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It's the Daily Shown with your host, Michael Costas. Welcome the Vera Show. I'm Michael Costa. We have a great show for you tonight.
The Supreme Court blocks democracy, Republicans scramble over eggs, and dull Say Sloan creates a brand new holiday.
Let's get into the headlines. Let's begin with.
A debate over in vitro fertilization. Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court through the future of IVF into doubt by ruling that frozen embryos that are less than a tenth of a millimeter, by the way, are legally humans. And I'm sorry, but if you could pass through a spaghetti strainer, you're not human. And now Republicans who've spent years and years insisting that every embryo is touched by God or suddenly saying, oh, we didn't mean in a way that makes us unpopular.
All the GOP's top brass are now trying to scramble to get on the side of supporting IVF.
The Republican Senate Campaign Arm jumped on the issue by sending out this memo on Friday urging that quote. It is imperative that our candidates aligned with the public's overwhelming support for IVF and fertility treatments. House Speaker Mike Johnson also came out in support of IVF treatment and called it a blessing for many moms and dads who have.
Struggled with fertility.
IVF is something that is so critical to a lot of couples.
It helps them breed great families.
Our country needs that.
Okay, that's that's too far in the other direction. Okay did this guy? Did this guy just say breed great families? Are you trying to run a country or get us into the Westminster dog Show? This guy must really clean up at the nightclub. A yo, girl, Look you got those straight teeth and detached ear lobes. I want to genetically pass that on to my litter, you know. But
you know what, you know, better late than never. So now that Republicans are on board with IVF, I'm sure they'll jump at the opportunity to pass a law to protect it.
A Republican senator has blocked the passage of a bill to protect access to in vitro fertilization nationwide. Senator Sidney hind Smith and Mississippi objected to the measures approval yesterday.
The billbif US today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far, far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF, it would legalize human cloning. It would legalize gene edited designer babies, and lit the federal ban on the creation of three parent embryos. It would legalize the creation of human animal charmeris.
First of all, chimeras. I don't know how to pronounce that word, but I know it's not that. And secondly, you're not going to protect IVF because you're worried that someone might put like a human head on a giraffe's body. Why on earth would you want to stop that? That sounds awesome. I can be eating a tree right now. Republicans are treating IVF the way I treat reading books. I'm always like, oh, I'm going to read so many
books this year. I love reading, But when it actually comes time to read, I'm like, not for me, you know. And to be clear, none of this stuff that that center was warning us about is real. They're just looking for excuses to ban IVF, which to me is crazy. Why would you want to criminalize one of the only times you can masturbate for a good cause. Trust me, I've tried jacking it for leukemia and people were not happy.
Let's move on. I don't know about you, guys, but I eat food. Do you eat food? I really do ate food, But when I'm at the.
Grocery store, I can never figure out which foods are actually healthy. You know, this one is low FAB but high in sodium. This one has vitamin C but also polymonofibers. Now I'm staring at ingredient labels until the store closes. I'm trapped inside. My wife finds a new husband to breed with. It's a mess, but luckily the FDA is coming to the rescue.
The FDA potentially rolling out a new logo as soon as this year for companies to stam up on food packaging. They say it would clear any confusion on what products actually should be considered good for you. Right now, only three percent of foods are currently allowed to claim their food is healthy.
Wait, but just three percent of foods qualify as healthy. God, please hope that fruit roll ups are in that three percent. God please the free coupshty percent. But yeah, the FDA is going to make a logo to help people choose healthy foods, which you know, good luck with that.
This is America.
It's a victory if we can get people to unwrap things before eating them.
But I believe we.
Do need a logo identifying healthy foods. I just don't think it should be one of these boring ass options. Am I trying to have breakfast cereal or do tax prep? If you want people to eat healthy foods, you got to make the logo look cool like Jordan holding broccoli. And finally, let's talk about a major update in the ongoing battle between Donald Trump and Karma.
He's on trial.
He's on trial right now for trying to overthrow the government, a pretty big faux paw. But recently his lawyers threw out a hail mary legal claim that says he's immune from being charged for anything he did while president, And now his buddies on the Supreme Court are saying.
Maybe this morning the US Supreme Court handing Donald Trump the gift of time, the justices agreeing to decide whether the Republican front runner should be immune from federal charges because his attempts to reverse the twenty twenty election happened while he was still in office.
We will never give up. We will never concede.
In one page order, the High Court saying it will hear arguments in the case the week of April twenty second, but with no firm date for its final ruling, the prospect of a federal criminal trial being completed before the November election becoming increasingly unrealistic.
Legally speaking, his strategy has long been to delay, delay, delay.
Here he gets help in doing that from the highest court in the land, and there's nothing anybody can do.
To stop it.
I cannot believe this. This dude, he slipping out of everything. Is he some sort of human eel chimmera?
You know, like you know he started this.
He started his campaign with four different cases against him, and he's gonna run out the clock on all of them. There's the stolen documents case, he got a Trump friendly judge. The Georgia case has been completely sidetracked by two of the prosecutors fighting each other. Now, the January sixth case is getting delayed due to a legal theory that nobody thinks is legit except for maybe the judges he hired.
The only case that might be finished before the election is the Stormy Daniel's case, And based on the way things are going, I bet that judge is gonna get stuck in a.
Venus flytrap or something. I don't know.
You think with so many cases against him, one of them would stick.
But he's actually using.
That to his advantage, saying he needs to delay the cases so he has.
Time to prepare for the other ones.
It's like when Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting attacked by two guys and he bonks their heads together and they're both out for the rest of the movie. For more on the Supreme Court, we go live to Washington, d C. With our very own Desi Leideck, Desi, election day isn't that far off.
How soon do you think the Supreme Court could rule on this?
Well, Michael, that depends when is election day?
November fifth?
They'll rule on November sixth. So this is purely political, No, it only looks entirely that way. But you have to remember how complicated this issue is. The Justices have a very difficult legal question to answer. Can the president break the law anytime he wants hard to say, hard to say you constitutionally speaking? Can he burn down the White House for insurance money? Can he set a bomb on a bus that will detonate if the bus goes blow
fifty miles per hour? Can he stick his penis in a barrel of warm coffee beans that wholefood?
These are not easy questions to answer.
Yeah, aren't they? Though?
I mean to me, all these cases seem pretty open and shut.
Okay, did you go to Harvard Law School? No? Well, I did to use their bathroom once.
And because I have that legal background, I understand that these things take time. They're going to need two weeks to read briefs, another two to debrief, then you need a silent retreat from the briefs. You rebrief lots of stretching and hydrating, and then it's July, which of course is French American Heritage month, and that is very sacred to Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
I think he's irish. Here's the thing.
There has to be some way to get this decided before the election. Can't they work around the clock? Democracy is hanging in the balance.
Okay, but what about the other balance? Work life balance, rind culture is killing all of us. I mean, look at me.
One minute I'm reporting from the Middle East and the next I'm flying to DC to stand here in front of this very real Supreme Court.
I'm exhausted. And that's all on.
Top of my cardiology practice.
You're a doctor.
I used a lot of med school bathrooms.
Yes.
Look, The point is the justices are human beings like the rest of us, with full lives. They need time for things like being with their families, traveling in their Winnebago, keeping Donald Trump out of prison, playing golf.
Wait wait, wait, what was the last thing you said?
Golf? They love golf?
Okay, okay, Legal expert Desi lyidek everyone did, she'd say, when we come.
Back, Duel Tay Solan will be joining me at the decks. Don't go away, you can get welcome back to the Daily Show.
Today is the last day of Black History Months, So to get her thoughts, we turn to an actual black expert.
Do We'll say Sloan, Hello, friends.
Today is February twenty ninth, which is Leap Day and Black Women's History Day. And if you don't know that, it's because I just made it out. Why Because the rest of February is taken. Doctor King gets two weeks, the presidents get a three day weekend, and they even give a day.
To a ground hall. What the hell is a ground hole.
That's ninety like? Is that even a real animal?
You sure?
Is it?
Just a big ass guinea pig with a good publicist. So I'm claiming February. So I'm claiming February twenty ninety for us. Yeah, why only one day every four years? Because you account for you know, the wage gap and your mom and m you know, the math works out. Okay, trust me, I carried the four and everything. But the day is almost over. So let's celebrate some black women as fast as we can.
Okay, throw a clock on the screen.
Wait, no, that that looks like a shot clock.
Isn't the NBA? Now make it historical?
Is that a cuckoo clock?
Are you trying to say black women are crazy? But nerve the I'm gonna take get a gol Okay, just put up any clock. Oh Okay, I like her. She's black and she looks like she don't take no shit from nobody. Okay, let's celebrate some black women. Start the clock, Okay, Shirley Chisholm incredible congresswoman chosen her way into history by being the first black woman to run for president for
a major party in nineteen seventy two. She spent fourteen years in Congress representing Brooklyn, and I mean Brooklyn Brooklyn, Spike Lee Brooklyn, not Lena Dunham Brooklyn. If you thought Biggie had a tough time making money, imagine going door to door in Bedstyd asking for campaign contributions. DONATIONUS, raise money, Dalnatious raise money. Y'all was off beating this all right. Listen next, doctor Shirley Jackson. Ooh another Shirlee, the first
black woman to earn a doctorate from MIT. She helped innovate touches, horrible fax machines, and caller ID. She's the only reason long this is relationships work. So every time you use your phone, poor little WiFi out for your girl, Shirley. Next up, Missy Elliott for proving that black women can make a hit song while singing forwards and backwards. It's your finn of whipping you in and yet is how you're saying, Missy, we salute you, you salute we Missy.
See that's backwards Okay, look at your girl, all right. Next, okay, seeing the White House, gass, I'm gon like habss. First female VP and one bad bike ride away from being president. Listen, I'm just saying, if Huffy Bikes really wanted a female president. Loosing some chains at the factory, y'all can make history. Hoppus aunt, Come on. Next, May Jamison, the first black woman in space in nineteen ninety two.
What took so long? And that makes sense because in the.
Nineties, black people were doing whatever they could to get the farthest away from the lapd. So you saying I could go to outer space while these cops say on Earth, oh I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna take it. Come on, come on, let's go to the Little Coat. And the most amazing thing is that she came back. That's never a guarantee, but girl, wow, there's a black woman on family matters that went upstairs and never came.
Back down again.
Next, Lisa Leslie, a basketball legend who was the first woman to dunk in the NBA. That's right, she could dunk, which is way more impressive because when women.
Do it, we do it with titties. Slows you down She changed the game.
Like me, every time I play Uno with my five year old nephew, Drop four, Drop seventeen, Oot out, Hai, in your face, deckling.
Next, hey's my mommy.
Have everybody look at my mama. She's out there every day giving, serving, loving, and I'm i mean literally mothering me, literally mothering, and you know she made me.
You're welcome.
You know that got back. I'm surprised I was able to cover.
On many people.
That's okay.
You know we can celebrate even more black women than twenty twenty eight.
So that's not.
Gonna be earth.
Then duel say sloan everybody. When we come back, Rex Chatman will be joining me on the show.
Don't Go Away, I was born. Welcome back to the Daily Show.
My guest tonight is a University of Kentucky basketball legend and an NBA shooting star who has written a called It's Hard for Me to Live with Me. Please welcome Rex Chapman, God buddy.
Pat a right rite this book.
You lay it out.
You are.
I know you from basketball, some people know you from social media. You have a podcast. In this book, you talk about your your addiction, your recovery. How difficult was it for you to write that.
People have been telling me I should write a book for a long time. I never really understood why. And then Seth Davis, the guy who co wrote the author, who co wrote the book with me. I've known Seth a long time. He called me up. I had a level of comfort that I don't know that I had with a lot of other PEO people, and we started the process. We started it probably I was, I told somebody today, I think it was like two years ago.
It was like four years ago, because about a year in SATs said, hey, man, I've got another project that's kind of time sensitive. Do you mind? I said, no, I don't like talking about this anyway, So take all the time you want. I said, sure, what is it? He said, well, it's sister Jean, who's one hundred and four years old. And I laughed. I said, that's the sweetest thing ever that you think I might outlive sister Gene. So anyway, there were.
Man, I resonated with so much of this. You're incredibly honest.
One of the.
Things that jumped out at me was you broke the rules and oftentimes the law a lot before kind of the big bottom. I mean, there was cheating in school. There was cheating on your gun against the law, you know, right. There was driving with a suspended license. There was breaking tons of curfews, I mean every single break, rule breaker.
But then it really seemed like it all crashed in.
Twenty fourteen when you get arrested for stealing from an apple store?
Is that right? No? Not you okay?
But I mean, by the way, I didn't just bring you out here. Yeah, I'm asking a question that I should probably get to it. The perks of being an athlete and being a successful athlete, is that what allows.
You to cut I think so just talking about it in the green room really with Larry Hughes, my assimon and Schuster guy. My last two years of high school, I have dyslexia, and I didn't know any of that though. I just knew higher math and science and all that stuff. I would sort of check out, like, how are you guys getting this? This is not easy? And then I'm being told it's kind of common sense, and I just kind of I quit. I'm not going to be a math teacher. Why do I need to know this? And
so that was and then I cheat. But my last two years of high school. I just left school early after lunch, and because I was a good basketball player, like even in high school, Well, they can't afford to sit me, right, what kind of craziness is that? But I left and the only time I got in trouble,
assistant principal called me in one day after school. For two years, I've done this, and I thought I was in trouble, and he said, listen, Rex, I don't mind you going home after lunch, but don't be washing your car out there when the school buses are coming by.
This also shows how good you were at basketball well, because you know, maybe I could put up seven points, but if I skipped school, they're like, hey, cost, you're not that good.
Yeah, listen, man, you played tennis, and you played at a very high level going and playing you know you did. He really did. He went to Illinois and played tennis. And any body that goes to college and plays a sport Division one, Division two especially, that's all your time, that's right. I didn't really have the I didn't have probably the capacity for the school part of it, but I was having to go every day, and I remember sitting in because it takes all your time, and for me,
back in the day. We can only play basketball like three four hours a day by rule. And so I'd be in a Geography of Kentucky class sitting there.
It's such a complicated.
And and I'd be sitting there and thinking, well, Reggie Miller, Clyde Drexler, Michael Jordan, Ron Harper, all these guys are working out right now, and I'm stuck in this class, and it's my only avenue to get where they are, and I have to do what is being told. You know, probably cheating on my tests weren't the best thing, but I only did that once.
But as I read this, it, man, you worked hard. You know, you were you know you were going.
I was nice, but yeah, but you were getting a key to the gym at night and having you and your buddy and having rebound for you. I mean you you might have been a rule breaker.
That was the more thing that I had. That was the only thing I felt like I could control. And no, I worked at it. I was obsessed by it. I told someone earlier. I used to wake up at midnight on the East Coast. Yeah, I'd fall asleep, wake up just in a sweat, thinking my guy, Gerald Madkins somebody I know out in La my grade. It's at the park right now, it's nine o'clock. I need to do some push ups. Let me go run a mile. I'll come back and go to bed like obsessed like that.
Somebody's working harder and I can't allow that.
So that same.
Level of commitment, that stubbornness, that anxiety over working, How do you does that help you in recovery or away? Is it like is it hard to go to the cover because I'm a bad mother.
I can beat this.
I know I can beat I.
Think that's probably the mindset that got me there, right. You know, I for sure went through, you know, very first when I started taking vic itin or oxy contin. I just remember one day, very vividly, thinking, oh can I cuss?
Can cuss? I think already?
Can I say? Okay? I thought to myself, off ship, No, I thought you played against Michael Jordan' I've heard it all. But I was thinking all of a sudden, you know, I was taking this medicine and was saying take it once every whatever, all this and where I'm making that call. All of a sudden one day it just flipped where that medicine was telling me when to take it, and for I know it. Oh, I was only supposed to take three today. Now I'm to four, and now I'm
to five. And then I'd get to seven or eight and I go, this is an issue, man, and I'd cut it down to four or five and then guess what, maybe an argument or whatever and now and then that was from the time I was fifteen or sixteen year old, though, I started having some depression and whatnot and really started coping that way then because I didn't know how to cope, I would, well, I would sneak off to the racetrack all the time, bed horses. That was what my dad
and I always did. I just thought it was normal.
He talks a lot about in this book, you know, not just the pills, but also a horse.
Ray.
Yeah. I liked basketball. I love thoroughbred racing.
So and the only horses these people know are the ones in Central Park.
I like those.
Let's talk about because as you're talking, and you know, you discuss before games in high school, you always would vomit and yeah as a nerve, and then but then you also talked about how your dad, who was a basketball coach, would do this as well.
See this wasn't Yes, yes, yeah. He used to be a coach and I would be in his locker rooms before games and he'd give his pep talk and they'd go in the restroom, stick his fingers down his throat and throw up, and a lot of times it was dry heaves and I just hear him in there. But that was how you got ready for a game. I don't know if he did that when he played. I just know he did it. We never talked about it. But then I started doing it like well, I did
it out of nerves. He brought his whole team to watch, like a third grade game of mine. I didn't know they were coming. I went out on the court, puked everywhere at mid court, I mean big throw up, and they cleaned it up. I felt like Superman. After that, I was ready to go. And from that moment, I was a regular puker. I puked every single game from third grade till my second or third year in the NBA. And then I was just like and I would stick
my fingers down my throat. If I was playing bad, one of my teammates might be like, bro, did you stick your fingers on my throat? Go in there and throw up. But I'm reading this and I didn't realize that.
I think it's crazy. This is anxiety, man, And it's.
Also your dad had a similar situation. And when did you face that?
When out of rehab the last time twenty fourteen. I've been cleaned for nine years. I'm not the model. I smoke marijuana. I yeah, but I used medical marijuana. I have a cores liked from time to time. Nine years clean from opioids, I think I really started delving. I hit. I was broke. I was broken. I'd embarrass myself, my family, my kids, my ex wife, all of my friends and
my friend's kids that looked up to me. I felt like, man, if you're going to live, you better start tackling some of why you do the things you do.
Your dad is in here a lot.
Yeah, tough on you. I mean, one time you scored forty points, you come home. Dad's gonna like me. And he was mad that he didn't play better defense. And I played collegiate tennis.
My dad.
Sometimes I think, you know, if you would have been harder on me, I could have been a better pro.
And I'm thinking, well, which one is it?
I don't want that, but I also wouldn't mind me a couple more bucks playing tennis, right, So what's.
The balance, dude, I don't know.
I don't know because, to be honest, like I never in my life my dad played professional basketball, he played college I never in my life, my whole life was on the floor with my dad playing basketball. He never rebounded for me. He never did any of that stuff. Also, I didn't want him to do that. I was focused on what I was doing. I was watching his teams, watching everything he did, listening to everything. I was absorbing it.
And I think he knew that I was. I honestly think he knew that I would be too nice if and maybe fizzle out as a college player or whatever. He knew I had the talent. The problem is I did very much similar things with my own son, and he didn't have the same talent. Was way tougher than I was. But I treated him almost like my dad treated me. Sometimes I was better, but still I would. I think that's what we're all trying to do a little better than our parents. But it's a hard balance.
And you know, becoming a professional basketball player was a dream come true, and that's the one thing my dad, like as it's complicated, I love him today. I appreciate everything he's done for me. My mom the same way. Are there some things I wish we'd have done differently? Yeah? Who's not that way?
I mean, my mom's here, you know, and yeah, and.
There's on and on black woman history.
Now that's right. Yeah, And here's a list of things she should have done better. That's a job.
That's a joke, you know, Mom, What do you have to say to people listening who might be middle school phenom in a sport, or high school phenom and a sport. Everything's in front of them, it seems like, and there's a reality of this that you have lived. What do you say to somebody who might be in the throes of addiction right now?
Do you have a message or a thought?
Man?
I guess it's really just find somebody to talk to. I had so much pride that, you know, I was this King Rex type thing, this image, and I had so much pride about not living up to anything. I had all these secret, you know, insecurities, and you know, your pride can get in the way a lot, and once you let that move a little bit, then you can start to see a light at the end of
the tunnel. However, I also recommend therapy. If I would have if I'd have been able to have therapy, like as a teenager eighteen nineteen years old, I feel like I don't know if it would have changed anything, but I know it I had a better shot of managing the stuff that goes along with being a popular and kind of famous athlete.
That's a great message. Thank you for this book. I loved it. You're the man, Rex Chapment. Everybody, it's hard for me to live with me. It's available now, Rex Chapman. We took a quick break, but wright back after this got shop for tonight now here. It is the moment of zou.
Nobody explained to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don't speak languages we have languages coming into a country, we have nobody that even.
Speaks those languages.
They're truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.
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