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Hey, Daily Show, Yours edition listeners. This is Sarah Hamblin, segment director for The Daily Show. Today. I'm joined by a Daily Show correspondent and host for the week, Michael Costa.
Thanks, Sarah, Welcome, This is fun. Yeah, we were just talking about your comedy podcast and then you asked me about my tennis podcast. So we are qualified to.
Do this, extremely qualified. So just to give some backstory, we're here because we just aired a piece that brought us both to Duluth, Minnesota to explore the topic of climate refugees.
And what do you mean by that, Sarah, Because in the migrant crisis, that is, we're not really talking about immigration refugees here refugees who are leaving cities that are devastated by climate change. And I'm saying some of this with a question mark.
Yes, we're talking about Angelino's looking for that fifth home, right, somewhere safe from the effects of climate change. Not so much people who have zero homes right and are looking for somewhere safe from any number yes, right, yeah, it's pretty much extremely wealthy people. But before we dive into that, let's quickly discuss the return of John Stewart. Yes, it's your first experience working with him and mine as well.
Okay, so I ask you that, Yeah.
What's it been like and what are your impressions?
Very positive? Man, I have such a weird life, you know. I watched him forever and now I'm doing a piece with him. So when I first met Jay Leno, I actually said to him, hey, you look how you look because I hadn't really met a lot of celebrities yet, and I was like, I can't believe he looks just like how he looks. I couldn't really, So John Stewart is just he seems like how he is. He's positive,
he's funny, he's very very smart. I've enjoyed his two shows on here very much, very well researched, very silly. I think people forget how he can also just be really silly. So he'll hit you over the head with a very intelligent, poignant, societally important sentence, and then he'll do a Polish joke, which is what happened this week, which made me laugh.
By the way, polling started World War Two.
Why would a country whose navy has submarines with screen doors.
Want to instigate a war.
Quick history lessons years ago, for reasons nobody is really sure of, a stereotype emerged that Polish people were inept in various ways, including obviously submarine manufacturing and even something as simple as the changing of.
A light bulb.
I don't know actually how many Polish people you think it takes to change a light bulb, but it's certainly than the conventional wisdom at that time would tell you. Now we know that Polish people are as smart as anyone, and certainly did not deserve to be invaded by the Germans, who of course accomplished that by marching and backwards, so the polls thought they were leaving.
So it's been great. I look forward to getting to work with him and getting to know him better. What about you? Have you worked here?
Yeah, it's been great. So I haven't worked directly with him on any pieces, but that first meeting that he had with the directors and writers, you know, where he sort of gave us this general's pep talk, was like so inspiring. I mean, I think I started at the show about nine months after Trevor started hosting, So for me it's always been kind of Trevor's show, Although I did grow up watching it with John Stewart. I mean when I was in college. It's like every night you're
watching John Stewart host The Daily Show. So the thing that I thought was so funny is he's so earnest and positive even in these private meetings, and then he'll always kind of drop one little thing that is like a joke. So it's not so earnest and so sweet. He always wants to put that little edge on it, which is it's fun to watch.
Well that's what he and now the Daily Show is you know, we will of course talk about really important topics, but there's going to be laughs and comedy. The way I like to approach it, or at least in my idealistic mind of comedy is that it's meant to challenge and it's meant to speak truth to power, which is a very hacky phrase at this point, but that is essentially what it's doing.
And we've been on the air, I mean I've been here for almost eight years. Yeah, we've never been able to do a Polish joke until John was here. He finally was brave enough to call out you know, yeah, the people who are really running the world.
Yeah, that was funny, and he also did preface it by saying, we nobody really knows why this genre of joke became. Yeah, so anyway.
Back to that Catskills comedy, you know, just knowing the whole breadth of comedy. I wanted to ask too, like, how was that chat last week you did with him about Tucker Carlson and the dictatorships?
That was so funny and unbelievably embarrassing display of sycophancy from Tucker Carlson.
Yeah, well, I'm not sure what that means, John, So I'm gonna assume you loved it as much as I did. It made me think that these dictatorships have gotten a bad rap, which is why I've traveled here to North Korea.
And as you can see, it's amazing. It was nice to get to be just me and him. You know, I wanted some dad time. I want some time with dad. So that was really fun. And it wasn't perfect like we did it for the show, and some of the jokes that we all thought were really funny but were kind of righty too mean jokes didn't do so well on the actual performance, so they got cut peace out.
That's the beauty so the piece ended up being funnier, shorter, and it worked really well, and it's another testament to you know. One of the words John used a lot in that meeting that I love and I always forget about I needed to hear was calibration. We're going to calibrate over and over and over again. And that is what the Daily Show does. We try, we don't get it right, we calibrate. We get a couple things right,
we calibrate. And so that was a fun chat for me to do with him because I saw there was calibration all the way through from the first draft of the script to the rehearsal to the actual performance. We had to calibrate a little bit, Thank you, editors, and ended up being great.
Yeah, it was so funny. I'm curious to know. So you guest hosted the show a few months ago when we were back from the writer's strike. It was so great, And now you're getting to host the Tuesday to Thursday after John.
Yep. John's my opener.
Yeah, you could do wors You could do worse. Do you feel like you're taking a different approach to hosting the show coming up? Or has has John given you any advice or do you feel like maybe a different experience since you're going to be following.
Right, I'm excited to follow John. I think it's challenging because he is effortlessly I mean it's not effortlessly, but it feels effortlessly good at it. And when I'm out there, it feels like if I'm good at it, it's through effort, you know. So. But if he gets to ride the big wave, I get to surf right behind him, which is pretty cool too, So I just don't see any negatives about it. I get to watch him, learn from him.
I then get my own time at the desk. I'm looking forward to not being to being a little more comfortable there because the first time I don't think anybody really realizes. It just takes a lot of time and comfort. And when I'm watching John on Mondays, I'm always like, man, he just is like so natural up there, and I'm like, well, wait a say, it's in thousands and thousands of hours there, you know, So can I make a tennis reference? I was you were expecting it, You're expecting it. Nobody ever
wins their first Grand Slam final. I know what your thinking, Sarah, but what about Janick Sinner at this year's Australian Open. Okay, he's the one exception. The reason you don't ever win in your Grand Slam final is it's fucking nerve wracking. You're figuring out that the balls look different, there's their trophies standing next to the court. It's packed. It's a different vibe, it's a different feeling. So to be at the desk is different. It's everyone's staring at you. You're
not a supplemental player anymore. So I'm looking forward to hopefully feeling a little more comfortable there. I'm sorry yelled at you about Yanick Cinner, but no.
I mean prett In my mind, I definitely have was immediately thinking of that particular person. So take us behind the curtain. What goes into preparing for your host week and what can viewers expect this week?
Because there is a belief that the new team is going to be hosting more often as opposed before where it was like this is your guest hosting week. The previous time it was more like, hey Michael, what do you want to talk about? Because this is your week? Now, the vibe is we're going to see all of you more so, why don't we do a little less of like,
what's Michael want to talk about? What's does he want to talk and let's talk about let's let's have this headlines lead it, and of course your own take will prevail on that headline. So it's not like I'm going to sit here and go I want to talk about this, this, this and this. Now we are doing a show on leap Day. I don't want to. I don't want to blow my cover here. But we're going to talk about leap Day.
Oh my god.
So you're interested in that. But I think in general, and this is actually kind of nice. It's it's like, hey, you're going to be here for a little while, so we got to like cover the news. It's kind of nice as opposed to like, hey, this is your week, so enjoy it and you're never going to come ever to see you again.
This is your one show I think I.
Should talk about? What do you think I should talk about?
Wow?
Great question for me, because I'll tell you what's hard. Southern Border is hard to talk about. Israel Palestine, it's hard to talk about. Trump is sometimes easy to talk about. But then it's like, well, wait a second, this is actually really important, So we can't just skip it because it's easy jokes.
Do something easy like abortion rights.
Oh my god, abortion rights is hard to talk about. What do you think I should cover?
Maybe the Michigan primary.
Okay, that's complicated and I don't know why, and I'm a Michigander.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm not going to put any money on Nicki Haley.
But for some reason, it's like, not everyone's on it. Yeah, I mean, Nicki Haley's not dropping out.
Well, you're from Michigan, from Michigan, So I think maybe I would do like a character piece where you talk to yourself in a mustache as your cousin from Michigan.
I like that.
Commentating on the Michigan primary.
One of the things that is interesting about maybe the primary is do I feel like Nikki Haley isn't that bad? Or is it just because I'm used to comparing her party to insanity? You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, like the crazy family that you grew up with and one of the siblings was normal, and then you like, but but actually they weren't normal, they were just the normal list. Yeah.
Well, I remember when she was at the un she was one of the first Republicans that was kind of pushing back against Trump.
There we go seeing that, and she says it's really important to run against him right now. And she also keeps saying, how can he be focused on being a good president when he's in court all the time? It's like, hello, yeah, good point.
Yeah, Well, I mean I think Michigan too, Like you have such a unique perspective being from the Midwest. That's an area that was so Democrat for so long. Yep, and then we just saw this big turn with Donald Trump, and you know, I don't know, have you do you experience that when you go home? Does it feel very different from the way it was before, or do you feel like the party has just.
Moved great question. I grew up in ann Arbor, okay, yeah, which was trying to legalize weed since nineteen fifty eight. My first political event was my mom took me to see Bill Clinton give a speech, you know what I mean. So now it's also really important living in an arbor to drive twenty minutes in any direction and see Republican signs and Trump signs. So, uh, Michigan is one of
those battleground states. The unions. You know, this was the first president ever to stand out with the auto union of all these years, there was an auto union strike and Joe Biden was on the picket line. Wow, that's kind of interesting.
Yeah.
I don't know if he knew he was there. No, but that is wild and really important and I found pretty interesting.
Let's talk about what's on everyone's mind. The piece we just yes, climate proof, Duluthe, can you give our listeners a quick summary?
I can, but you know it better than I do. But but climate change refugees a little bit of a wink wink with the word refugee. There. People are fleeing big cities to go to climate change proof cities, and Dluthe is one of them. Why don't you yeah, correct me?
Yeah, yeah, climate climate havens.
I think climate havens. There we go. Why why are they climate havens?
Yeah? The idea is there're cities that can support more populations. So a lot of these Midwestern cities have they were built for a lot more people than live there now, so they have the infrastructure. Like Detroit is one of these places. Detroit was built for a much larger population than it has.
And up if you look at the map of America. It's in and up is what some of these cities are.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you look at yeah, California, Arizona, like all these states are having water issues. Lake Superior, where a lot of these cities are located, has ten percent of the world's drinking water. So it's places where, you know, the worst effects of climate change hopefully will be mitigated. But then, of course when we went there and talked to people, we found out really climate change is happening there.
Yeah, well, let's talk about. At one point in the piece, I said, I don't know if you guys are climate haven's or if you're just good at dealing with extreme weather. But that didn't make it in. Yeah, yeah, it was at one point. It was in a cut. You know what what Well, how do things get cut and how do things get put in?
Well for our listeners, Yeah, if it gets a laugh, it gets cut. Usually No, usually, yeah, I mean, if it's something that's just unequivocally funny, like you falling into a snow bank, sure we're never going to cut that.
Our daughter does not watch TV in the morning. Okay, I say that patting myself on the back. But today I was like, I wanted to see the piece. So I said to my daughter, do you want to watch it? And she said yeah, and we watched it and she laughed at the pratfall.
Daughter laughed at this time.
Oh, I am funny. I think you even said to me, like you're gonna hate me, but I need you to sit to a fault down here or something.
I really abused you a lot during that.
It wasn't that bad.
Three degree or thirty degree water, three degree air without a coat, falling into multiple snow banks.
Holy shit, you know what's happening. I forgot about that abuse. And this is like when people decide to have another kid, it's like genetically they forgot about the troubles of the first kid. I forgot about all that stuff. But I didn't feel I you know, for me, maybe it's because I'm Midwest cold. I can I can at least wrap my head around. But like those men on the streets that we've done, just sweating all the time. Oh yeah, Psyche dressed as the brick the border wall at the
Trump rally. Hot. I think hot is way worse than cold.
I wholeheartedly agree. Even this time of year, I'll walk around with my coat open, like, oh gosh, it's so refreshing.
Yeah. But also, you know what I've learned in my time here, because I've now developed enough memories and I look back on these moments that I didn't like at the time, and I look back on them fondly. And I remember when you were like, how do you feel about a cold plunge in Lake Superior on sunrise, which is what five fifty am. And I remember thinking, oh my god, I don't want to do that. And then I was like, but now a little more aged, Michael said,
this is going to be a unique experience. For sure. It's going to be dipping in Lake Superior in February during sunrise, and man, it was excellent. And you even dipped. I know, I wasn't talk about that.
I wasn't going to and I thought, you know what, you're having so much fun.
I mean, that's why I dipped once. And then Sarah when it ye, I will.
Say a little secret. You know, it looks like you're having a terrible time in that cold plunge, but you were loving it, was I yeah, And I remember Justin was like, you could you should dunk your head under and I kind of lied and I was like, oh, no, you don't want to mess up your.
Hair, but you did it. Did it anyway.
They're not going to give you away out right, and you just wanted to do it like you were having so much fun. So we kind of had to fake the right part of you freaking out.
We had to remove thirty inches of ice so that you can go jump in, and I'm like, yeah, and your body is gonna tell you you're gonna die. Yeah, But when you're retraining some of those neuropathways in our head to say, hey, I can handle a little hard step.
Yeah, I can handle this growing it maybe once I get used to it, the cold isn't so big the thing well, and one thing you mentioned his name, Justin's the guy who owns the sauna and the cold Plunge there Cedar and Stone or whatever it's called. But one thing that's cool about these pieces is you get to
meet locals. You often connect with them. You're sitting there shooting something together and uh, there's so many pieces where you chat with these people for a while and I don't know if you want to call them friends, but they become they become colorful characters in your memory of these pieces.
Yeah, yeah, a few people from the field pieces. It's like you get to meet these really interesting folks. Do you remember It's it's been a while since we shot this. Do you remember some of the bits that you that we shot that didn't make it into the final edit?
I remember the Roy bit m that got cut.
Yes, that was such a funny. Roy Mindy, who was this uh you know, working for the government of Duluth, said you know, we're trying to attract more people to move here. We could use more diversity. And then your response was, oh diversity. Let me call my friend Roy. We FaceTime Roy. Hey, you want to move to Duluth. He hangs on my It was a really funny moment.
It was a good one. Didn't make it in. What are some of the other bits? Do you remember?
One thing that was really funny to me was with with both interviews, they were talking about all the winter activities. So remember Jamie was talking about the porta potty racing where they put porta potties on skis and like push them down the street.
That you know what I'll say to your listeners because I'm in Michigander and I have to say that's I'm required. I don't think people understand the vastness of the Great Lakes. It's worth googling and even reading the Wikipedia page of Lake Superior. I mean, I have done this, the depth, the volume, I mean, I forget what it's. The residence time of a drop of water in Lake Superior is like one hundred and nineteen years. That means if a droplet of water flows into Lake Superior, that droplet of
water stays there for one hundred and nineteen years. Our little like lake in your backyard, that's like two months. Lake Superior is absolutely gorgeous.
Me.
I'm to the coffee shop and it's like there's like a trail. Look, if you live in New York, la, let me let me tell you something. In Duluth, you go to this coffee shop, you get a coffee, and they have a built in trail that just takes you to the lake.
Yeah.
That was in what was three o'clock?
Is this?
It was called Two Rivers? Yeah, called Two Rivers, And that was a beautiful coffee show.
They're like, oh, people right here, and then they go walk to Lake Superior and it's just like, why am I living in Brooklyn having garbage cans thrown at me every day.
Yeah, it was so beautiful there. The people are so kind too, they were Maybe that brings us to you posted on Instagram saying each field piece changes you a little and this one really got me. Can you unpack that?
I do believe each field piece changes you. Do you feel that way? Yeah?
Yeah, definitely, or at least.
I guess in the same sense that you just. I learned something every piece.
You know.
Maybe it's my skepticism in life, but I'm always kind of like, oh God, I don't want to do that. And when you said, like, how about a cold plunge at sunrise? My first initial thought was probably, oh God, I don't want to do that. But now I'm getting a little bit older, maybe I'm a little bit wiser. I've got children to look after, and I was thinking, you know, this might be a really fun thing to do.
And it was so fucking Listen to your inner monol, Michael, and you can I talk to them for a second, talk to them you at home. Maybe it is going to be a fun experience for you to do what you don't want to do.
And I do have to say the Cold Plunge was amazing, partially because of the incredible sauna that was right next to the old plunge.
Although the coldest I have ever been in my life, Sarah, was that moment when you get out of the water and then you get to the sauna, Yeah, because you're literally turning into an ice cube.
The reason we did it at sunrise was we wanted to get this drone shot of coming out of the pool showing the sun. It was too windy to turn on the drone, so not only were you freezing, the wind chill was crazy that day.
How did this beast change you? If it did?
Yeah, I mean it really did. Like honestly, I'm you you know you were kind of joking about it before. I'm one of those people that, you know, I want to really make sure I got it.
Yeah.
Yeah, and uh And I wasn't going to go in the Cold Plunge because I was like, I got we got We had to do Man on the Street after that, and I was like, I don't want to waste any time. I just want to get this done. And you know, it was a good it was a good sort of win in rome moment of like when am I going to get to jump in Lake Superior. It's I think the crew will be fine if they get to sit around and have some downtime for fifteen minutes while I jump in the water.
I'm glad you did it. It was fun that we did it together.
Yeah.
It reminded me of a piece I did in Switzerland with Stacey Angele's and we shot this Swiss guns.
We shot of the Best Daily Show few great great piece.
Thanks, so funny, but we shot on. We shot this river and burned Switzerland, where people literally commute to work. They put their suits in a dry bag and they jump in the river and they take the river to work. It's crazy. We shot this open five times. It never made it in the cut. But at the end Stacey's like, I'm jumping into and we all jumped in and float in the river together, and I'm like, these are fun moments.
Yeah, it was great. It was so fun.
I'm trying to think about. I flew directly in and we went straight to city Hall and I and it was under construction.
Yeah, that's right.
We flush like a bathroom while like nail guns were being fired about in my head, and that's one thing that no one ever knows about these pieces is you are putting that suit on in a very dicey place usually yeah, yeah, yeah, as opposed to this coming week where I'm hosting, I'm putting a suit on with like five people making sure everything is perfect, then the hair, then the shoes. Even though no one ever sees your shoes. Your shoes are still amazing when you guest host.
But how many times have you had to not even you haven't even had the bathroom with the nail guns. It's been like, can you put on your suit in the van and we can, we can hold up a towel over the window.
I think that's partially why correspondents here have gone on and done some really amazing things, because you kind of get battle tested. Yeah, not that putting on your suit in the van is like battle testing, but you just get comfortable, like figuring it out on the run. Yeah, And I would say the same for the directors.
I am curious to know though, coming up this week, do you feel like watching John host the show these past two weeks You've kind of picked up things about what he's doing that are affecting, you know, the way you want to host. Maybe the things you want to say how you want to say them.
Yeah. I mean it might have been Paul Riser, the comedian who told me once that you actually get inspired by watching mediocrity and saying, I know I can do that. So when I watch John, I don't get inspired. I get nervous. I say, it's so easy for this guy. So that's the opposite. But I love how he lets the moment come to him. He plays a clip and then we go back to him, and he doesn't have to speak right away. He allows himself and the audience
to digest it. That's one thing I've noticed immediately because I think I'm always like, Okay, get to the thing. Get to the thing. It's like, well, follow it, live in it. And I have to use a sports reference. I'm a guy. I come from a jock background, so the only best way I can describe it is like, I am really looking forward to getting more at bats because I think over the course of many at bats I'll show improvement as opposed to just one at bat,
like okay, you better be good. So that's my big thought.
Great, you did a great hosting week though.
It was so fun. It's so fun to be in charge not like from an authoritarian way, but from a I want to talk about this topic and I want to talk about this book, and I don't want to talk about this topic, and they go, Okay, fun, let's talk about talks you want to talk about. That is so nice.
Yeah, and you came right in day one. Let's talk about Israel Palestine.
That was on my mind, whether there was something happening or not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that was months before anything was going on there.
It was strange that I was so obsessed with it, and you just knew. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you Sarah for having me on Daily Shows Podcast.
Yes, thanks for joining me, and thanks so much for listening to The Daily Show. Yours edition.
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