George Clooney Wants Biden To Step Down | Elizabeth Dias & Lisa Lerer

You're listening to Comedy centralow.

From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America, It's only source for news this it's the Daily Too. To your host, Jessey Lightning, can't corn that Clubber.

Welcome to na John George Clubber.

And I'm Jesse Lightning.

We missed you so much. Has it been twenty four hours. I barely recognize you at all.

That's because it's a different audience than last night.

Oh my god, you're right, nothing.

Gets past me. We've got so much to talk about tonight. So let's get right into our continuing coverage of Indecision twenty twenty four.

Let's get off of America's Happiest felon Donald Trump. He's ahead of the polls, but he's not resting on his laurels. He's at rallies talking about the issues that matter.

The other day, I got very angry.

Some man called Chris Christie fat and I said, sir, And then he said he was a pig. I said, sir, Chris Christy is not a fat pig. Please remember when a waitress came off a beautiful waitress and I never liked talking about physics. She's beautiful inside.

I don't even order bacon anymore. You know, Bacon's gone.

Up like five.

I said, too expensive.

I don't want, I don't want. Byron likes bacon.

Sleepy.

Joe also declared that he wanted to test his skills and stamina against mine on the golf course. And I will even give Joe Biden ten strokes. Aside ten strokes, that's a lot.

Jokes on you, Donald Trump. Joe Biden's already had ten drugs.

Bu Yes, if you missed Donald Trump's rally yesterday, it had very important things to say, like Biden sucks at golf, Chris Christy is fat, and once I saw a hot waitress.

I have to say, this was the first time I ever heard Trump talk about a woman's inner beauty. Maybe he's maturing either that or he thinks there's more boobs to find on the inside. Of course, it wasn't old boobs in bacon, which coincidentally is the title my memoir coming out this Christmas. Trump did touch on some important issues in a very dramatic way, and to be clear, we did not add this music.

We are a nation where fentanyl and all other forms of illegal drugs are easier to get than groceries to feed our beautiful families and babies. Mothers will never again be forced to watch the children overdosing and hostiling, and we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms, screaming.

What can I do? What can I do?

Help be God?

What can I do?

Never that I'd say this, but I miss him talking about the hot waitress.

Help me God?

What can I do?

I mean, what chilling words about the opioid crisis? Slightly undercut by the crisis he moved onto in the very next sentence, What can I do?

What can I do? Help be God?

What can I do?

We are a nation who's once revered.

Airports are a dirty, crowded mess.

You sit and wait for hours and then are.

Notified that the plane won't league, that they have no idea when they will.

Wow, WHOA, What a smooth transition from there's blood in the streets too, and why do I want to.

Check my bags?

They're killing us with metonol and I'm in boarding group six.

Now.

The reason why Trump is having a blast on the campaign trail is because his opponent, Joe Biden, whose poll numbers are hovering somewhere between uh oh and oh shit. But worry not, Biden's team has a plan. Tomorrow, He'll hold a press conference to show that he's fully in charge of all his faculties. Unfortunately, their branding isn't helping. The next test is what the White House says will be some kind of a big boy press conference.

He'll have a press conference, a big boy press conference, his big boy press conference, A big boy press conference.

I guess a big boy press conference is what we're calling it.

Oh my god, stop saying big boy press conference. It sounds like he's going to show everyone that he can tie his own shoes, although at this point it would be reassuring to see him do that.

But some Democrats aren't waiting to see whether Biden can get through his big boy presser without a binki. Now every day brings new lawmakers openly questioning whether Biden should remain as the nominee, and today one of the party's biggest names waited.

Nancy Pelosi passed up a golden opportunity to say President Biden should stay in the race.

Does he have your support to be the head of the Democrat.

Sicut as long as the president had the president. It's up to the president to sucide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running. Sure, he's beloved, he is respected, and if people want him to make that decision.

Keep in mind, Biden has said about fifty times that he's staying in the race. He's like, I'm not going anywhere. The Lord Almighty couldn't get me out of this race. And Pelosi's going, yep, great, just let us know when you decide. Clot's takeing TikTok. I mean, I mean, that's the same energy my mom had when I told her I was going into comedy. She still calls me up today like, have you made a decision about medical school?

Yet?

By the way, it probably doesn't help that as.

She was speaking, I kept thinking, man, I wish that Biden could channel.

The youth and vigor of Nancy Pelosi.

But Pelosi wasn't the biggest name to come out against Biden today because while she was gently nudging him out of the race, an even more powerful Democrat was running him over with a steamroller.

All right, this just end the scene.

Then, big Democratic donor George Clooney, of course, the actor has just called for President Biden to step aside the actor and writes, it's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big effing deal Biden of twenty ten. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of twenty He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

In short, Clooney says, this is about age, nothing more.

He adds, we are not going to win in November with this present.

Yeah, you know you're in trouble when even Danny Ocean is saying we can't pull this one off.

Of course, I will say.

It's easy for him to say Biden's too old. Clooney doesn't age. He doesn't know what it's like for us mortals to slowly decline, while he becomes more and more fokable, just saltier and more peppery, the glint of his eyes glowing ever more brightly, and the smile, the supple lips just so supple.

He goes with this clooney thing, doing the Clooney thing. I'm sorry, I'm doing the cloney thing again.

Jesus to get so beautiful.

God, keep it in your pants. The point is Clooney isn't just a random celebrity. He's a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Last month he helped raise thirty million dollars for Joe Biden. Wait, while we were all distracted by this ed who was watching the money?

Oh it was.

At the whole time cloning such a clever, sexy silver fox of a man who's just got.

Those lips, those lips. Conclude yourself in. I'm sorry, he's a lot, you know what.

It's important to remember that, as of now, only eight House Democrats have called on Joe Biden to step down, and the dissenters might get all the headlines, but there are hundreds of other Democrats who are still with Joe Biden, but with a skeptical public. Now is the time for them to make their case to the people. So let's hear their enthusiasm. What do you say, Congressman Jim Clyburn.

We are ride in with Biden? You're right, ind.

Conversation about we are ride in with Biden. The conversation abou Vice President Kamala Howers.

In there, we are riding.

Okay, I wouldn't say that was enthusiasm. I was hearing there, I'm writing with Biden. Sounds like you're in a Felma Louise situation.

Yeah, that's the same tone of voice to use when you don't like the man. Your best friend is marrying, but you're a bridesmaid, So congratulations Becky and Mark. He hit on me at the rehearsal dinner. But Mark's our man, Marx, our man. We don't talk anymore.

Okay, all right, you know what, maybe maybe we don't need enthusiasm.

We just need an argument, a good, strong argument for supporting him as the nominee.

Sell us on him.

You know, President Biden declinents to leave voluntarily, then we have no choice but to, you know, support him as our nominee.

I am fully behind him as our nominee until he's.

Not our nominee.

Okay, again, let's an argument in Morris eatment of fact. It's like if your mother in law asked you if you like the dinner she made, and you say, you made a dinner and it was food, and I will eat the food until there is other food.

Well, I mean, if Trump is an existential threat to democracy, and you're not making the case for Biden to drop out, then you gotta explain why you keep supporting him.

Go.

Do you support keeping Biden as your nominating going? Do you support keeping Biden at the top of the ticket. Do you think that Biden just stays your nominee? I love that time, I love that tie. Do you mind if I hang myself with it? Instead of answering your question?

Actually, you know what?

Actually I wonder what it was he liked about that tie? Can we have another angle on that?

Oh?

Okay, yeah, oh.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, Like democrats, listen, We're not going to sit here and tell you what to do. Whatever you do, actually do it. This indecisive waffling only makes you look like you don't have the courage of your convictions. Either tell Joe that he needs to go, or stand by him and really make the case for him.

Yeah, or don't spend the next four months running around saying I don't know, I don't know. But when November comes, the only thing you're going to be saying is.

This, what can I do?

What can I do? Help me? God?

What can I do?

Weake come out?

Ronnie Chang discovers one of Trump's incredible success.

Jolies, stay cool, welcome back you daily.

So next week Donald compon accept the Republican nomination for a second term in Wisconsin. But while he's in the state, there's one town he may want to avoid. Ronnie Chang tells us why.

Trump's promised in twenty sixteen to bring that manufacturing. Johns was a major appear in the Upper Midwest, and Trump's first year in office, the artists of deals delivered them a master.

Fox Conn will invest in Southeast Wisconsin.

Electronics manufacturer of fox Con is opening its first major US factory in Wisconsin.

Investing ten billion dollars of their own money.

To do so.

That's right, fox Cott, the Taiwan based company that's good at making iPhones and great at making their employees jump off buildings. The fox Con deal in Mount Pleasant was as golden as the shovels Trump brought to the groundbreaking.

I think we can say this is we can say the eighth wonder of the world.

So to learn more about this eighth wonder of the world, I spoke with Alan Young, the business genius responsible for bringing fox Con to Wiscon sing, love business, Love big business. I love great businessmen. You brought manufacturing to Mount Pleasant. When you love most about Wisconsin, the cheese or the high rate of alcoholism.

It turns out Wisconsin actually to our benefit.

What's the right choice?

And the vision really was to create what we call Wiscone Valley, the ten billion dollar projects later to create up to thirteen thousand.

Job all right, high tech job creation, local country Bumpkin, Kelly Galaher must be exciting.

Fox con came to town. They promised us the world. Then that does because our village officials are morons.

Look, lady, I came here to do a feel good puff piece about phone corporations creating jobs for farmers or whatever.

Okay, are you telling me that's not happening.

They promised us thirteen thousand jobs and a ten million dollar investment. We got a few hundred jobs. We bulldozed one hundred homes, moved people out, used eminent domain against them, and except for a few buildings that Fox Cohn has put there, it's basically empty.

Well, you can't fault Fox Cohn for putting money into this town and trying to make something happen.

But they didn't put money in on it. Unfortunately, the village of Mount Pleasant decided instead of making Fox KHN by the land that they wanted for their factory are part time village trustees.

They said, we'll do it for you. We borrowed nearly a billion dollars.

So a bunch of village idiots borrowed a billion dollars to get Fox don't come in. Fox con comes in and goes, hey, we can give you, guys, civilization, take you out of the farms.

Well, we like our farms.

What was foxhn promising to build.

Well, first they said they were going to build a large screen lcdtvs.

Amazing, I love those.

A few weeks later they changed it that they were going to build small LSED screens, the kinds that you get in the car.

So I love those two. I love all screens.

Then they announced that they were going to build coffee robots.

Okay, but you know what, who doesn't like coffee?

That didn't happen either, And right now nobody knows what they do inside that building. Okay, it's three thousand square acres of land. Do you know how much three thousand square acres of land is?

Of course not, I'm not a dumb fine, you should really go check it out. Fine, I will.

This simple villager wasn't making any sense. Allen and fox Conn as showed the residents of Mount Pleasant that will be bringing a study tech hop to its barren farmland. But instead all fox Conn built was a bunch of roads to nowhere with the help two empty warehouses and a lame disco fall in the middle of an empty field.

Hell, I needed answers.

What the hell is everybody? I was a thousand thousand dogs. Yeah, sorry, so just wondering.

Well, the job's at the jobs's fifteen thousand jobs.

This can't be right.

And even if there aren't any jobs or products or transparency, surely fox cont has a plan.

I would say that over the past few years, everybody learned a few lessons. I think the storyline is happening. A story is a good one. It really is trail blazing and making pioneering decisions, even though it might not make sense.

Even though it makes absolutely no sense.

Well, okay, absolutely no sense.

But right now I think we're in the chapter two or chapter three of the whole thing stayed.

Eleven of the well you don't want to get there right?

Well, the outcome was job Operation You really shouldn't care if you build potato chips or micro chips.

Potato chips or microchips, who cares?

Just make something that's what people want for Fox can to make something in this factory.

It takes a village. It takes a village to build a factory that makes nothing.

You got me there.

Ellen did a great job at showing the very thin line between genius business plan and scam. Okay, I think I see why you're so upset. You got catfished. Do you know what catfishing is?

Yes?

I do?

But what?

Who?

What?

Why did they do this? If it's so bad for everybody?

Why did this happen? Well?

It was really Donald Trump.

Oh and the largest failed publicly funded economic development project in Wisconsin history, possibly in US history, Thank you wish.

In true Trump fashion, he made a promise, never delivered and left someone else holding the bag. Was there any way to turn this development disaster around?

More breaking news now Microsoft could be coming to Mount Pleasant.

This is a huge win for the village.

Microsoft came to town and they announced a three point three billion dollar investment project and two thousand full time jobs.

Okay, two thousand is quite a step down. From thirteen thousand.

But those thirteen thousand jobs were never real.

What even making there?

It's going to be an AI data center.

Wait, but that if it's a cent that's going to take jobs, they're going to replace workers.

You're going to end up with less jobs than before.

Well it's better than nothing.

Actually no, because no jobs will be zero.

This will be negative jobs because it'll be taking other people's jobs.

All I know is that these are two thousand real jobs.

God, damn villages is jobs?

Man?

Did you guys talk about anything else here in business? Not everything turns out the way you wanted to. But hey, with a little ingenuity and some American can do spirit, you too could turn thirteen thousand jobs into two thousand and put your whole village into debt.

Great John, thank you.

Ronic When we come back to Elizabeth Dies Elise Hlero.

I'll talk about the future of abortion in America. They'll go away.

Welcome back to Dall's show, our.

Guests tonight, our reporters at The New York Times and co authors of the best selling book The Fall of Row The Rise of a New America. Please welcome Elizabeth Das and Lisa lehre.

Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for being on the show and for all of your incredible work on this. We enjoyed your book very much, and also we're thoroughly horrified by all of it, obviously, but so many Americans felt kind of blindsided when Roe v. Wade was overturned. And yet you walk us through every step of the way. This was not an overnight, shocking decision. This was decades in the making. Walk us through some of that.

You mean, the secret plan to overturn Roe v. Wade, Yes, yes, there was one. For fifty years, the anti abortion movement tried so hard, right, they made it their life's work, generational commitment, to try to overturn Row. This was a moral commitment for them, for them, the greatest moral calling of their lives. And they were not successful until about ten years ago. Something changed, and we've taken to calling it this was the last decade, the final decade of

Wade.

In telling this story, how much of this did you find was based in sort of a moral argument, And how much of this felt like it was groups who had political motives who were trying to utilize Roe as a piece in which to gain more political power.

Well, certainly there's a really deep moral and spiritual element. These are conservative Christians, largely Evangelical and Catholics, and they see this as a story that's rooted in biblical kinds of terms. But I think there's also this broader effort, and what they effectively want to do is overturn elements of the sexual revolution and return the family, the American family, to a more traditional time. I think one of the most interesting things we found in our book was the

I guess you articulate that that Roe has taken on such a larger Yeah, it's not just one thing anymore.

Was that always the case or is there? Can you pinpoint when that really started to pick up steam?

Well, look, our book starts in twenty thirteen, which is right when Obama ran one reelection, and it's also when conservative Christians became a slight minority in America. So this is a group that felt that they were losing their holds on American life, losing their traditional power in American life, and I think abortion rights were one way that they thought they could sort of return the country to where

One of the things that I really appreciated about this book is you go through the backstories of all of these characters you don't pay as heroes and villains. You talk about Leonard Leo from the Federalist Society and talk about how he personally was affected, what formed his fate.

Leonard Leo devout Catholic, obviously legal mastermind. But the story that motivated motivated him the most is the death of his daughter when she was fourteen. Their firstborn daughter had a very difficult prenatal diagnosis. They decided to give birth and raise her, and uh, you know, when we talked with him, he talked a lot about suffering and his views motivated by Catholic theology about suffering and salvation in

You know, for a lot of these anti abortion activists, those two worlds are intertwined. This isn't a story that you can understand just through politics or just through religion. These are intertwined stories, and I think think that's part of what we really tried to get out at the book was tell those intertwined stories in a way that reflected sort of the intimate This is such an intimate issue, you know. That reflected that intimacy and how personal it

Just in politicals.

I mean, this book talks about the successes of the activists, right, a lot of them are the grassroot activists on the right.

Like, what were the failings of the left in this fight?

Well, you know, look, I think it was really there was this profound sense of denial across the left, and in some ways that's reasonable, Right, it's really hard to believe that this right that people had for generations could suddenly just vanish. And because of that, Democrats, you know, they would always go out Democratic candidates and warn about threats to Row or Roe could fall, and people just

There's the you know, part of the civil rights activists were rooted in the Christian community. Where's the disconnect? Why have liberals not been able to connect with the Christian community since then?

Well, conservative Christians figured out that this wasn't really about cultural opinion, and a majority of Americans support and abortion rights, you know, for decades. But for them, this was about finding ways to pull the levers of power.

Right.

You can kind of do all the moral conversation education that you want either on either side of this, but if you don't have power, you can't do anything. So they figured out exactly what levers where in the country, at what levels of government, from the smallest state house lobbyists all the way up to the presidency the Supreme Court, and they identified them, they pulled them, and then they're able to change the culture that way, right, instead of having culture change the law.

Yeah.

Look, I think we think of politics as working one way. Right, people protest, public opinion changes, politicians respond, the culture changes. This is a really different kind of story. This is you know, a majority of America's supported ROE for decades, but these activists on the right, where these conservative Christian activists were able to seize controls of these levers of power and change the culture effectively through force.

Now, take a step back into what's happening now. Yeah, we see the Republican platform seems to be softening on abortion, at least not articulating that they want a federal band. We see what happened with mivapristone at the Supreme Court. Do you see a recalculation happening?

Some different things are happening at once here, right, Like, obviously Trump and a lot of Republican leaders see that this is now a losing issue for them. I mean, ROE was a foundation for so long. Republicans were able to use it in a certain way to motivate key parts of their base, and that's obviously really changed. But you know, now things we think of as maybe losses for the anti abortion movement, they're able to reframe and see them as wins.

Right.

I mean, even the platform can be doing whatever it's doing right in their minds, but they're on the ground thinking in these generational long terms of how they can change the groundwork, similarly to how they overturned row Right. They're thinking long term about what does this mean for how we can restrict IVF right? What is this and for access to some forms of birth control? That is such a different long game than Democrats are playing, so in a way, it is definitely a power struggle right now.

Where do you feel, where do we go from here? I mean, are women going to have to just run for president and have presidential immunity in order to legally have a.

Well?

I mean it is worth pointing out that many of the most prominent figures in the anti abortion movement are women. That there was a strategy to put women at the front of that movement. I think, you know, I've asked a lot of abortion rights activists like that very question, what happens now. It took fifty years for a row to fall, how many years does it take for it to return? And nobody knows. It's an unanswerable question. But nobody's saying one year. Nobody's saying five years, this is

An extremely high bar.

So there's no easy answer here. There's not some like thing that can just snap back in place and Row returns. I think the country is in for many more decades of wrangling over this issue.

For the disheartened folks who see this story, what can they take away? What positive change can they make?

Look, I think one of the things that has been that was most powerful for the anti abortion was this sense of denial. They did something because nobody believed they could do it, and that's been really shattered now. So I think there's a lot more awareness of what's going on. I think people are paying a lot more attention to what's happening, not only with abortion rights, but with things

And there's this question of ken Democrats respond with any kind of generational plan in the way that Republicans had.

I mean, it was just a answer. Yeah, we've answered that.

I mean, this is asymmetrical warfare.

It hasn't been for a very long time.

And there's a real question. I mean, even people like Hillary Clinton told us that the Democrats just don't have the same kind of infrastructure on their side. So there's an open question as too, you know that are they thinking just an election cycles or are they thinking about one generation, two generations from now.

We so appreciate all of the work that you're doing and you being on here tonight. We're still hopeful that there will be your next book, The Rerise of Roe putting out a.

Get the sequel going, yea, we get the secrel going.

Thankks so much for being here, Thanks for the all the crow is available now Elizabeth Dyas and Lisa Larrer. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll.

Be right down that.

Night.

NI next week when we will be in Milwaukee for the RNC all week long.

Yes, and if you're in Milwaukee the Sunday, we'll be at Cathedral Square Park for In Dog Decision twenty twenty four Rescuing Democracy.

We're partnering with.

Madak, a local Milwaukee animal shelter and Headcount with the hopes to get lots of pups adopted and humans registered to vote.

So we will see you there now here is.

Do you believe as your rugery election on that?

I'm not speaking English to you.

I'm not going to be making any statements about any of that right.

Now in the hallway.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount plus

Paramount Podcasts