SCOTUS Torches Trump's Tariffs, Iran War Looms & MAGA Co-opts Team USA Hockey Win

This episode is brought to you by Ninja Lux Cafe, the three-in-one machine that makes a espresso, drip coffee, and cold brew. No worries to skills required. You're listening to Comedy Central! From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for new. This is The Daily Show with your home, Go On Door! [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] Hey everybody, welcome! Welcome to The Daily Show! My God, I'm John Stewart. We have got a phenomenal show for tonight. A author, professor Michelle Dickerson is going to be our guest tonight, very delighted to have everyone in the show. [Applause] But first, let me give it up for the staff and crew who were able to make it in here tonight. [Applause] To put on a program and I'm not going to forget you guys and our audience. [Applause] Made it out tonight. Clearly our audience tonight have gone the wrong way on the decision tree. Delighted, they're here. Should we risk life and limb to it? If we show, we could see on TV and just a few hours in our homes. Why not go out in this hip-breaking weather? You know, I don't know if you guys in the audience notice, but it's not way outside. It's bad out there. I mean, this blizzard made it nearly impossible for even weather people to take selfies. Or even be seen. I mean, when the plows get stuck, the plow got stuck. That's, you know, I commute this way. This is how I always commute taunt taunt. [Applause] By the way, under Zoraan Mamdani, taunt taunts are free. The rise is free. [Applause] And we have a fresh layer of two feet to cover all the taunt taunt shit in the streets. We were this close in New York City to having the snow and the dog shit gone. Like this close. And then God was like, you know what New York City needs? Well, I'll lay it a cover the dog shit. But let's get to the big news of the week. As you know, tomorrow night is President Donald Jar Jar Trump's big state of the Union speech. But no matter what Trump says, folks, it's not going to change how we in this country are feeling. This country is in such emotional turmoil right now. The government sanctioned an executed violence in Minnesota, the rank corruption and profiteering of elected officials and their families. The fact that the government has manufactured outrage over God forbid an American performing at halftime in the Super Bowl in Spanish. It's a feeling that we are one nation divided under siege. That perhaps we've crossed a Rubicon. That's a great American experiment. And that we slowly and inexorably are sliding into the abyss of fallen and broken democracies. But then, like a cross of pop, the new switch-up, the ball didn't go for the United States. Oh! What? We're back, Mother F***er! I know the powerful elites remain unaccountable, but he put their thing behind that other guy. This country would sink it into us as poor we can't recover from, but the vulcanized rubber desk went past the Lord of the net. It was so unifying. There is nothing that can take away from the joyous moment as all Americans celebrate this incredible. what the f***? Is that FBI director Cas Patel? Why is our FBI. and why are they putting a metal around the neck of FBI director? Is Cas Patel a make-a-wish? Man, is that what this is? How did. why is that. I mean, I'm not. and I'm not trying to diminish his condition. Listen, there is currently no cure for crazy eyes. Crazy eyes! For when you want to turn every picture into some sort of meth-fueled mugshot. Are you telling me I was going '90 and '35? But I gotta tell you, Maga especially is going crazy for the victory. American pride, power, and patriotism on full display. This is time for America, not you whining little clown. Masculinity and celebration. What are things that have been completely and totally sanitized from our arch-feminist culture or estrogenetic culture? First of all, what a super weird year hockey is having. And in four months to go from nobody gives a shit about hockey to. well, I like to watch them f***. To only hockey can save us from a dystopian, extra-genetic future. Perhaps the strangest part is how this victory in a hockey match is being perceived on the right geopolitically. Gotta go all the way back to 1980 when we defeated the Soviets. This felt just as sweet because I guess since we don't have Russia to kick around anymore, Canada will do. They're practically con-renous and they're co-zing up to the challenge. Yeah, hockey is all that they have and we took that opportunity. That's all they got. What's with the sore-winning? Why are we such dicks? And by the way, don't we in America have enough real enemies? Now we gotta pretend like Canada's way of life is in Congress to the West? Yeah, f*** those completely best neighbors our nation has ever had. I think we had like a little fight about beaver pelts in like 1789. Since then, it's most sailing. But for more on Team USA's victory over Canada, what it means, we go live to Desi Lydek! (Cheering) Desi, who's victory, great victory. But they're making this thing out to be some kind of miracle on ice. Yeah, 'cause it is! Woo! We did it, John! USA! USA! Canada got con-napped in the face by the red-white and blue! Yeah, no, it certainly was a great victory for the US hockey team. No doubt, it was. Yeah, but not just the hockey team, John. Same way we defeated communism and the miracle on ice, this victory proves that our system of government is far superior to Canada's. As they say in hockey, game set and match. (Laughter) It's not a hockey term, so. Offsides, get the rebound. Okay, what about. I just don't know if our political systems are really all that different from Canada's. Are you kidding me? Our democracy separates executive power from the legislature with the president appointed by an electoral college. While their democracy appoints an executive based on the outcome of which governing party has the majority and as we learned on the ice yesterday, that system sooooooood! The system seems actually pretty similar. I mean, don't both the US and Canada buy camera-ill legislatures? Yes, but American senators are elected while Canadian senators are appointed. Just like how Canada got appointed to our knots, boo! (Laughter) It kinda came out of nowhere. Comprehensive and filthy, does he? No, thank you. Here's another. In America, we have electoral districts, but in Canada, they call their districts "writings" which is fitting because Team Canada was Rodnor Nots! (Laughter) Please stop saying "nots." I will not. I will not. And by the way, another reason we're better. America's Congress has a sergeant at arms, but the Canadian Parliament has an usher of the Black Rod and speaking of ushering of the Black Rod. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, I didn't like where that was going. Same way the Canadians didn't like where my knots were going, boo! Come on, all right, all right, just don't encourage us. (Applause) The cold weather has changed them. Look, the game didn't change the fact that Canadians still have a better healthcare system than we did. Yes, okay, I thought so too, until I saw the scoreboard for Prophet Healthcare 1, Universal Canadian Healthcare 0, you were so. No, but that doesn't even, that wasn't even the final score. What was the final score? Did you even watch the game? I watched these knots! No, I did not watch the game. So, why are you celebrating in the team's locker room? Oh, I'm not Milan. I'm at a planet fitness. Oh my god, anything to get away from my family on a snow day. Please. Does he like it, everybody? (Applause) And there you go. (Applause) So, there you have it folks. We have defeated our new enemy Canada on the ice and vanquished them to the penalty box of history. Now America can live in a golden era, peace, prosperity. The United States could be on the brink of war with Iran. What the f***? They don't even skate. (Laughter) What possible conflict could we have with people in street shoes? Is this real? The drumbeat of a possible war with Iran growing louder. The largest assembly of US forces in the Middle East that we've seen in years. One reporter saying we are days away from strikes. Days away from war. Usually when we get in a war in the Middle East, there's a Marty Supreme-level press rollout. Months and months of endless promotion, interviews, manufactured intelligence. They got weapons of mass destruction, shwap! (Laughter) Until finally we act we ask to the war just in the hopes that the selling of it will stop. And because it seems vaguely charming. But this war, one day it's nothing. And the next day we filled their waterway with giant ships. Why? What's the urgency? Spencer Arndtoy, Steve Whitkopf has this warning about Iran's nuclear power. They're probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material. Oh my god. An atomic bomb by Monday? Oh shit, when was this interview taped? Did they already have the bomb? Is it five business days to the bomb? Do Muslims get weekends? Do they work through? I gotta say a week away from having the material for a nuclear bomb. I'm a little surprised to hear that. You know, I found I remembered someone saying something about that nation's nuclear program being. (Bam) What was the word I was looking for? Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. (Bam) (Laughter) I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. That's right. I remember Trump saying we totally obliterated their nuclear program. And yelling at people who questioned it, which makes me wonder how obliterated wasn't. It was obliterated like nobody's ever seen before. (Laughter) So the kind of obliteration that somehow re-bliterates? Almost immediately? Yes, no one has ever seen that before. We have obliterated that building. The building we are currently standing on? Yes, that is good. So is our plan now to re-obliterate their nuclear program every few months? Or is there a longer term strategy? Taking the Armada to offshore Iran is to put pressure on Iran first and foremost to come to the table to negotiate around nuclear weapons. Oh, I see. The old Karen stick. Our peace through strength will force Iran to make. Let's call it an Iran nuclear deal. I think I remember that phrase. From when we made a nuclear deal with Iran, what about that? I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Oh, right. Trump obliterated it. So just to be clear, Donald Trump is on the brink of war with Iran to either obliterate the program Trump had previously obliterated or to force them into signing a deal like the one Trump had pulled out of. It's all in chapter 9 of Art of the Deal eating your own asshole. (Laughter) You all. (Applause) You best say. You best say. (Laughter) Is that how Hitler started? It was a USA. It's something people were just like, "U.S.A. USA." But obviously there is no more solemn response, I say it away, into it's more serious. But obviously, (Laughter) There is no more solemn responsibility for the President of the United States than the decision he makes to put Americans in harm's way through armed conflict. So as the President recently took to the podium this burden of history clearly heavily weighing on his soul. I made a speech at a factory. They made steel products. And I said, "How are you nice to meet you? How's business? President? I'd love to kiss you." This is a very powerful man. I don't want to be kissed by that man. (Laughter) You can always tell when a story is true. When it contains a character who refers to Trump as, quote, "President." (Laughter) "Just president." "Not President Trump, not Mr. President. Just president." But I'm sorry, I interrupted your story. President. What else did this very real person say to you? You said, "Sir, I want to kiss you so badly." And I said, "No, thank you." (Laughter) Yes, yes. All the steelworkers want to kiss you and your unbelievably f***able tariffs. We'll read all about it in the official history of your presidency, team of heated rivals. (Laughter) As America stands on the precipice of armed conflict with Iran, Donald Trump is single-mindedly focused on preserving his wildly unpopular tariffs. That somebody finally had the balls to say were illegal. After months of anticipation, the Supreme Court today ruling that the President Trump's sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unconstitutional. (Laughter) Wow, a court composed mostly of his own parties appointees has struck down the constitutionality of Trump's Go-To-Lone tariff regime. That's bound to cause him some introspection. They're just being fools and lapdogs for the rhinos. They also are a frankly decreased to a nation, those justices. They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our constitution. I think it's an embarrassment to their families. You want to know the truth. (Laughter) When a guy who had sex with a porn star right after his wife had given birth tells you, "You're an embarrassment to your family." I think you have to take that seriously. But the Supreme Court didn't come to this decision rashly. The Supreme Court took months to make this decision they had or arguments back in November. They took ten months working through all the phony legal issues associated with this case trying to thread some type of needle. Lots of nuanced legal issues that the court has to thoroughly consider. The court put in the work. And that's why this decision will stand the test of. President Trump doubling down on his trade policy saying that he will raise global tariffs of 15%. Motherf***er! (Laughter) We had him! You know what he gets away? Like the roadrunner? We got you! Me me pfft! (Laughter) It's so disperiding! You know what we need? We need one of them stuffed comfort monkeys that poor punch has. (Laughter) Poor punch. (Laughter) Although I know it's a threat. But clearly there is probably something wrong with that f***ing monkey. I don't- Please! I say this! (Laughter) (Laughter) Hear me out. I understand and it's adorable. And he's breaking by heart. But that being said, who are we to question the wisdom of the trial? No! I'm just saying they're the ones that know him best. They've decided he's problematic. (Laughter) What the f*** oh! You know better! You know monkeys better than the monkeys. Is that it? All the little monkey experts all decided in the middle of a blizzard to come here tonight. And. Let me tell you something. Who? No! F*** all y'all! We to question their lived experience for our power social attack. I mean look, they decided the mom, the elders, the juniors, even that f***ing stuffed monkey looks like, hey, I don't want to be here. I could be living the life of Riley in a nice bedroom in Westchester. Instead I'm being dragged through the gravel in the middle of Ichikawa. (Laughter) I'm sorry, I'm standing by this. So sometimes it's going to go for fun to me. That's just what happens. (Applause) And by the way, oh, it's all cute now. But when puberty comes, that is not going to be a happy stuffed monkey. Trust me! Trust me! (Laughter) It's comfort now! But he's waifin it later. Trust me! How dare you people substitute your wisdom for those other monkeys? (Laughter) I was doing this all weekend, my wife was going to be so mad at me. All weekend I just kept going. But there's got to be something wrong with the monkey, right? Not funny! Anyway, the point is, folks. (Laughter) We're on the brink of war with the role. (Applause) I got to work on the segment. I'm sorry. Okay, we're on the brink of war with the Ron. The point is, folks, we're on the brink of war with the Ron. Russia still bombs Ukraine with impunity. And yet Trump is out there kissing dudes over tariffs and saving his most vicious rhetoric for our own Supreme Court. Can the State of the Union get any more surreal? President Trump mystified a lot of people over the weekend when he announced a U.S. hospital ship was on its way to Greenland. What?! Greenland doesn't need a hospital ship. Maybe I universal healthcare. We need a hospital ship! Where's our hospital ship? (Applause) But like, most things Trump, it's even stupider than that! Both of the American hospitals, Mercy and Comfort, are out of commission. Under repair, Comfort isn't even in the water. (Laughter) Look, I'm no expert, both Kai. But they are supposed to be in the water, yes? What are we doing? We're trolling Denmark. We're going to war with the Ron. We're abandoning Ukraine. We're charging everybody 15% more. We're pushing away our closest neighbors, ostracizing ourselves from the entire. Oh my God. We're punch. (Laughter) America has gone from being a shining city on a hill to being the weird smelly monkey nobody wants to play with. (Laughter) I think that's why they don't want to play, I don't know why. But I don't know if you can make a stuffed monkey big enough for all of America to f*ck. He is f*cking that monkey. We come back, Michelle Dickerson. We'll be joining you in the field of South Carolina. 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It's a natural way to support the body's usable testosterone levels as a part of a 2026 health reset. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at mengo-demars.com. It's a perfect way to kick off the New Year's Strong. That's mengo-demars.com, for 50% off and three free gifts at checkout. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. [Applause] What about the daily show, my guests tonight? Thank you. My guests tonight, a University of Texas Law Professor and author of the Middle Class New Deal, restoring upward mobility in the American Dreamfields Web, into the program, Michelle Dickerson. [Applause] [Applause] By the way, for some odd reason, tonight's audience in the middle of a blizzard packed with Texas people. [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen, there's been some sort of weird nonverbal communication between the Texas people. I don't know if that is a call to violence or perhaps camaraderie. But isn't that odd? You came out, and by the way, thank you for coming in a little early because of the weather and all that. We really miss it for the world. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to hear this is such music to my ears, this book. A middle class New Deal. I want to talk about one of the misunderstandings maybe about our middle class. It wasn't just happenstance that created the middle class. It wasn't just the invisible hand that did it. Government really played a role. So walk us through a little bit of that. Well, I would even say they played a role they created it. Our political leaders after the Depression and World War II decided, do we really want to bring back all of the servicemen because it was mostly man at the time into an economy that had barely recovered from the Depression. And so they made the conscious decision to create the middle class. It didn't just, since I have a lot of Texans here, it didn't just crop up like weeds in a field after a Texas storm. It's there because we created it. So let me just translate it quickly. It didn't just pop up like a bagel store. That's it. But that's exactly right. And there were little things that I found so interesting. Prior to the New Deal, if you wanted to buy a house, you couldn't get a 30-year mortgage that was amortized. And you had to put down 50% or even more to even get in the game. And not only could you not get a 30-year mortgage, they didn't exist. And so when everyone sits around now talking about, well, you know, homeownership, you ought to be able to buy. Well, when people had to put down 50% and you had maybe a five to ten-year repayment period, very few people could own a home. And so Congress allowed banks to create the 15-30-year mortgage, which is why I argue in the book and when I talk about it, that if Congress wanted to fix the problems that are going on now, if they wanted to restore the middle class, they could. Because they created the middle class with things like, you know, creating a 15-30-year mortgage. Now, is it that the programs that we have now are not sufficient to do it or that we shifted the way we do it? So now they might say, well, so in this day, establish what the Federal Housing Authority. Now, let's also be clear, these programs were for almost exclusively white people. Right. Which is why we see such a gap in wealth and equity that still exists. Yeah, homeownership gap, it's been basically 25% gap between white home, white homeownership rates and black home forever. Right. And also the wealth gap is largely driven by the lack of housing wealth in most black households. Right. And by the way, that's because of, again, not the free market. That was a manipulated market as well. You talk about breadlining and blackbusting. Well, and that, and the other thing is you couldn't be approved for the FHA guaranteed 15-30-year mortgages. And so if you can't get the mortgage loan, which is cheap, it amortizes, then you're stuck in the really bad private market, which means that you pay too much. And then you live in a neighborhood where your homes aren't going to appreciate and value as much because, you know, up until the 1960s, '70s racism was legal. I mean, our laws allow-- The recoverance even when it wasn't explicitly legal, there'd be homeowner association comments. Exactly. Yeah. That would say you can't sell your home to certain types of people, and we know who those certain types of people were. But you use, I think, to great effect your parents rise to the middle class, and the way that they overcame that. But it was--it was unusual, and they had to work harder to do it. Exactly. And so one of the things that I try to do in the book is to show how my parents became and remained middle class, to then show why it's so hard now for young people to do the same thing. It was harder for my parents because they were becoming middle class in the 1960s, 1970s. And they were teachers, they were-- And they were teachers, and-- Yeah. But they knew they had to get a college degree. So at that time, you could actually get a--what I call a good job, full time, 40-hour a week job that paid you enough to support your family without a college degree, not true now. But if you were black, then you really needed to get the college degree, or else you were really going to be fighting obstacles. But yeah, my parents were able to go from being--my mom grew up on a farm, my dad's parents, my father's parents were laborers, but they were able to go to college. They didn't have to drown themselves in student loan debt. Right. They worked hard. They got up every day. They followed the rules. They bought homes. There was racial steering from a lot of the real estate agents, but they were able to buy homes. And you couldn't go on--it wasn't like, you know, your parents could look up on the internet and go, "Oh, that's a good school system." Exactly. They had to take the word of whoever it was, it was pushing us or something. I mean, the agents are trying to push them into neighborhoods where the schools weren't high quality schools. And my parents, again, understood you've got to put your kids in a school that at least puts them in a position, K-12 school. Right. If they put them in a position that if they want to go to college, they'll be able to go to college. So you have these tent posts of the middle class, which is a home ownership at reasonable down payments and reasonable, non-escalating--you know, you make the point in the book that back then mortgage rates were not tied to anything. So they could jump in crazy ways. So, you know, these mortgages that were relatively flexible, jobs that would give you pensions and health care and would allow you some stability to go along there. Are those the tent posts that we're now missing and how did we end up missing them? Well, I'll answer the last part first and then talk about the--I call them markers in this. Yes. The last--the reason we've lost them is because political leaders and I mean at all levels, local, state, and federal, have refused to exhibit the will to save the middle class. They have the ability. There is nothing they fetishized more, though. I can't--how often do politicians just say, "I'm about lunchpale, is sitting around the table and I--" So, how have they missed the mark between the rhetoric and the reality of what they're doing? So, I don't want to say what I--what I thought-- You may--no, no, no, no. In fact, if you want to, you can curse--these people have heard everything tonight. I want to answer some things. I went after a beloved nobody today. But no, what do you think? I think they have convinced lower- and middle-income Americans to look horizontally to blame. So, we're doing tribes. The reason that you can't buy a house, the reason that you don't have a good job is because that person over there is taking your job from-- Immigrants. Immigrants. Or, you know, diversity is now a bad word because it doesn't mean what it was supposed to mean, just sort of have lots of different people from different walks of life. And so, once you convince people to shift blame horizontally, they don't look up vertically. Because if you look vertically, you see that the only trickle economics that we're seeing now is trickle up. So, wealth and income is trickling up from middle-class families to the top. But if you convince people that your enemy is horizontally, then they don't notice that there's a whole lot of wealth and income that's going up to others. I'm curious what you think. Because if I were judging this on party, I would say the Republican Party would convince about horizontal. But the Democratic Party would convince you that this deregulatory, or what they would call like neoliberal economics, works. That it's become a subsidy economy or a gig economy will retrain you, will do all that. Have they also failed in their political will or in the programs that they--is it a design flaw in those programs? I think they just haven't been paying attention. So, one of the things I say in the book is that it's not just the middle class is suffering because of one thing. They're suffering because of everything. So, if you think of the markers of the middle class, they can't afford to buy a home. You have a job, but it's not a--what I call sort of a good job. It's not 40 hours a week, full time, with benefits, where you are called an employee and not a contractor. We've gutted unions. People can't afford to--you can't get sick, right? Because if you get sick and you can't work, most people don't have savings. So, it's not one little thing. It's just a series of paper cuts since roughly the 1980s. But to follow up on your point about subsidies, if we actually said, let people work in the gig economy. If you want to pick up a little money, that's fine. But you shouldn't have to piece together three jobs. Because you can't--three gigs. Because you can't find a 40-hour a week, full-time job, where you are called an employee. And you have the benefits that go along with being an employee in this country. So, this brings us to--because I think that diagnosis is exactly right. So, what is the medicine? What is the remedy? How do you re-engage a middle-class new deal? Is it just about recreating those FHA programs or the GI bill in a different form? What's the way that it could be done? Well, what I always say is, I want each local politician and I want each voter to pick one thing. So, if you want to focus on college, let's make sure that people can afford to go to college and not have to drown themselves in debt. So, pick college if you want to. If you want to focus on--because actually now I don't spend as much time talking about home ownership rates. Because people can't even find affordable housing to rent. Right. So, if you were living in a neighborhood, particularly a gated community, type neighborhood, and you were saying things like, "Oh, well, we can't change our homeowner association rules because those people may move in." And we need to make sure that we keep these exclusionary zoning laws because you have to have a 3,500 square foot home on an acre lot with a huge setback. And any time you have those kind of rules in place for housing, what you're saying is, we don't want the middle class to live here. And so, the argument-- So, they're now zoned out. They're zoned out, exactly, because the developers can't build a small home because the zoning rules don't allow it. Right. And the last thing, and my favorite thing to always attack, which usually puts me in like the same company with like the Cato Institute. Right. Folks with you. Is the mortgage interest deduction-- it needs to go. Right. Because that helps people that already have something. It helps certain people that already have something. Most people, the middle class, they don't itemize their deductions. So, they actually get zero benefit from the mortgage interest. They're doing the easy form, right? Exactly. And so, what we're doing is we're subsidizing the housing expenses of rich people. So, a lot of what we're doing-- I would love to see sort of big, bold, broad things like, you know, an FHA or a program like that. But what I would really want people to do is look at what we're doing now. What can we eliminate the mortgage interest deduction? Right. Exclusionary zoning. What can we do-- another thing I talk about a lot in the book is the typical school day is not aligned at all with the typical work day for parents. Right. So, if we want to make it easy for a lower middle income family to be able to function, why are we still pretending like we're a bunch of farmers? Right. We don't need to have the schools opening at, you know, seven or eight in the morning and then shutting it two or three. People have to go to work, right? Right. And then you have the whole summer off where that's lovely if you-- since I picked on Texas before-- if you summer in the Hamptons. Right, right. But it's not-- I'll pick on Jersey Shore, that'll come. OK. Jersey Shore is still cool. OK, it's still cool. Thank you. All right. But it's not so great if you actually have to work during the summer. Right. And you got to figure out something to do with your kids. So, the thing that I want political leaders to do and voters to do is to ask, what could we do? What change-- one change could we make that can make it easier for the middle class to attain one of those markers? Mm-hmm. And to get that-- and it strikes me as to run on a middle class new deal would be a banger for voters. I mean, it strikes me as more people than not are trapped. Exactly. In that sort of that pinch between, you know, child care and health care and elder care and education and government creating common sense kinds of programs for that. So, it strikes me as odd that that hasn't been the focus. There has, like, on the more populist areas of the right and the left, but not so much full stop. And I think the reason it hasn't is because can you imagine how powerful it would be if the middle class unites? Right. So, if you have horizontal unity, that means that, ooh, we're looking up now. We see where the problem is. So, I actually sort of understand why no one wants to have all of the middle class to unite because that would be a formidable voting block. It would be incredibly formal and it strikes me as unions get weaker. Isn't our representation supposed to be our unions? Like, isn't they the ones who are supposed to be-- why does it always have to be that, well, you guys have to get together and have meetings and come up? Why can't our representatives be the lobbyists for the middle class? Like, it strikes me as insane that that's not the case. Well, in particular, since we've got it unions, I mean, since the 1980s, they've done everything possible. If the state right to work laws don't kill them, I mean, I'm not going to refer to the United States Supreme Court the way that others have-- You're the nicest person on the show. Maybe even in the whole building. Maybe on the entirety of the West side. It's because I'm from Memphis. Very nice. They mind the business in Memphis, that's true. Exactly. Have to be polite. Absolutely. Have to be very polite. It's because what they've convinced everybody is that capital is more important than labor. And what I would say is they've convinced everybody that rich people are more important than everybody. They've earned it. They've earned it. Right, right. Instead of it being just a lot of it being happenstance and luck. True. Yeah. Well, it's a fabulous book. And I just think it's such a great prescription. And everybody interested in reconstituting a healthier, because if you build a society on a stronger tent pose on stronger foundation, we all benefit. Everyone's better off. Because they always say, like, oh, no, they'll help the rich because a rising tide lifts all boats. And you're like, well, not if you don't have a boat, then it's just water. That's right. And you drown. Then you're drowning. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. The middle class new deal available now, Michelle Dickerson. Quick break, baby. Thank you. Happy. Cafe Quality Brews without a barista. That's the Ninja Lux Cafe. Yep. No skills needed. Richespresso, balanced drip coffee, rapid cold brew. All made by you because barista assist technology handles the details. Grinding, weighing, brewing, so you don't have to. Finished with silky microphone, made with dairy or plant-based milk. Hot or cold, hands-free. Still no skills needed. From first timer to full-blown coffee fan, you can brew it all. Brew it all with the Ninja Lux Cafe. No skills needed. Cafe Quality Coffee without the guesswork. Make espresso, drip coffee, cold brew, and more with the Ninja Lux Cafe. Listeners of this show get $60 off the Ninja Lux Cafe premiere series with the code Stuart, exclusive on SharkNinja.com, while supplies last. That's $60 off the Ninja Lux Cafe premiere series with code Stuart, exclusively on SharkNinja.com while supplies last. Hey, that's our show for tonight. Desi Lydick will be your host all week. Here in a ginger moment is that. A spokesman said the lighting in the briefing room was dimmed to signify what he called "Dark Maga." Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching the Daily Show. Wherever you get your podcasts, watch the Daily Show weekdights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.