Trump’s Contradictions & Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Enduring Weight of Oppression

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We gotta party the show for it tonight. First of all, let's go Mets. Second of all, Tana Hosey Kilts is gonna be joining us later to talk. But New York finally getting back to normal traffic wise, the UN General Assembly is over. And by the way, what a successful General Assembly it was. The world just exploding with peace right now, just great session, guys. Now that the Assembly's gone, New York is getting ready for its next big event,

She's come under some criticism for being relatively vague in her policy proposals.

They don't have enough specifics on the solutions. When she tried to explain what she would do, it made no sense. This jebbish. The public demands a detailed plan of action, and they're not getting it from her.

We demand that.

If there is one thing that the American public demands, it is a detailed plan of Ooh, the Golden Bachelorette. I hope they selected candidates who lived nearby her, because old people are not known to want to change their lives. Anyway,

I will get rid of unnecessary decree requirements for federal jobs, low and low interest loans to small businesses. Expand the tax deduction for startups to fifty thousand dollars. Six thousand dollars in tax relief of families during the first year of a child's life, capital gains will be twenty eight percent.

Excuse me, but as Americans, we demanded a detailed plan of action, not random numbers. You have left the door wide open, lady, because clearly Donald aloisious Trump would not he would not trifle with America in that manner. What are the specific mechanics of how prices come down? You know the steps that would be taken in a second term for you. Good question, mister Trump. What is your

First of all, she can't do an interview. She could never do this interview because you ask questions like give me a specific answer. She talks about her lawn when she was growing up. This woman is not equipped to be president.

I guess they had the wrong chart. The question, sir, was specific to how are you going to bring down inflation? Your answer so far has been but perhaps I cut you off unfairly.

She's not equipped to deal with president She who was very I took in hundreds of billions of dollars with him and Putin. We had no war with Putin. Remember, and I'm just going to go off just for this. With Bush, they took a lot. Russia. With Biden, they're trying to take everything.

With Obama, they took a lot.

With Trump, Russia took nothing.

Just remember that. You know what, maybe he didn't really want to talk about his inflation policy since economists say it would make inflation worse, which you know is the wrong direction. Let's give Trump a second chance.

If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable? And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance.

Oh, that's a fabulous question. That's a fabulous question. Children need childcare, whether it's a nanny or duct tape to a chair with an iPad. But it costs money, obviously, duct tape and iPads and in app purchases.

Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, you know, I was somebody we had said at a Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue.

It's a very important issue.

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about that because look, childcare is childcare.

Us.

Now, we could let the tip continue where he says we will pay for childcare with the trillions we're going to receive by levying tariffs on foreign nations, which apparently isn't how that works. But get one more.

Political opponents are saying that you want to ban IVF. Those who are watching here tonight who may be going through this same struggle and are concerned about being able to have this option, and I'd love for you to talk to them about how they should feel.

Life is pretty tough.

It can be beautiful, but it can be difficult.

We are doing something with IBF because if as you know from friends and people, you know, it's really worked out very well for a lot of people.

It gave them a child when they would not have had a child. And I told my people I wanted to look at this.

A couple of weeks ago, and as you know, we have no taxes one of the things called tips.

You know that, what the actual are you talking about?

How do you want people to feel about IVF? Well, I have no taxes on a thing called tips. You know what I do? Actually see the uh I get it now? So you see IVF fertilizes an egg with a sperm, and sperm comes from a penis, and a penis has a tip. So I can only assume Donald Trump is talking about circumcision, which Jews call a tax on tips. All right, let's move on. So clearly what people like about Donald Trump is not his clear specific policies,

He has really become the candidate of the working man, of the everyman.

President Trump cares deeply about rig workers, truck drivers, roughnecks.

He worked with plumbers and electricians, He worked with painters and brick layers. President Trump is the best friend American workers have ever had in the White house.

He's our best friend. Donald Trump is the champion of hard.

Working men and women. He's behind every kind of worker, from auto to sex. The kind of people.

Donald Trump is.

Behind the kind of people who have to work over time to pay the bill.

I know a lot about overtime. I'd hated they give overtime.

I hated it.

I'd get other people.

I shouldn't say this, but I'd get other people and I wouldn't say I hated.

Yeah, you're right, you shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have said it at all, because you're a knitting to freaking people over who work for you. I mean, it's funny, but it undercuts the working man's friend thing. Well, yeah, it's fine you don't want to get them overtime, but it's not like you think it's funny to fire them when they complain about something like not getting overtime.

Well, you you're the greatest cutter.

I mean, I look at what you do.

You walk in and you just say you want to do it. They go on strike.

I won't mention the name of.

The company, but they go on strike, and you say, that's okay.

You're all gone. You're all gone.

So every one of you is gone.

Ha ha.

I gotta say, every time Trump talks about workers, it's like watching a Christmas Carol in reverse. I just fired these three ghosts who are trying to get over time. So the supporting the working man thing is nonsense. What other things do his supporters like about him?

I think in sixty five days of American people are going to vote for President Trump because they know he's the guy who will defend their right to speak.

You're aligned with each other on other key issues like detecting freedom of speech.

Okay, I get it now. So it's not really a policy case for Trump. It's a principal case for Trump the man. No matter what is said about him, he believes in the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the government should never punish speech, even if you don't like the speech.

Mister Trump saying publicly the FCC should revoke ABC's license over unfounded claims about ABC News allegedly rigging the presidential debate.

For President, Trump says that he will deport students who participate in pro policy and process.

Donald Trump said that anyone who criticizes the Supreme Court justices should be.

Arrested in jails Donald Trump earlier today said you burned the American flag, you should get.

A year behind Mars.

During the twenty twenty four campaign, Trump has been quote venting about the need to punish late night comedians for their anti Trump material.

Isn't being on Basic cable at eleven pm punishment enough? God, So we know the policy thing about free speech and the hero of the working class thing are all bullshit. But I'm still underside. I'm still open. Give me something I could work with. He's an anti war guy. He is going to get us out of these endless wars.

President Trump believes that the next four years we need no new wars.

First of all, I didn't know Max Headroom still had a shot. But phil anti war. I'm anti war. I'm absolutely behind that sentiment.

But if I were the president, I would inform the threatening country in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm to this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smitherines.

We're gonna blow it to smitherings. You can't do that. He just war with I run. I mean, at least doesn't count. We've been bombing them for forty years. They love it okay, forget about ideals, forget about policies. What are the personal qualities you're voting for? People?

Just like that?

That honesty of Donald Trump, he tells it like it is a man of his word. He's a truth teller. Are you stetting me right now?

Are you?

Are you?

Are you kidding me?

Right now?

He is a truth hell.

They're eating the dogs.

Oh and by the way, they're eating the cats, anything else, they're eating the pets of the people that live there.

Now, mew yamy, Now now I'm yell of the people that live by the only monster on TikTok no nobody else. My wife sent me dout like ten times. And so we find ourselves not in a dilemma, but in a bit of a conundrum. The qualities and policies that people profess to be what they admire and love about former President Trump don't seem to be an accurate reflection of

Our cities have already become hell halls, a crime ridden, gang infested, terror filled dumping ground, bloodshed, chaos and violent crime, a deluge of illegals pouring in by the Midians and Midians.

Drug dealers, human.

Traffickers, bloodthirsty terrorsts, savage gang members, while stone cold killers.

You can't walk across the street to get a loaf of bread, You get shot, teenagers cut to shreds. They'll walk into your kitchen, they'll cut your throat.

Oh wait, I see this fictional Trump, who is portrayed as much better than he actually is, is running to be president of a country he paints as much worse than it actually is. But I got to tell you, whatever country that is where families are routinely murdered several times while making breakfast, could really use actual Donald Trump. The rest of us not so much. When we come back, Sanahase Coats will be here. Don't go away.

All about with.

A mail coat. My death tonight it critically acclaimed bestselling author. Because your book is called a message, Please welcome back to the program, Tanah Houston Coats. Hello, Hello, my friend, you are grappling. This is a book of grappling. It's reparations, the purpose of art, the purpose of writing, your role, your response ability the Israel, Palestine. I can see you want to go back to just writing comic books again.

I have for a long time had in the back of my head that we do not have a complete understanding of politics. That is to say, we think of politics as what happens inside of a voting booth.

You go in and you choose, you know, pull a lever for whatever right.

But there's a whole, entire architecture that happens outside of that voting booth that defines what goes on inside of it, what issues are appropriate.

Frankly, who is human and who is not?

And that is the work of stories, movies, television shows, writing all of that and being a writer, and this coming out of you know, me talking to my students at Howard University at the time, I really really wanted to address that.

You know, so often I get the question why should I write.

Now?

In general? But by the time they get to me.

They usually my students are like there, but a lot of you know, other times when I'm you know, out in the world, what is writing gonna do?

Like?

What is it actually gonna change?

And what I wanted people to understand is writing actually shapes the world around you entirely.

Right.

See I would have said basic cable, but okay, right.

For somebody has to write the scripts, right, somebody, that's exactly rightactly exactly is that?

Do you grapple with that as a burden or a call to arms? What is for you? How do you wear it? Oh?

It's exciting.

It's exciting.

It gets me up in the morning, right, It like pumps my blood like I can't wait, you know what I mean?

Like there are people who.

I got a friend who's in the yard doc right, and I was texting this morning about, you know, everything that was going on, and he disappeared for it.

He said, sorry this the guy just got shot. I'm sorry.

And I said to him, how beautiful is it to have work that actually matters? Are you out there saving people's lives? And I'm not an ear doctor, but it is a blessing to feel like what I write actually matters in the world, right, I mean, it gives me meaning and purpose, And I kind of wanted to convey that, you know, to all the young writers you know, who hopefully as inspiration.

Yes, yes, your friend was at work when the guy got shot. He was because first second I was like, wait, he was at work, work, you were talking to me.

He was at work?

All right, that's that's that's very good. Do you get frustrated? And this is something that that I think about sometimes that the world that you would prefer to see that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, and the work of writing is trying to help facilitate that. That it is that that that arc of moral justice is so resilient against bending that it's so hard to matter in that form.

I get sad, right, And there a lot of moments in here where I was really sad, right, you know, But at the same time, like I said, it fills me with purpose. I don't know if I would add a purpose I talked about just a few minutes ago, you know, without that great difficulty. Honestly, it feels great to know that if I actually try really really hard at the thing, if I actually worked really, really hard to write the best book I possibly can.

You know that I could be here talking to you that it.

Actually you could have written and been on here.

Listen.

If that's the case, I can tell you that that you didn't have to work nearly this hard.

But it is.

It's a beautifully felt book. I want to ask you, there's a certain aspect of your career that has really tried to reconcile, not with things in the present, but they're vestiges the structures racial politics, slavery, economic injustices where it might not be the active virus, but it's the vestiges of it that still, you know, leach into the

Yeah, that that's true, And I guess I'm gonna be the one that broached this. But it was obviously most active when I was in Jerusalem, when I was in Haipho, when I was.

On the West Bad. I mean, it was it was the history, but the history was active, and that was that was tough.

That was something I'm used to, you know, going to some you know, slave plantation and saying, well, yeah, this did happen one hundred fifty years ago, but here's how you know, you can still feel the impact and you got no, no, it's right now, right, it's right now, and it comes on the hills.

So in the book, you're also you take a trip to Senegal.

I do, yes.

Is that in relation to your trip to Israel and the West Bank in that same time frame or is that was that split out?

It was about it was so I think I went in this would have been like September of twenty twenty two to Senegal and in May of twenty three to the West Bank and to Israel, and weirdly enough, they are in conversation with each other. I can't say I intended that, right.

Well, that's that's why I was curious, because there is a music there between the two.

Yeah, yeah, no, that there is.

I mean, Senegal is very much about me, frankly, investigating the very stories that gave me my name, you know, and gave me my identity, and trying to work through that and frankly not completely working through it by the time I got over there and then you know, I take this trip, you know, with this wonderful organization of Palestinian Palestine Festival of Literature, and I get over there, you know, for five days, and I spent another five days with these x IDF guys, you know what I mean,

In the world.

Even feeling like this is wrong, what I'm saying is wrong.

I was like, my god, I know how you get here. I know how you get I know how it happens. And I don't mean like I approve of it, but I mean like, I see, I see how it happens. I totally see how it happens.

Is how you see how it happens, because you talk about Yad Vashem and going there and being moved is the idea. Because you have a line in the book that I think is one of the most powerful, which is and I want to make sure that I get it right, which is your oppression will not save you, which is, and you write about that in relation to the black experience in America, but also about the Jewish experience in the Holocaust as well as in Israel. And what did you mean by that?

I think we would like to think that you go through, you know, a horrific experience, be it the Middle Passes Jim Crow here, be at the Holocaust, or the centuries before that of programs, oppression, et cetera, and somehow you will be more really improved by coming out of that. You might be, You might be, but it's just as likely that you will conclude than in fact. The world is a cold, hard place and it's a zero sum game, you know what I mean, And what matters is who

Know what I mean.

When I'm walking through Yad Vashim and I'm feeling it on a very very deep level, only to come back here and realize I was, you know, about a mile away from a massacre of a Palestinian village, that's hard to take.

It. You know what I mean since I was I'm raised in obviously cultural Jewish tradition, and I imagine, you know, if you were to feel like people in the name of your people did some things that you found objectionable, it hits you different.

Yeah yeah, yeah, no, it does, it does, it does, and it's not a complete parallel. But that's why in that chapter I wanted to talk a little bit about Liberia for instance, you know what I mean, and just the idea, I get it, the appeal of hey, we're going to have a state of our own. We're gonna get away from these people that did you know, X, Y, and Z for us, we will have safety there.

And yet then you.

Find yourself enacting, you know, systems that, if not are the same or similar, at least you know, morally deeply problematic, and.

Having to justify them through either threat or the situation or you don't understand. And what I'm what I'm wondering is is that the story, in a condensed form of all of us is does for society to progress, does their also have to be exploitation? Do you grapple with this idea that when we think about anything, whether it's the American story or the Israeli story or any of those. It's stories of empire, whether it's the Ottoman Empire or

Is there?

Do you think about is there another way to do this? Has there been another way to do this? If we shine that light on any country that grew through, won't there be a story of exploitation and mistreatment that we find, maybe not as horrific, but we find it.

Yeah.

I think though, we have to guard against the temptation to accept that history is necessary the limits of who we are rightman beings, just because I mean, you know that's been you know that it's been that way, that it necessarily has to be that way. I will, for instance, highlight you know, the underlying role of nationalism and the belief that a nation state is the way to secure and safeguard a minority. That is a very recent development

That's prior to that. Wouldn't it have been tribalism or wouldn't it would have been something?

Would it would have been a pope it would have been you know my allegiances, you know X, Y and Z. But what I'm saying is it is not innate in us to say I am of this ethnicity. We should all have a state together, and perhaps so importantly, we should deny rights to people who are not of that ethnicity.

We don't have to be that way. We don't have to be that way a man from from your looks to God's ears.

I always learned, you know, there was that I can't remember the experiment, but it was they assigned class where people with brown hair got privileges, and all of a sudden, the people with blond hair were like and they got that, and then the people with brown hair started to kind of abuse the people with here. And there's a part of me that thinks, boy, we could solve religious differences, and somehow we would go back to killing each other

I think there's a lot of fear. Frankly, I think is a lot of anger, right, I think, and obviously for obvious reasons, you would notice a better than me. But I sense that alive. It is the humiliation of the Holocaust. I think that is, you know, very very much president, and not feeling like I will never be in that position again.

Sure you know, well never, I mean never again. I think the thing that so many Jewish people and not everybody, look, it's not a monolith either Jewish religious Jewish culture is certainly not a monolith. And there's many different opinions. I think if we start from a baseline of I would like a safe and secure Israel and a safe and secure palacy, and that's my starting point to any argument,

Does it Does it not come from being degraded and being made to feel like you are outside of the place that maybe you would like to call home.

This is great, that's interesting book, the pity of it all.

And it's about Jews in Germany.

Are you going to make me read something?

No?

No, no, it's gonna be quick.

I probably to be quick about that.

Still just getting through breaking bad. I can't even.

But it's all of these you know, Jews who in all these German Jews who want to be German right, like they really really want to believe in Germany, and they get the Holocaust right, you know what I mean? Like that has to ASSULTI a sense of, you know, the idea that you can somehow be safe out.

And then how much then does humiliation play a part in all of it, including kind of what has been But we would consider the modern age version of exploitation and colonialism, like I mean, even when we think about the regions that you were, that you went into, we're kind of a post World War One mandate that was drawn, you know, Lebanese Syrian Palestine mandate. The French are gonna take this, the English are gonna take that. I mean, it's it's you know, pawns on a board that people

Yeah? I think so, I think so.

I mean I will say that one of the hard things about that, and getting a little too psychological about this is I spent.

Ten days there, so you know it all exactly. Its things was.

I have to tell you that the perspective of Palestinians and the extent to which their perspective has been pushed so far out of the frame was incredible.

I felt like I was seeing a new world, right, you know what I mean?

And that's it's like shameful for me to admit I'm not bragging about that you know, it's not because that world wasn't there.

That world doesn't you know, hasn't been trying to present itself.

But I mean, I just wonder how many of these conversations would be improved if our media organizations made a concerted effort whenever they talk about this topic to ask, do we have anybody Palestinian that we've invited to be.

Allowed on those democratic prevention or yeah, I.

Mean I stuck.

I think I think access to different stories has always been a difficulty for America in general because of that sort of salveacistic world. You know, we we tend to be slightly narcissistic when it comes to the vision of it, and it's such a nessy everything. I wonder if it really improves it. I mean, here's something that I grapple with. I've known about it forever. I have friends who have Palestating families who've suffered through it. I have friends in

And that's I don't know.

Well, that's all the time we have. I don't know, but it is I wonder because you bring up such an interesting it is such a powerful river of emotion and when you say, I can almost not cry talking about because it's it's so deeply gets at the heart of our humanity, like people just want to be seen and just want to be no.

And it's probable I could feel it, you know, I could. I could really feel.

One thing I would suggest is and we have actually had this struggle with this as African Americans. And I'll tell you this from the black respective, there is great, not always spoken shame in the black community over the kind of physical traumas we've endured. You have to understand, man, every single one of us, every single African American, is a child of sexual violence.

All of us, all of US.

There is not a single pure African African American who came through us sleep. There is an amount of humiliation in that. There is an amount of humiliation in watching and I've written about this, you know, films from the sixties and watching these kids and these children, you know, get beaten.

By the cops. There is humiliation.

And you know, watching today, you know what I mean, George Floyd, you know, a knee on his neck. And I do think you know, a significant part of it is understanding, particularly with the past. These people didn't want to be enolaved, you know what I mean. People didn't want to get beat And it's not true that these people did nothing. It's not true that these people just willingly, you know, you know, went to it. There was a

You know.

There's such an analog with that with the Jewish community, and there is you know, and you hear it a lot about you know, the first thing Hitler did is he disarmed the Jews, And you're like, the Jews were not like gun tote and mother, like you know if you had taking our violins, maybe like, oh, they disarmed the Jews and that's how Hitler was able to get the Jews to do that. And you're like, oh, you know who had guns and didn't do too well with Hitler? France, right, right, right,

Yes, please, It will not measure up to the brands of what I saw Palestinians on the West Bank.

Bear it's.

That's an excellent portant. The only point I was going to make is through your discomfort, albeit not the same discomfort, You've done the most important thing, which is try to advance and delve into an understanding of a complexity that we haven't figured out in ten thousand years. And so I applaud that. And your writing, as always is so beautiful and moving. So thank you so much for being here. The message to you to tell you so break I really want.

I'm not gonna help for.

Tonight, but before we go, we're gonna take in with your host for the rest of the week, Michael cos and Michael Coss. What do we got going with? Good?

Where do we What have we got?

Michael?

Uh?

You know we got a big day tomorrow, John.

The vice presidential debate is tomorrow night, and the Daily Show will be airing live right.

After it balls. Butthole Dick's titties, I'm.

What well, So I don't want to let a curse word slip out on live TV. So I'm getting all my bad words out now, skulk, nutsack, jizz. You see, John, I want tomorrow night to be classy ass nipple.

But I mean.

Just not a like strategic basis, isn't We're not going to make you more comfortable swearing on TV. Well, I think it'll be okay.

Face Michael God, everybody.

Migrants that came in illegally. That was so vicious like you've never seen before. If you wanted to do a movie, there's no actor in Hollywood that could play the role. There's nobody that could do. These actors, you know, they're a little bit shaky. They can't play the role. They'll bring in a big actor and you look, you say, oh, he's got no muscle.

Content got no muscle. We need a little muscle.

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