The Daily Show: Ears EditionSCOTUS Ruling Makes Bribing Easier | Sharon Lerner
Michael Kosta reports on the highs and lows of yesterday’s primaries, the Supreme Court’s ruling that makes it easier for politicians to accept bribes as “tips,” and AI’s effect on the music industry as record labels scramble to protect their artists from fake tunes. Plus, a helium-leaking spaceship from Boeing has left two astronauts stranded, and Ronny Chieng joins with updates from the ISS. Then, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog sits down with a group of undecided voters and tries a handful of tactics to get them to make up their damn minds, from sandwich comparisons to Cheesecake Factory metaphors. And ProPublica reporter Sharon Lerner sits down to discuss her latest piece in collaboration with The New Yorker on 3M’s use and concealment of forever chemicals.
You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists.
At Comedy Central, It's America's only source for new this It's The Daily.
Joke with your host Michael Costum.
Right.
Yes, welcome to the Daily Show, DJ. Michael Kosta.
We've got so much to talk about tonight. The squad is down a man, the Supreme Court is cool with bribery, and a special appearance from Triumph, the insult comic dog.
Let's get into the headlines.
Let's kick things off with the primaries yesterday. In New York, progressive Jamal Bowman lost reelection to his opponent Money, and in Colorado, Congresswoman Lauren Bolbert won despite being caught fondling her date at Beetlejuice the Musical last year.
But what can I say?
In the end, she won this race handily. I guess she's just really good at work in the base.
Hand job.
But the biggest politics news of the day didn't come from the primaries. It came from the Supreme Court, who just made it even easier to bribe elected official sorry tip elected officials.
Breaking news from Washington, the United States Supreme Court has overturned the high profile bribery conviction of former Indiana mayor James Snyder. In a six to three opinion, the Court rule that gifts to public officials can only be considered illegal bribes if they're given before the official act, not after.
Justice Kavanaugh wrote that it was not a crime for politicians to quote accept gratuities that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act.
So if you give a politician money before they do a favor, it's a bribe. But if you give it to them after, the Supreme Court says it's a gratuity because they think I'm an idiot. I mean, seriously, a gratuity tipping culture is already out of control. I gotta tip at the coffee shops. I gotta tip at the dry cleaner. I gotta tip when I get takeout, even though I picked it up and I took it out.
That's why they call it takeout.
Okay, fine, fine, But if my state senator turns that little screen around on me, I'm gonna.
Lose my mind. All Right, I'm still gonna give.
Twenty percent, but I'm gonna be pissed about it. It seems like every few months the Supreme Court makes it easier and easier to bribe government officials. And I don't know why they would do that, but as soon as Clarence Thomas gets back from the Maldives, we can ask them. Let's move on to the tech world and talk about artificial intelligence. AI is everywhere these days, which is interesting because it also sucks. You know, it gives me bad Google searches, it gives me fake Amazon products, It keeps generating images of women with six fingers when I very clearly said I wanted six nipples. But the tech companies won't stop shoving it down our throats because they need something new to sell to us because we didn't go for the metaverse or self driving cars or those weird cyborg helmets. So now I can't sit on a toilet without it being like, hey, let AI flush your poop for you. I mean, sometimes it shoves the poop back up your butt. But it's getting better, and some AI companies are now offering songs made by AI.
But now that people who actually make music, they're fighting back. The world's biggest.
Record labels are teaming up to sue two prominent AI music making companies, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are among the companies that filed lawsuits against the AI companies.
The lawsuits accused the companies of illegally using cup righted sound recordings to train their AI, raising concerns about the impact on artists rights and earnings.
In a statement, SUNO's chief executive defended his company's products, saying that it's quote designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize or regurgitate pre existing content.
Oh all right, Well, if the chief executive of the AI company said they're not stealing, that's good enough for me. And if the songs it's creating are completely new, then we're good.
So let's move on.
You know what, maybe it's better to listen to one of these songs, you know, just to see.
Lawyers for the record labels wrote the prompt sixties British rock male voice by a band that rhymes with the Smeedles. Since the generators do not allow naming specific artists, still, the record labels say the AI generator spit out a Beatles song.
Imagine that's no headen, It's easy if you try.
Wow, that was supposed to be a completely new song. Those are the exact words to imagine. The AI could have at least used it thesaurus. Don't you think envision? There's no heaven. It's easy if you endeavor to Who wants this? Who wants this? I got AI to create a brand new song for me. Why there's no shortage of music? Did you finish Spotify? I mean, but I can make a brand new Taylor Swift song. She drops a double album every two weeks. We don't need it. But the song does bring up an important question, which is should AI be involved in art?
And the answer is no, it shouldn't.
We need to decide as a society that AI it's not allowed to make art. Okay, it can help make an elevator go faster or analyze medical data, that's fine, but leave art to human artists because.
Yeah, human artists.
They have the things that computers will never have, terrible parents, right, and that motivates great art. The bottom line is, no matter how good AI gets, it'll never need to prove that it's just as deserving of love as its sister who.
Went to medical school.
Moving on to a story that is truly out of this world, and it's going to stay out of this world considerably longer than it would like.
The return of Boeing Starliner and its crew has been delayed again. Veteran astronautx Witch Wilmore and Sonny Williams were only supposed to be up in orbit for a week. They've now been up there for about a month, if you can believe it. As NASA and Boeing investigate helium leaks and thruster issues on the Starliner spacecraft.
Just hours after Starliner's June fifth launch came the first sign of trouble.
Starliner, looks like we picked up a couple more helium leaks.
All right, we're.
Ready to capy and find out exactly what you mean by picked up another helium leak. This guy's very chill considering his spaceship has sprung a leak. If my wife called me to say, oh, we've got a few fire situations at the house, I don't think I'd be like, copy, let's chat when you've got some more details about whatever that means. Just so you know, there's no real danger to these astronauts. They're gonna be fine. But leaky pipe. That's such a boring earth thing to go wrong. You know, once you're in space. You should be dealing with problems like a quantum overload in the di lithium crystals, not a leaky pipe. That's something you call the super for, you know what. That's probably why it's taken so long to fix. They called for the super and NASA was like, sorry, he's a little busy. We can send his son now. Tomorrow's fine. Tomorrow's fine either way. I hope they can fix this. Imagine if the helium leaks got really bad and they had to say goodbye to their families.
Like, tell my wife I love her.
Life is so precious.
How am I going to do the rest of the act now? But good luck to the astronauts. Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams. Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams, who I'm confident will figure this out because they have incredible astronaut names, don't they.
Does NASA's screen for that kind of thing.
They're like, well, your physics scores are the highest we've ever seen, but unfortunately we just can't put a Braden.
On the moon.
Sorr.
I'm getting a little dizzy right now.
By the way, you heard right that spaceship it's made by Boeing. Jesus Christ, it must be so embarrassing to work at Boeing. Right now, the engineers are meeting people at parties like oh me, no, I'm Diddy's publicists. For more on the situation at the International Space Station. Let's go are live with Ronnie Chang.
Wow, we're floating.
You'll floating, Ronnie, you're embedded with the cool What is the mood up there?
Like Ronnie?
It's fine, Costa. Everyone needs to calm down. Okay, this isn't the Mets. These people are professionals. Yeah, okay, they well a couple of leaks, but they all fixed and we'll be back on Earth soon.
That's great.
That's great news and perfect timing because the Trump Biden debate is tomorrow and we need you back to watch the whole thing.
Oh right, the debates on tomorrow.
Yeah, they're very very excited for that.
Oh oh wait, what's that? What did you say?
Real astronaut right over there? Oh well, Michael, they just discovered a new leak. It's going to take exactly what more day to fix it.
That's terrible news. I mean that means you'll miss the debate.
Oh I know, I know, I really wanted to cover two men trying to out dementia each other. But but unfortunately, now I have to stay up here and eat that cool astronat ice dream.
Oh no, that's okay.
I mean, you know, you'll be back in plenty of time to report at the convention.
So that's good. Uh huh uh huh great, awesome, awesome. Oh shit, Michael has Man, No, no malfunction.
It looks like the anti meta crypto wi Fi is down. Probably don't take a couple of months to fix whatever that was.
Oh my god, Ronnie, that's that's terrible.
I know, I'm so bummed. I really wanted to be in Chicago in the summer with the team, but.
I guess we'll have to be.
Up here until then, right, you know, just take all the time you need, and you'll be back in time for the rest of the campaign season. Lots of opportunities to report on Trump and Biden. Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, I mean, Alien and I.
Have taken over the ship.
We'll take Ronnie exactly six months to defeat me. Leave him alone and send potato chips.
Ronnie, all right, that's obviously a sock puppet.
If you don't want to come back, just say so, I don't want to come back.
I Ronnie chang everyone and we come back triumph.
The inn thought pilot, pot of alone, don't go away.
Welcome back to the Daily Show.
You know, as crazy as it might seem, there's still a lot of voters who aren't sure with it to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden, so we sent a special correspondent to interview some of them.
All right, welcome to our focused group of undie sided voters. Thank you for coming to our marketing research offices. I want to stress that there is nobody masturbating behind this two way mirror, no matter what you hear.
So, as undecided, let's go.
Around the room. Tell us your name and what your problem is.
We've never had worse choices. In my opinion, I.
Don't like either candidates, same as other people said. I'm not really crazy about either candidates.
Okay, I see some of you feel you need more information about the candidates, and I get it.
We know so little about.
Trump and Biden apart from their campaign issues, their actions as president, their handling of the global pandemic, their criminal indictments whom they've showered with and a very detailed description of Trump's penis from a former porn star.
But we still don't know.
Okay, if you're leaning towards Biden, please raise your hand. If you're leaning towards Biden, if you're leaning towards Trump, raise your hand. Okay, raise it at the forty five degree angle. Please, little straighter, don't pend the elbow. That's good. It's a Hitler joke, you see, because you support a fascist.
We're having fun. Okay, raise your hand.
If you feel like voters are easily manipulated. Who doesn't think so? Okay, now lower your hands. Okay, now raise them again. Okay, now lower them again. Raise them up one more time. Raise both hands, now lower one. Now, everyone say I cannot be manipulated. Which candidate would you have a beer? Which candidate would you go to a baseball game with.
Trump?
Which candidate would you let each sugar cubes out of your hand? Why? More gummy, less likely to bite you? Which candidate would you want to be behind in a human centipede? And keep in mind, no matter what you answer, we will all think you're disgusting. Okay, this is tough, guys, I mean I sent you find yourselves undecided about a lot of things.
My problem is I'm not sure which one's going to die first. Thomas.
I just have to ask, why are you struggling with this decision when you had no problem deciding to leave the barbershop with those sidebolates. Seriously, it's like my mom always used to say, shit or get off the lawn. It's your civic duty.
Would you agree with that? Yes?
What is your gut? I mean, other than seatbelts do not come in my size.
I can't trust Biden or Trump? Okay, I bet you.
I like RFK RFK junior interesting, also known as the evidence that the candidates.
For each other.
Okay, maybe this will help you, guys decide between the candidates. Here are two sandwiches, all right. One is old and moldy and the other has chlamydia. Raise your hand if you're eating the sandwich on its deathbed, or raise your left hand if you want the sandwich that we have on tape using the N word.
Okay, they're having their first debate.
Do you hope the moderators will ask Trump and Bind the really tough questions like do you know where you are?
And can you breathe? On this mirror. They're probably gonna call out each other on stuff.
Both sides are constantly saying this is the end of democracy.
Both sides agree.
So maybe instead of worrying about all this voting stuff, we should just decide on an escape plan. Does anyone have a bunker? Thomas, you look like you already live underground? Will the other more people mind if we crash? It was time to switch tactics. Perhaps if they practiced making any kind of decision, it would prepare them for November. We've all been given cheesecake factory menus to share. Now take a look at them and make a choice.
You can do this.
I'm crazy.
I know what I usually get. Ask if I calmer, I usually get chickens. All right, you know what, forget it? Forget it. I knew that wouldn't work at this stage.
There was only one option left. Look, you guys have barely given me anything, So I'm just gonna to tell you who you're voting for. Daryl, you're going to miss election day because there weren't any reminders on porn hub. Pauline, you want a safer, brighter future for your children, so you're gonna move to Ukraine.
Thomas.
I think you should just stay home. This is a big, one, very important election. We need you to sit it out.
And mark.
Whatever you decide, I recommend you listen to your heart, or at least let a medical professional listen to you. Thank you all for being here.
We've learned a lot.
We'll see you in four years when you can't decide between voting for AOC or Kyle Rittenhouse.
Thank your trial.
When we come back, Sharon Lerno will join me on the show if you don't go away.
Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is a pro public.
Reporter whose recent article, in collaboration with The New Yorker, investigates three M's use of forever chemicals.
Please welcome Sharon Lerner. How are you all right? Thank you for coming.
Thank you for writing this piece. This is a testament to investigative journalism. How long does it take to write this piece?
Well, it took about a year, a little more than a year. But I was doing other things in the middle.
What exactly are forever chemicals? What did three M do? What were you uncovering in this piece?
So I was writing about forever chemicals, which are p fasts. Is the name of the compounds, and basically they're called forever chemicals because they last forever in the environment and they accumulate in your body.
And we all knew.
We've known for a while that three M made these chemicals, and I have been reporting on them for a while. What was new with this story was that someone who had worked in the company came to me and offered to tell me her story, and it ended up shedding terrible light really on the company and on the delay, the decades of delay for them to reveal the truth of what was going on.
She was testing blood and.
Was finding that everyone's blood had forever chemicals in it, and how did three M respond to her research?
Right?
So she ended up she was asked by her boss to test all these blood samples, and these were samples of blood from the general public. So she starts testing them, and she keeps finding trace amounts of this chemical PFOS, which was made by her employer in everyone's blood. It's not supposed to be there, right, right, And then she tests different parts of the country, she tests animals, and she finally brings her results to her boss, and in response, her superiors were not happy with her.
Work.
She thought they would be happy you found.
This amazing thing.
She's a scientist, Yeah, she's a scientist. She's in the environmental lab. That's her job, right, And in fact, what they ended up doing was questioning her and saying, this can't be right, and your equipment is probably messed up, and why don't you repeat the experiment? And eventually what she finds is that there is another chemist at the company who had discovered the same thing in nineteen seventy five, so decades earlier.
And I what you you talked about in the article. But part of what solidified her belief in her research was she actually tested old bloody wasn't what was that?
So she's been she's testing all these samples from around the country and they all contained pfos, And her bosses start saying, oh, you think.
You get pfas, you get PFOA, you get it. It's like we all got it.
Yeah, And they start saying, are you sure, because maybe you just think it's everywhere right, you just are delusional basically, And then she ends up testing a sample from rural China and an old sample, right, and it was the first one she tested that didn't have any of the chemical in it.
Wow, and she realized here.
It is, Yeah, someone in ruled China who's probably dead at this point, doesn't have forever chemicals in their blood.
And then she ended up testing someone a war veteran who the blood sample was from nineteen fifty seven before at Scotch Guard enter the market.
So let's talk about that.
What what are forever chemicals in You mentioned Scotch Guard, right.
So initially they were in Scotch Guard, which is this coating for fabrics.
And carpets, yeah, and carpet couches.
And then they had also a product that was for food packaging and it was also in firefighting foam, and that was the beginning. Now I cannot name all the products that it's in thousands, really, and you know the companies say they're in every car and cell phone, they're in makeup, they're in everything. And you know three M put out a little spreadsheet in twenty twenty two of just their products that contain pfas and it had more than sixteen thousand.
I love that they put out a spreadsheet in twenty twenty two. And they've known about this since nineteen seventy five, So fifty years later, super helpful. Do you when you start digging into this, When you start digging into this, do you ever just want to go.
I don't want to hear about that.
Well, you know, when I dig into this, what I want to do is tell people. And that's why I'm here, you know, right, Yeah, I mean it is utterly depressing, but I think it would be slightly more depressing not to report on it.
Well, yeah, I mean your article triggered my awareness and then I remember the Mark Ruffalo movie Darkwater, and then I remembered I looked you up and you had written about this even before that, and it's like, holy shit, we got to pay.
Attention to this stuff.
You know, I have a four year old daughter, and I often am trying to tell her to stop being so pushy. Right, hey, chill, you can't keep pushing back, pushing back. But then I meet you and I read this, and I heard you say that you've got to be pushy to dig in and fight against three M that made fourteen billion dollars last year.
Am I a shitty parent?
Well, to be an investigative journalist, you do have to be kind of pushy. So it depends on whether you're wants to be an investigative journalist or not.
I mean, you're you're we're going not just putting your pants out at this point.
So yeah, I mean you have to find out things that people don't want you to know. And so you know, so with this story, you know the response I got from three AM when I was writing about this in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, you know, it's this is you know, yeah, you know it's totally different from the story I got from someone who is on the inside. And it only took me nine years, right, right?
Is there.
Something that you do now differently in your life? A habit knowing what you know? Are you not drinking water out of the hose like we did in Michigan growing? I mean, is there just something beid because look, a single American citizen taking on three M or DuPont.
Because three AM is not the only company with these grips.
You know what, what can what can you tell me that that that I can do or you can do besides being aware, which is a positive step, it is yeah.
And you know it is so widespread now, as you said, it's some tons of products and some water all over the place, so I don't actually, I mean I don't use nonstick pants and that kind of thing that's easy, or microwave popcorn that's easy.
Don't use microwave popcorn.
You know.
And I have to say, I don't know how it's been if it's been reformulated recently, but that was one of the original things that it was in.
I'm sticking by what I said earlier.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, as an environmental reporter, a lot of things, you know, horrify me. I would say, actually, the my reporting on plastics maybe left me with more of a you know, change my habits, so like I don't use single use plastic because you cannot.
And my my question is flawed to you because it always find I always finding capitalism the onus goes on us.
Yeah, right, like hey Sharon, why are you using that plastic bottle?
And it's like, well, I assume what's on the shelf is safe for me, and that's not a safe assumption. And does does our government step in on this?
Where? Where where are they on this? Well?
Yeah, there are a lot of government failures here in this story. One is that when the three m ended up giving in studies that they had done in nineteen seventy five, nineteen eighty. They finally gave them all to the EPA in the late nineties and two thousand, so that's you know, two and a half decades after they did them. You're supposed to have had this give it in immediately if you see that there's evidence of it real harm. So they were fined one and a half million dollars and what they made on.
That I met. I make that a week.
But like the in the year that they faced the chemical they made three hundred million dollars was on the market. So it makes no sense, so we have to make it. Actually, there have to be consequences for companies that do this kind of thing.
Well, you mentioned the e p A and there was a you know, there was a new I forget guideline that they've set up recently, and this has to do with forever chemicals.
And we're using that.
You in the in the article use the term p fos, right, but that can mean a lot of different.
Well, p fas is the class of compounds. So and the one chemical that Chris who was talking about was discovering was PFOS that's one chemical in this class. It's called pfs the class there are thousands, right, So pfos is not made anymore, but it's still in the drinking water. And EPA recently said drinking water limits for pfos and pfo A fabulous, great, very great. The only problem is one they're no longer made. But there are thousands of chemicals in this class and we've only gotten you know, a couple so.
And it's in New York City drinking water. I mean, it's in everyone's drinking water, you know. And yeah, and now the challenges local cities are going to have to find a way to pay for filtering this out right right.
And there is just a big suit, a big settlement with three M where they're going to pay twelve and a half billion dollars. And you think, oh, that's a lot of money, and it's not when you have to actually remove these chemicals from water everywhere.
Environmental crime. That's a new term that I recently heard. And when I read your piece, I said, this is environmental crime. Three M has committed assault in US, maybe murder depending on the classification.
Has anyone at three M And are there anybody in trouble.
No, No, not in a criminal way. Love this story, you know, it's just yeah, yeah, not in a criminal way.
But I like the way you put that.
It is it is a crime, right, I mean part of the reason I think it's a crime is because we weren't given any choice in the matter. Right, So nobody said, in exchange for this beautiful, stained free couch, We're going to put a toxic chemical in your body and leave it there forever.
It wasn't like that.
It was here's this product, and we know this thing we're not telling you. So it's like bodily trespass really like there. I mean, these chemicals are in infants when they're born, before they're born.
Right.
One of the saddest and scariest parts was when in the article you talk about and this is going to be really sad, but how women actually finally showed that they had less forever chemicals in their body. But that was after they gave birth, because they passed it on to their child. Yeah, right, So this is this is a problem.
What can you leave us with? Everybody here is now newly aware.
Should we call all our congress people, Should we stop plastic?
Should we well I.
Mean, here's something, here's something really focused I could do like fokus the entire audience. I mean, so one of the crazy things is that pfas are still being new ones are still being introduced, So we still have dozens that are being used, but they're still introducing new ones. That is like that seems bananas to me, and that seems like a very focused point that we could you do something that.
Yeah, thank you very much for writing this article, thank you for coming on the Daily Show and talking with us.
You make me sick.
Is available online at The New Yorker and Pro Publica Sharon Lerner.
We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back after this. That's our show for tonight.
Don't forget to do it tomorrow night at eleven, when John Stewart's back at the desk to cover the President's debate live now here.
It is your moment of zen.
This is not a president of grievance. This is a president who is showing joy, showing a sense of humor. He's rallying the crowd and I say this term again, the happy warrior. He's like Popeye with two cans of spinach, and it's working for him.
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