnight. When my home, the village is around it,
(39:50):
the people that I know it was suddenly just water
as far as the eye could see it. It's and now, yeah, frankly,
I go, Greta, I'm completely I think it is. We've
been four four from uh. Until you know, until it
doesn't happen to you, you don't really know what's coming.
(40:12):
And now that it has happened to us, the thought
that this could happen regularly, it devastated me because I've
never felt so disempowered in that moment. What do you
do when overnight thirty three million people need you to help.
You don't have the tenths, you don't have the rations,
You can't you don't we we're usually used to drought,
we don't have boats. How do we get out to this?
(40:34):
It was the most difficult period in my public life.
And it's it's not on the agenda, it's not in
the media conversation, but on the ground, it's we're feeling
this like, oh, this is why I wanted to ask
you about it. I thought it was a work that
you're doing. Um, you know, the Thalbon is back in
power in Afghanistan. I think my biggest curiosity since they
(40:59):
are the government in Afghanistan or your neighbor. What's it
like negotiating with them? What's it like when you have to?
So that's an interesting question. Okay, So the Taliban in
Afghanistan are now in the interim government there, and that
is a result of the Doha Deal process that they
(41:20):
negotiated directly with the United States, and we be in
their neighbor, even though like the rest of the world,
we haven't recognized them diplomatically, etc. Are forced to engage
with the reality on our border. We can't afford to
sort of wash our hands and turn our backs and
pretend that nothing is changed, and we are advocating not
(41:44):
only for ourselves but for the international community to also
engage with them. I believe that we were off to
a positive staff initially, but given what's happened with women's
education and they're right to access education, it's becoming incredibly
difficult for me or others like me who do want
to engage with them, do want to find solutions to
(42:06):
the problems the people of Afghanistan are facing, because they're
taking these decisions that at the very least, I mean
to say it the most diplomatically then I can. I mean,
it's not helping us help them, and our consistent concern
is that whatever happens in Ivanistan, Pakistan is going to
be the first people to fill the consequences. This is
(42:29):
old saying that if Carbal sneezes a slam bath, catches
a cult and we're already seeing that we have. The
United Nations says that ninety seven percent of the population
in Avanistan are falling beneath the poverty line. That means
that the number of refugees and their extra doors is
(42:50):
going to be affected. Pakistan has already accepted millions of
refugees in the past, but thousands, hundreds of thousands of
refugees have come over since the fall of Carbal. The
more the economic situation deteriorates in Afghanistan, the more canon
cannon for the terrorist groups over there are going to have,
the more people they're going to be able to recruit
to their cause. And we have seen since the fall
(43:12):
of Kapo a steady uptick of terrorist activity in Pakistan.
If there's a regime that says that girls can't get
education in Afghanistan, it's not going to be too wrong
till politicians are going to start popping up in my
neck of the would saying that we should also not
let girls have access to education. So I think, a
it's incredibly important to engage with them a bit. At
(43:35):
the same time, my request to them and through your
TV show to them, would be like, let girls learn guys.
The Yeah, the contrast that you just set up is
(43:55):
certainly pronounced. And you know, most Americans, I think, still
associate Pakistan with harboring bin laden with issues of terror.
How do we move beyond that in terms of US
Pakistan relations? You know what's next? Look, I get, so,
how do we move beyond that? I think that at
that whatever happened during the sort of the war on
(44:16):
Terror and the entire period that followed, there's like a
there's a fog of war and that colors everyone's decision
making everyone's perception. What we have now is a reality
in Afghanistan, a reality that has very serious consequences, first
for Pakistan, but all the issues I mentioned, whether it's
the refugees or terrorism, it's a Pakistan's problem today, Tomorrow
(44:39):
it'll be other country's problem. We have to get serious
about engaging on the topic of Afbanistan. I believe that
in the based on the facts on the ground, the
position and perspective of Pakistan in the United States. Actually
we meet eye to eye. We see things quite simple.
I mean, we're basically on the same page. And whatever
(45:00):
has happened in the past, we should be able to
have honest conversations about that. And there can be many
studies and analysis about what went wrong where. But it's
also time for us to get working together and what
we're going to do about the future, what we're going
to do a boy the present day, and that's what
I've been working on with my counterparts. Actually, Blincoln, I
have one last question for you. You know, I know,
regardless of your political party or your political opposition, clearly
(45:21):
you are the youngest person to serve in this role.
What's your message to other young people who feel called
to serve? I would never give up and give it
your best shot. I can't tell you the amount of times.
For example, when we removed mister Khan from his prime ministership,
it was the first time in Pakistan's history that a
dictator didn't come in and kick out a prime minister,
(45:43):
that a judge didn't order the removal or a prime minister.
But for the first time our parliament voted them out
and that idea, that proposition came from me, but it
took me two years to convince everybody else because no
one believed that it would happen, and ultimately it did.
So the one thing that I've from what I'm doing
that it's difficult and it's tough and all those other things.
(46:05):
But the more young people we have who get to
look at things for the long term and not just
sort of the imminent future, the short term solution, but
actually have to live with the consequences of their decisions,
the better decisions we can make. Thank you for joining us,
and thank you for your candor. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for support, so I appreciate it. Okay, we're
gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back
(46:27):
after this. Thank you so much. Really detail but finally starting.
All right, that's our shel for tonight. But before we go,
(46:48):
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