Betting on Elections, Supply Chain Panic, and the Art of Rice

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Michael Costa, Welcome to the Daily Show.

I'm Michael Costa. We've got so much to talk about tonight. Gambling addicts have a new sport to bet on. Costco's out of toilet paper again. And Charlemagne the God is here to tell us who's working the polls. So let's get right into the headlines. Come on. The presidential election is just thirty four days away. And if you thought the stakes couldn't get any higher, well, good news, now they can.

Well you could soon see folks betting on the outcome of this year's congressional elections. That's because of federal Appeals Court declient to block a lower court's decision allowing it. It is a blow for a government agency that argued doing so could undermine election integrity.

He there, place, you have bets place, ye, mat democracy may fall, but you bake account got your half hair o? Hey, yeah, thank you. But yes, betting on elections is about to be legal, which is great for everyone who wishes they could see even more fan dual ads. But seriously, this is shameful. Why are we betting on congressional races when this country could collapse into a fascist dictatorship. Because that's

A port strike by some fifty thousand dock workers across the East and Gulf Coast entering it's third day this morning.

The US dock workers are fighting for higher pay and for protections against automation, essentially robots taking their jobs.

Workers say foreign owned shipping companies have made record profits and they want a piece of the pie for their hard work.

We want to work.

We're just saying, when the fair away, how the hell can I go work at McDonald's and make what I'm mast now? Makes no sense?

Okay, good message, good message, not a very easy chant. We want to work. According to some schools, the philosophic thought, it is man's nature to work, but we also have material needs that must be addressed. It's the tension between these two conflicting dynamics that has our results, resulting in our collective labor action. I can endure it, thank you.

So.

Yes, the dock workers are on strike, which my researchers tell me threatens the United States economy because longshoremen play an important role in the supply chain. And believe me, their leader he makes that very clear.

People never gave it, not us until now when they finally realize that the chain is being broke. Now, you know how many people depend on odd jobs half the world. Let's get a contract, and let's move on with this world and could today's world.

I'll cripple you.

I will cripple you, and you have no idea what that means.

Hey, Matt, don't cripple me, all right. I'm not a shipping conglomerate. Leave me out of it. I'm just a guy who addresses his mild anxiety with the dopey, meane hit of spending seventy dollars on Amazon every day. Now, now, you could argue that the phrase I'll cripple you is a little agro coming from a union boss. But I'll tell you what's never worked is when workers say, hi, excuse me for profit multinational company. I was just kind of wondering, if you had some extra money you didn't want,

He's got a two point four million dollar home, Spartan, New Jersey. He's got a Bentley, which he's been known to drive around town in He's also got a one point four million dollar home, according to Newsweek. In Highland Beach, Florida, Elon musk Ma did a really interesting post on X He said, dude has more yachts than me.

I mean, this is what I love about America. Everyone's cool if a tech ceo or movie star or TikToker who farts on cakes has a big house. But if you're working hard labor, they're like, you should sleep in a bunk bed at your mother's house, just like the rest of us. Look, I got it, Yeah, I got it. This is not what you expect when you think of a longshoreman. You think of a crusty old guy who lives in a shack and has sex with a mermaid. Be it through some sort of fish vagina thing, or

Analysts expect you'll start to see pressure on the prices you.

Pay or possible shortages if this lasts another one to two weeks.

A prolonged strike could impact banana shipments, new car deliveries, imported chocolate, and alcohol, to name just a few.

Oh no, bulldozers, medicine and hearing aids are one thing. But please God, don't make me eat domestic chocolate. You know it's Swiss or nothing. Chocolate has to look like one of those things that keep me from backing up after I rent a car. And no more banana shipments. Every sex, said teacher must be freaking out right now. This is how they demonstrate how to put on a condom. What are they gonna use now? Zucchini penises don't look like zucchini penises look exactly like bananas. So the strike

With news of forty five thousand DOC workers going on strike, Americans are staffing up all the essential items they can get their hands on, especially toilet paper.

It's happening again, panic buying for toilet paper. Social media is flooded with empty store shelves. People are stalking up on essentials like toilet paper.

We sold out of toilet paper by eleven thirty am okay. Now, to be fair, even if you buy one package of toilet paper at Costco, it looks like you're panic buying toilet paper. But you know who should really be taking advantage of these panic runs, Big Bidet. Right, this is yeah the dead. This is the day's time to shine the days powerwash your asshole. You're almost back too early. Look, I have good news for people who are engaging in

Grace, Grace, I see.

That you're down at Costco right now, that's right.

I'm here to report on the supply chain, and I also needed a five pack of Honta Civis.

Okay, So how are people reacting to the strike? Not?

Well, everybody is panic buying, myself included. I've been loading up on Florida oranges and Idaho potatoes and New Jersey dirt.

Grace, all of those products are domestic.

Oh wow, So because I'm a woman buying them that makes them domestic. You're stup in the head.

That's not it. I'm just saying that the shipping only affects international products. Chocolate, batteries, bulldozers.

Oh shit, not bulldozers. I'm going trunch digging this weekend and I was supposed to bring the dozers.

Okay. At this point, it seems like the panic buying is causing more problems than the port shutting down.

Yeah, that's that's right.

People need to know.

You don't need to hoard toilet paper if supplies are low. Just pulled together with your neighbors and everyone can take the two squares a week they need.

Two squares. That seems low. I use a lot more than that.

You use more than two squares a week?

Yeah, I mean a lot of people do, right.

Michael, I have never heard of anybody needing more than two squares a week. Do you ever stop shitting?

Let's not discuss that right now. Okay, how about this. Do you think the strike is going to get resolved anytime soon? Well, it's not clear.

President Biden says he's trying to make peace between the two sides, and based on how that usually goes, there's probably going to be a regional war in a few weeks. Speaking of speaking of explosions, how many squares a week do you use it?

Honestly, I've never really counted too many to count.

Michael, you need to go see a whole doctor. I think you're dying.

Well, I'll call my whole doctor after this. So what should people do if their costco runs out of toilet paper?

Well, Michael, I'm starting to think the toilet paper shortage is less of a supply issue and more of a Michael issue. You need to quit toilet paper. Okay, go cold turkey from here on, out, wipe your ass with cold turkey. I mean, I'm at Costco. I can pick you up twenty five pounds. You want Hickory smoke their honey bait.

Grace please please, honey baked Gray school and Schmid everybody.

When we come back, chartle Man, you make sure trump Iss steal their lectures, don't go away.

Yeah, welcome back to Olshu.

We all know I've got great opinions, but I'm not the only one. Studies show that other people also have opinions. So here with another installment of in my opinion is our good friend Charlemagne is a god.

Okay, Election day is just one month away, and I don't want to spoil it for you, but I already know the results. Donald Trump is going to declare victory. He'll declare yes, he'll declare victory if he wins, and he'll steal it if he loses. All Right, Trump has never accepted a loss in his life. You really think the first time he's gonna be cool about it is

He tried to steal the last one.

Okay, Jack Smith just dropped another one hundred and sixty five page court document about it. And if there's one thing I've learned from heist movies is that there's always a sequel. Okay, Ocean's eleven Oceans, twelve, Ocean's thirteen Oceans eight.

No, No, y'all need to learn to count.

I'm not saying Donald Trump is Danny Ocean, but he did bankrupt more casinos, and in twenty twenty four, Trump's getting his crew back together, putting the team of magaloyalists on the inside to get them past security.

We know because they literally told us.

The Republican National Committee recently invited the guy known for helping spread the Pizzagate conspiracy to speak to GOP volunteers about how to monitor elections in Michigan. Jack Posomac, a conservative political activist, said, the key to elections is that quote, it doesn't matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes.

That's why it's so important to be in the room in the counting room this time.

This is what we've trained tens of thousands of people for.

We're going to take over the election apparatus. So we're taking over the Republican Party for the precinct committee strategy, We're taking over all the elections.

That's right.

Trump's recruiting more people to work the polls in Magic City. Pole workers and pole watchers are supposed to be impartial, but they got a whole army of Karen's the police the polling place like it's a June teenth cookout. Officer his voter says, her name is Lashanda. You better send a whole swat team now. And it's a little surprising that Steve Bannon is just saying this plan openly. But what else is he going to do on this podcast? Drop his skin care routine. Bro Let us know what

How do we know?

Again, because he told us.

I don't know if you've.

Heard, but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way.

They're doing a great job.

Three members Jonnas Johnson, Rick Jeffries, and Janelle King?

Are they here? Where are they? Where are they? Where are they? Thank you?

What a job?

Thank you? Yeah.

I don't know if I need to say this, but we should be suspicious when a candidate is shouting out the names of election board members. Imagine Lebron James praising the refs by name before the game, Like, holy shit, is that.

Stephen Ricky over there? Oh we traveling tonight?

Okay.

Appointing election deniers is like if Delta hired a pilot who's LinkedIn just said plane crash enthusiasts.

Yeah, but Trump's.

Got them ready to certify him as the winner of the next election. Let's see, what else does the heist need? Oh yeah, they got to create a discraction queue to demolitions.

Experts in Georgia. Today, the state Election Board passed a new rule that will require poll workers to count all ballots by hand. It's the latest in a series of changes by the pro Trump majority on the board, and it would require three people to count every ballot in every precinct on election night or the day after. Pullworkers are warning that this rule change could cause complete chaos by taking up too much time, money, and almost certainly producing counting errors.

Count by hand.

No one does anything by hand anymore except maybe Lauren Bulbert. All right, this is gonna cause chaos, and that's the point. The more of a mess election day becomes, the more Trump can demand that his people in Congress step into fix it. Okay, what are Democrats going to do about it?

Soon?

Sure, go ahead and take it to the Supreme Court. Ably, discover a clause in the Constitution that lets Trump steal the election. It's right next to the presidential immunity claus. So this whole thing is being planned very carefully. But a heist isn't all about the brains. It's also about the brown, which is why every crew needs a muscle.

The Brendan Center's twenty twenty four annual survey of local election officials found that thirty eight percent of them have experienced threats, harassment or abuse. Well seven and ten local election officials feel that threats have increased since twenty twenty.

That prompted me to start talking with the sheriff about, you know, personal safety. He recommended that I wear a ballistic vest whenever I feel necessary. I wear one pretty much every single day.

These poor guys, Man, these poor guys are wearing ballistic vests every day. Their election workers, not managers of a waffle house.

Right.

You know what the worst part about all this is Trump is only able to plan this heist because nobody stopped them after the last one. And now people are saying the only option to stop Donald Trump is to vote. But you don't stop with dictator through voting. You stop with dictator through laws. And we have the laws, but it took Merrick Garland two years to even think about prosecuting him under those laws. Pray to God if you ever catch a murder charge, you get Merrick Garland as

What do you mean it's too late? All right?

The point is I just wish Donald Trump had to deal with the same consequence for trying to steal an election that Danny Ocean did for stealing from a casino. Spoiler alert, they put Danny Oshan's.

Ass in jail. Okay, you don't give.

Someone the chance to steal again, because the greatest democracy on Earth should at least be as secure as a casino. And while we're at it, Poland places should also.

Have a buffet. But that's just my opinion.

Okay, Charla name the guy, everybody the way, come back.

J J.

Johnson was joining a show up row Law.

Welcome to Fact, Welcome back to the very show.

My guest Tom is a celebrity chef and founder of Field Trip and author of the best selling cookbook The Simple Art of Rice.

Please welcome J J. Johnson. Look, I know it's amazing these these people love rice. That's uh, this is a beautiful book. Oh thank you, congratulations on it. You know, before we even get into the book, I love this picture whom I all this Rice. There's so much like rice, the beautiful all of Rice. I mean, in my like North American white culture, I'm like, there's more than two different rices, so much more than two different much more than two different rices.

I mean everybody's everybody's backyard has rice.

New Jersey has rice. Hudson Valley has rice. What are you talking about? There's rice. There's rice everywhere in America. So you love rice? Oh? I love it?

Yeah?

And why I grew up in my grandmother's kitchen with rice. She used to make this dish called asso pow, which was a soupy rice dish, okay, and she would drink out of a coffee cup in the morning and then kind of like.

Pass arounds everybody, right.

And then I started to hate rice because because your family, because people can't cook right, you know, you get sticky rice or hard rice. And then I went to Ghana to cook. And when I went to West Africa and Ghana to cook, I was at a grandmother's table and acraw and I was eating joelof rice and everybody was running around the table and I wanted to goat right.

And then when I got to the joel off.

I was like, hold on, this is amazing, and I need to figure out how to cook rice.

Well.

So I started doing heavily research around rice for eight years, nine years, and that's how the Simblard of Rice came about rice.

You know, your your restaurant Field Trip. I got it today. I got it for lunch. Oh man. It was like the fried chicken bull rice and then I got the sweet plant ins. But it says on the on the package, rice is culture. So who has the best rice? Who is He's going to send me up?

Up?

I mean, yeah, I'm trying to set you up. I mean I learned. I learned a lot. But like I said, I I feel like North American cuisine treats rice as this side dish. You know. My first thought when I saw this was like, Okay, where's the protein. But that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it incorrectly. So so rice is culture.

Everybody, everybody, all of you have a rice culture. There's something somebody's house you went to as a kid where that rice dish was significant. Mine was Matthew Davis's house as a kid. Matthew his mom make Korean rice the best rice. Of course, I'm biased this field trip. My restaurant here in New York City.

Right, so the rice was gone, but I haven't been ni Ghana.

Maybe it's pretty good there too, But everybody's grandmother's kitchens rice is amazing. The risotto that's creamy, the crispy con cone or the peg out at the bottom of the pot. Right, So I'm always looking for a grandmother's kitchen to go to to eat rice. But yes, rice is here in the US and North America very disrespected, Okay, right, I think it's the most disrespected ingredient.

I don't.

It has tons of history behind it. But it's more than a side dish, right. It makes your life so much easier because when you cook the simple pot of rice, you eat some, you put it in the fridge, you let it cool down properly, and then you're like, what can I do.

Tomorrow with this rice? Right? And then you make fried rice? Hell yeah. I was looking at this yesterday hungry, and I'm like, this is the worst book to look at hungry, And then I also, you know, when you're hungry and you look at a cookbook. I was so aspirational. I was like, Oh, I'll do this one tomorrow. And it's like, will you, Michael? I mean, I got to cook one of these this weekend? What for a starter for an idiot, for a comedian? What I think you could cook? So

Do you do?

Maybe?

Okay?

Good, I'm I'm seeing some cultural differences here. Why why wash your rice? You have to wash the rice?

You want to wash your rice to the water runs clear?

Okay? Why go back to you grandma's. I'm not arguing with the grandma's in the world. They all wash their rice. And what that does?

You get that initial start off and when you go to make that perfect pot of rice, you're gonna get that beautiful fluffy rice, all right.

So that's a step first, roughly right.

Then after you do that, then after you do that, you'll be perfect with any other rice. Now, my favorite in this book is one hundred recipes. Yea, great recipes you can make with your kids. But I'm a one pot wonder god because I don't like doing the dishes and my wife definitely doesn't like cleaning up.

In the kitchen when I cook.

So these spice slam rice, cinnamon spice slam rice with the dates, the pistachios, the cinnamon stick that's how you throw.

It in the pot. You got to throw it in just like that. So I think I'm showing why I'm not a good cook. And then you just drop the Then you just drop the top right on.

Ye, turn it low, let it simmer ole, And when you pop it open, your whole kitchen is gonna smell like cinnamon and dates and pistaschios.

I feel like so many excellent dishes. You go low with the heat. You gotta go And it's like, what does that say about life? Sometimes? No, but I mean sometimes we're going too medium, we're going too fast. You gotta go go low. You know, you guys know what I'm talking about. Field Trip is your first restaurant in Harlem. Yes, and it's delicious, it's accessible, Yes, it's healthy. How did we end up at Field Trip? How did we end up at Harlem? You have other locations as well? Well.

You know, my dad's from Harlem, and I never thought I would ever open a restaurant in Harlem. When I first moved to New York City from Pennsylvania. I live with my two aunts, my two aunts that really schooled me on Harlem, and Harlem is a great community of folks. And when you go to open a business, you have to think who's going to walk through your doors. So I was like, Okay, my cousin Tanisian gonna walk through the door, Christina's going to walk through the door on

We want to get a good deal. And for me, when I look.

At a community like Harlem, I want people to be able to.

Eat good for you food.

Yes, I like that, and there's not enough of that and a lot of working class communities in America.

So field Trip gives.

You a chance to say today, I'm going to consciously eat better because I know the chef cares, the restaurant owner cares, the people working in there from the community. And that's why we started off. We started off in Harlem, and it is RISI's culture right, There's so much culture running through the streets. And we've been fortunate to have a location at Rockefeller Center. One in front of Columbia University, one of the Bahamas at the Atlantis.

So I should have gone there to research this book and said they sent in a Rockefeller Center. Maybe if we ate more good for you food, we would have less runs at the toilet paper a cost. But it does say something about American's dial. All right, kids, kids, kids should be eating healthy, delicious, fun good food.

How what I do with my kids is what I try to do is full circle, right. So I take my kids go apple picking.

I have twins. Point a girl seven years old had bagging food on your Instagram for.

Climate for climate we y and we take them to pick apples. We take them to the farmers market. And what we do is we really want them to say what do you want to eat? I want them to grab and touch of food. Now they don't want to grab the vegetables, right, But what I do. We pick one vegetable for the week and they have to eat that same vegetable every day.

We cook it different ways, but they have to own that.

And I think getting your kids involved their round food is also fun. I bring my kids in the kitchen, count how many eggs crack, the eggs, mix, the eggs. Now they want to start scrambling eggs on the burner, which I'm not ready for yet.

But heat very low, very low. He eat.

But we're and I think for you and parents, they should bring bring your kids in the kitchen. It's a great math tool and you will see your kids start to really saying I don't want that. So my daughter's really into cucumbers and she's like, oh, I want the little qukee cucumbers. I didn't learn about a Q cucumber, so I was in culinary school.

So I didn't have an avocado till I was like thirty eight years old. And these and these, my daughter's like, avocado, this is four years old. You know it's you spoil Brett. And I tell her that every time. No, she's not spoiled.

You're giving her access to something good. And I think we need to do that. I say, just start with the eggs, okay, and you go to the supermarket. Look at all the different type of eggs. The good eggs are a lot less money than the most expensive eggs.

Okay. No, I know you're not. You don't believe you give me that whole Explain that to me because those next book is going to be called eggs.

Because that's coming from a local farm and they just want to be on the shelf and they want people to have better for you food, so they're giving you an access point or go to the farmer's market. We're always in the farmer's market up and down New York City.

I mean you have a great.

Farmer's mark from where you're from.

A great part. True. Yeah, it is ann Arbor takes food seriously, which is nice. Thank you for coming and chatting with us. Your book is beautiful, your restaurant's delicious.

Thank you.

I really appreciate it. And I got to cook the spicy lamb.

Spicy, the cinnamon spiced lamb rice. And you got to buy black rice because black rice is the goat of all rice.

You know what they say it once you once you go black. Thank you for having me.

Fancy sad drag. The simple heart of rife is about one out and check out. Trustee Tiko TV ship take Johnson. We're gonna take a click bake we right back after w that's our show picking up now here. It is your moment of zen.

Are you seeing any panic buying?

Guess what Triple themselves toilet paper.

Okay, why are people stocking up on toilet paper?

I saw an article?

What's going on?

And did you hear him?

Jackie?

Stop hoarding my toilet paper.

Not me.

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