Kal Penn tackles the latest news including Fox News blaming the Silicon Valley Bank collapse on "woke", the 95th Academy Awards, and Trump's chart topping song by the J6 prison choir. Kal Penn and President Joe Biden talk about passing bipartisan legislation when the country is so divided, and how young people's advocacy can affect policy on climate, drilling, and human rights.
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow from New York City, the only city in America. It's the show, then Invicted News. It's the daily show with your host Town. We're going to Town Show. My name is cal Patty and I will be your host this week. Now. You might know me from my work as an actor or my work with President Barack Obama. Yeah, yeah, I plan on dropping his name all week. Anyway, We've got a great show for you tonight, including a very special interview with President Joe Biden. Here is a man who I know well from my time working for Barack Obama. But first let's get into the headlines. Of course, last night was the Academy Awards and hashtag oscars so Asian. That's right, that's right. It was an incredible night for the Asian American community. So many Asian artists won and thanked their parents, which was like, so nice, although honestly, if their parents or anything like mine, they were probably just like Okay. Let's move on from movies to music and some big news for a hot new artist. A new song credited to Donald Trump and the J six Choir is now topping the iTunes music chart. Justice for All features the phone President along with a group of men in prison for the January sixth attack on the Capitol. Are glad your allegiance to the flag of the United States of American? Wow? I can't believe I'm saying this, But those guys should stick to insurrecting. This song is such a turd. I'm surprised it's on iTunes and not Nancy Pelosi's desk. This is so bad. Mike Pence heard it and he hanged himself. And why are they calling themselves? Donald Trump? In the January sixth choir Coo in the gang is right there. Anyway, Let's get to today's big news, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. I know it's impossible to believe that a town that could spend half a million dollars on this ape would have financial problems, but somehow it happened. SVB was the sixteenth largest bank in the country and the favorite bank of tech bros, disruptors and anyone who's ever invented uber but for weed. So here's what happened, Okay, SVB invested a lot of their clients money on a bet that interest rates wouldn't go up, and when interest rates did go up, they started losing their clients money. Then they told their clients, Hey, don't freak out, but we're losing your money. So of course everyone immediately freaked out and ran to the bank to take out all their money before it collapsed, which then caused the bank to collapse. It was like that bank run scene from It's a Wonderful Life. But if everyone was wearing Patagonia vests and look, people are legitimately scared. This could spread to banks across the country. So to stop the panic, the federal government took the bank over and promised everyone that they'd get their money back. And it's kind of funny because some of the companies who had money at the bank were screaming on social media that the government needed to come and save them. That's right, all those tech bros who complain about being under the government's yoke were suddenly like, oh no, my money's gone a yoke, mean Danny. So that's basically what happened. But if you're looking for an explanation of why SVB failed that doesn't require you to learn about interest rates, well Fox News got you covered. Part of the problem was is that this was one of those woke banks. They were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the ESG Top top policy. This bank, they're so concerned with d EI and politics and all kinds of stuff. This bank, Silicon Valley Bank, they've had been focused on a lot of these social issues in the in the last weeks and monthly and lgbtqum months of activities. Just before the bank collaps, I think the senior vice president of risk management at the bank was heavily focused on LGBTQ plus programs. The female head of risk management spent a lot of time spirit heeading what critics would call wook programs, such as a safe space for coming out stories. Oh right, the female head of risk management. That explains it. She'd probably spent the bank's money on shoes and abortions. For more on Silicon Valley Bank, we go to Michael Costa, Who Michael, where are you? Well? Where does it look like I am? I'm at Silicon Valley Bank's headquarters. Looks like you're at a gay nightclub. Man, This is just what a woke bank looks like. Cal The first floor is a gay nightclub, second floor is a gay bathhouse, and the third floor is gay accounting. Okay, well, what's your impression of svb's collapse. Seems clear to me that it's a result of rising interest rates forcing the bank to sell its bonds at a loss. That's so naive, col No, the reason the bank collapsed is because of woke. What do you mean woke? How did that collapse a bank? It just did cal woke, d EI ESG, poc aoc b ET. The list is endless, and the list is woke. I don't see what any of this has to do with a bank failing. Well that's because you're not a trained economist like I am. But once you learn the history, you discover that every bank crisis that has ever had this happened because of woke. There's no way that's true. Oh, come on. Women get the right to vote in nineteen twenty nine years later the Great Depression. Okay, how about this segregation ends in sixty four, seventeen years later, the recession of eighty one hits coincidence. Come on, mate, you can't connect These women and black people are not behind all bank collapse, of course, not cal. Sometimes it's gay people's fault. Okay, just look at the names behind the two thousand and eight financial crisis, Layman Brothers, gold Man Sacks, Bear Stern, Rusty Trombone Investments. It's all major gay financial institutions that lost money. I've never heard of Rusty Trombone Investment. Well, they lost a lot of my money. Look forget your theories for a minute. What can consumers do to keep their money safe. It's easy. Skip the banks and keep all your money in your wallet, like idea. That way when I need some money, that way when I need some Oh my god, someone stole my walk. I know who it was. Oh that's terrible. Who wasn't it was woke? All right, man, Okay, good luck with that, Michael cost to everybody. All right. When we come back, my interview with President Joe Body, don't go away. Welcome back to the Daily Show. Last week I had the opportunity to interview the President of the United States at the White House. We talked about our divided country and how young people's advocacy can affect policy on climate drilling and human rights. Mister President, welcome to the Daily Show. Come back to the White House. Thank you. It's very nice to be back. I was trying to figure out when the last time you and I had a conversation was, and I realized it was November twenty sixteen at a very diverse the Volley party that you hosted just a few weeks after Trump became the president elect. And I remember that you you described that night as an Irish Catholic vice president and a Muslim GoldStar family celebrating a reception observing a Hindu holiday. Well, exactly that's how I felt. I mean, I remember just feeling so positive and so much hope there and then as Khan, that was mister Khan, Yes, exactly. Then I remember just four years of policy and vitriol under Trump, and now things feel more divided. So I was curious how you feel that we can stay hopeful and how can we get the country to unify truth of the matters? And every Moore optimistic of my entire life about no, I mean it now, I'll tell you what. Look, if you think about it. The reason I had not given my words the Biden. I hadn't planned on running again. I had lost my son Bo. It was a tough tough time and I wasn't gonna run at all for real. And then remember what happened in Charlottesville when those folks came out of the fields at night with torches and swastikas the white supremacist and a young woman was killed. I spoke to her mom. Then President Trump said there were very fine people on both sides, and I give my word. That's when I said I'm going to do this. But I was worried about doing it because I knew how bitter it would be. And so I got a phone call from my true story, from my eldest granddaughter saying, we have a family meeting. You probably are aware of. It's around here. We have a tradition to the Biden family. Any child can ask for a family meeting. I don't know even happen, but to take it seriously. So my grandchildren, my four granddaughters and grandson Bo's children and Hunters children came down on us Saturday, and we sat and talked and they said, trying to commit. They said, we know you're thinking a running pop, but you ought to do it. Daddy wants you to do it, talking about Bow and the rest. And I said, well, it's going to be pretty tough, and they said you got to do it. And we decided to do it. And I did it for three reasons. One to restore the soul of this country. That's not who we are. We're a decent, honorable country that cares. We really are we still are. Second one is to you know, begin to take care of the middle class, because the middle class does well, the poor have a real shot, and the wealthy do very well. And thirdly, to unite the country. And at the time thought people thought, well, maybe the first two, but you're never unite the country. But look what we did. We got a lot done. No one thought I could ever pass through the infrastructure bill. No one thought I could ever do anything about making sure that we took care of people with disabilities and drug prices and whole range. No one thought we could do anything on the environment. No one thought we could do anything about about same sex marriage. I mean we did. We did not all of it, but a significant portion was done in a bipartisan way. When I was a White House aid I remember having meetings in this room on climate. They didn't always go so well. And I never would have imagined twelve years ago that something as sweeping on climate as the Inflation Reduction Act would have happened. So my question really, and I was watching all of this unfold, is who or what created the political space for you to take that kind of action. Young people, young people generation, that generation between eighteen and thirty five. Now they're the ones that created a space. They enough of it, They had enough of it. And so what I did was when I trying to figure out whether I could put something together, I've met with them. We had rallies, we had I mean, they showed up in the twenty twenty election, they showed up in the twenty twenty two election, and we passed the largest environmental plan and all of history, over three hundred and sixty eight billion dollars. We got it done. And and what happened was Mother Nature let her rasbie standing. For the last two years, for example, I have traveled on helicopter over more forest area burned to the ground than the entire state of Maryland. That's how much has burned to the ground, floods, droughts, all the things. And so people can't deny it anymore. They can't deny the fact. And I've traveled the world. I've gone to all the cop meetings around the world, meeting the meetings on climate. If we don't keep the temperature from going above one point five degrees celsius raised, then we're in real trouble. That whole generation is damned. I mean, that's not I proably, really truly trouble. And that's why the first meeting I had with the so called you know, G seven the largest economies in the world, democracies in the world, the first thing we talked about was they want to talk about was my initiative on energy, on dealing with moving toward For example, I called all them automakers and truck makers and I asked them to come to the South long the first year and to try to talk him into doing something more than going electric. And within five weeks all of them agreed They're going to go electric fifty percent by twenty thirty and by twenty fifty all electric, and I think we can do it. You're also responsible for reviewing drilling and oil production. Yes, what would you say to those young people who want you to continue to be the the champion but might not think that you're going far enough or fast enough on climate, Well, first of all, we're gonna fashion anyone's ever gone. We're going to need fossil fuels for at least the next ten years. It's not like tomorrow we can turn it all off, number one. And so in addition to that, we've things got really complicated when putin put one hundred and eighty five thousand forces into Ukraine, having a profound impact on their energy ability to be able to keep the heat on in the winner and keep things moving. And so we're going to need fossil fuel. But we have to do is we have to I've said no more drilling off our ocean, I mean the whole range. But there still has to be there has to be the ability to generate some energy. But we can get rid of coal much more rapidly. And by the way, for example, I was up in Massachusetts on the largest goal producing electric facilities in the nation. Well, guess what, we hooked it up the wind technolology, and so now and it's cheaper. We can do solar. We can do wind cheaper than we can do fossil fuels. So it's a matter of transitioning. But it's not like you can cut everything off immediately. You obviously understand the existential threat that young people feel when it comes to climate. Sure, how do you balance that with the immediate concerns of babysitting Congress or getting getting getting fifty one or sixty votes on some of this. Well, look, I've been relatively careful here. Sure it's relatively successful, right and working across the aisle. There is a magar Republican portion of the party. It makes up about a third of the Republican Party. I've had more than a half a dozen Republican senators I've known for years over the last two years come to me individually, and I promise I've never mentioned her names, and I'll go to my grave never mentioned. No, I'm not telling I'm seriously, I've never broken my word and saying Joe, I agree with you. But if I if I do anything publicly, they're going to primary in me, I'll lose. The Republican Party's going through a significant transition, and we're going to see in the next two years how they end up, whether the maga Republicans control the party or we get back to conservative like for example, a guy as tough as can be is the majority leader of the United States the minority the United States Senate McConnell. But he's straight, he's a traditional conservative he's straight. What he says, he does. He probably doesn't even want me saying this. I probably hurt his reputation. But there's a lot of people in the Republican Party who are traditional republic conservative Republicans that you can deal with. But you know these you know, the gentlewoman from the state of George and the mountains up there, and others, Gates and anyway, that's very diplomatic. I would have used different language. But but no, But but it's there's an existential question that the Republican Party is going to have to face, and it's going to determine what happens in the next couple of years. But my focus is just stay focused, focused on the things that matter. We've got to deal with the climate. We've got to deal with civil liberties and voting rights. We've got to deal with issues relating to economic growth. Look, in this period I inherited, I think it's fair to say, a gigantic mess economically and politically. Of course, we've created twelve million new jobs since I've been president, more than any presidents created in four years. We've generated so much growth. We've we've created eight hundred thousand manufacturing jobs, with the bill that became a bipartisan bill with no one thought could happen. The the Chips and Science Bill. We used to invest two percent of our GDP in research and development. That's why we're the nation we were. Well, guess what we decided to start We ended up being number eight or ten instead of number one. Well, now we're doing it again through the Chips and Science Bill. Guess what commitments for three hundred billion dollars in investments over the next ten years to build these chips. We invented the chips, we made them, We made them more sophisticated we used to be anyway. So there's so much going on that the country's hungry to move, I think, and I'm confident we can do it. It's reassuring to hear you talk about the ways young people can continue to get involved in it. You feel like they're still by partisan hope there if it's oh there is, by the way, I mean, look again, if I if we had had this conversation immediately after Trump lost, although he's not sure he did, but I told you we were going to get more done in two years, and almost any president has done period, and much of it in a bipartisan way. I think everybody would have looked at me, like, what's this guy been drinking? What's going on here? But we have, we have and I've been We've been able to the leadership of the Democratic Party's maybe ahold of Democratic Congress together, and we've picked up a few Republicans along the way, and I think it's beginning to bear fruit that it's hard to deny that it works. Speaking of young people, the Supreme Courts is considering striking down your student debt relief decision. What's the plan if that happens. Well, first of all, the concerts and scholars I've spoken to say the people challenged have no standing. Mean the court is ultimately as much as they want to rule, they're gonna, I think they're gonna have to rule that it was appropriate for what I did. Number one. Number two, if you think about it, we had this PPP program, that is the program during the pandemic. People lost their businesses because that has shut down. Restaurants closed with Bob and so we provided billions of dollars significantly more than helping students with their debt. And a number of the very people will criticize me in Congress actually got benefits in the program. You don't hear them talking about it. Right, The average student who will benefit from my student loan forgiveness program as somebody making less than seventy is seventy nine make seventy thousand dollars or less. They're just trying to get out of the hole. They're just trying to get started. They're just trying to get up and running, and so it is overwhelming the interests of the economy. It's a fair thing to do, and it's going to generate economic growth is significant. I understand them worrying. I understand. I don't know whether people realize A lot of parents realize how much of a burden is. Yeah, you get out of school, there were no jobs that you graduated because initially because of the pandemic, you got a debt that is most cases exceeding ten thousand dollars. Loan you got, or grant you got, um and uh, and it's really a gigantic burden. You want to grow the economy. You want these people being able to go out and make a down payment on a home, be able to go out and start a business, be able to go out and get be free to the debt so they can invest in things they care about. And it's just so shortsighted if you don't. I wanted to. I wanted to ask you a slightly different questions. So, um, my partner Josh and I have been engaged for the last five years, which really only means that every auntie and uncle that I have is beyond disappointed that there hasn't been a wedding yet. But but Cardi b is going to marry us apparently officiate our wedding, which would which would be nice. But my question for you, mister president, is you codified support for same sex marriage and interracial marriages like ours. I'm curious what your evolution was like on marriage equality and what the federal government might be able to do to protect LGBTQ Americans, especially trans kids who are dealing with all these regressive state laws that are popping up right now. I can remember exactly where my epiphany was. Okay, I hadn't thought much about it, tell you truth, and I was a senior in high school and I wanted to get a job being turned out. The only turned out it is only Caucasian lifeguard and the projects in the City of Wilmington, the big swimming pools, and my dad was dropping me off to go in and get an application to the city Hall and Womington the Rodney Square it's called. I remember about to get out of the car and I looked to my right and two well dressed men in suits kissed each other. I mean, they give each other a kiss, and then one went looked like it was headed to the Pump building. One looked like the head of the Hercules Corporation building. And I never forgot to turn a look to my dad. He said, Joey, it's simple. They love each other. It's simple. No, I'm not joking. It's simple. They love each other. And it's never been, it has never been. It's just that simple. And I remember, you may remember because you may have been here when I and they are last administration with Barack. I went to meet the press and they asked me about the show. I was telling them I visited the family and another state and I watched these two, this gay couple, raising two kids, and watching them running and throw their arms around daddy and so on so and I and I told I said, they said, well, what do you think Russia had asked me. I said, I think people should be able to get married married. It doesn't matter whether it's whether it's same sex or a heterosexual couple. You should be able to be married. What is the problem. So listen to your auntie and your uncle get married. Do it now, don't wait. Transgender kids is a really harder day thing. What's going on in Florida is my mother would say, close to sinful. I mean, it's just terrible what they're doing. It's not like you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, you know, I decided I want to become a man, or I want to become a woman, or I want to change. I mean, what are they thinking about here? They're human beings, they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations that are I mean it just to me is I don't know. It's cruel. And the way we do it is we make sure we pass legislation like we passed on same sex marriage. You best with that. You're breaking the law and you're gonna be home accountable. Thank you, sir. I also can tell that like some auntie or my mom probably texted you beforehand. If no, no, I'm trying to pressure me too. No, nobody get moving, man, I don't want to. I know we're unlimited time, So I just want to ask you looking ahead, Um, there are a lot of names floated. Uh, it's a crowded, crowded field. Um, who should be the next permanent host of the Daily Show? Depending how you edit this program? You? Yes, okay, that's a good answer, solid answer, solid answer. I don't think we need to edit anything. Then, thank you, mister President. Thank you for a time, and I thank you. Thank you. All right, stay tuned because when we come back, President Biden takes us inside the Oval Office. Don't go away, Welcome back to the Daily Show. Let's take it back to the White House, or as my college buddies called it when I worked there, the Side House. Now I've been fortunate enough to be in the Oval Office a few times, but today I get to bring you with me. Well welcome and place you spend some time. Thank you, sir. I have the fireplace. Never been on what I've been in here. I tell you what I have it on all the time. It's kind of humbly walking in here. I mean for real, I had my brother Jimmy come in and you know, picked the rug in the desk and all that stuff and make a long story short. And I come walking in like five o'clock on inauguration day, and I walked in. I said, geez, I said, I've never seen Frank, I'm Roosevelt, I'm admirer, but it's always George Washington. So all portrait there and Abraham Lincoln and John Meecham, the presidential historian. Jimmy had called him for some help. And he looked and he said, because no one's ever inherited a world economy and as much disarray as he had. And I said, oh, that's wonderful. And I said, well why Lincoln is said the country has never been as divided since Lincoln was president. But what I did was I wanted to be able to sit here at my desk and look out. And I only had two political heroes when I was getting involved and fell over there, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennon. I was very moron John Kenny, but I could never picture John Kenny at my kitchen table. I could kind of picture maybe. And then the two people who I were got involved engaged with us, says that our shove is because I got not involved, but I supported verbally the farm workers union they were trying to organize in Delaware when I was running as a twenty nine year old kid, and his granddaughter works for me. And then Rosa Parks, who's over here, and well, so I tried to I tried to make a kind of warm like I thought about. The other guy never showed up on an auguration day, so I didn't have to worry about it. But it's kind of neat. And the things I've done in here, like, for example, the moon rock over here. All right, I'm a huge NASA fan, a big astronomy fans. This is very cool. Well, this is cool. That's an actual moonrock and one of the you know that rover they have up there. My name is on the back with other presidents. It's really cool. But I want to show you something really cool. Come on back here. Not many people come back this way, but come on it. I think, oh yeah, not only are we seeing the Oval Office, We're also getting a rare tour of the president's private study. This is like the world's most dignified episode of MTV Cribs. By the way, does a Wyath painting by Jamie Wyath? The son, and he told me that Kennedy family didn't like him. He's made him look too contemplative, but not a smile. I know. I think it's great, but anyway, and that's the house I was raised in. His scram that's awesome, wow or as they say, scram. So I went and spoke at the Kennedy Library a couple of times. The last time I spoke there, I get handed this by Caroline Kennedy and it's that famous letter he wrote, and this is the actual copy, and it's you know, why am I going? We chose to go to the moon in this decade because that goal will serve the origins of measuring by the best of us and it goes on or not. Well, that's I mean, the just even that top line, no prejudice, no hate in outer space and go. I don't know if you have any tattoos. I've got some from the Nassa Voyager, which was launched in seventy seven, the Golden Record, which had you know, science, music, art, but no politics, no war, no religion, none of the things that divide us. And so it's just the idea of hope through exploration. Unfortunately, before the President showed me all of his tattoos, it was time to go. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your time and thank you so much for the stories and the Oval tour. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back after this. That's our shelf for tonight. But before we go, please consider supporting the Magic City Acceptance Center. They're a nonprofit dedicated to providing an inclusive space for the LGBTQ plus community in Alabama. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show wherever you get your podcast. What's the Daily Show nights at eleven tenth Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus. 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