Slowbama

d C. In many ways, she's a typical barista. She wears a lot of camouflage vests. She knows a weird amount about Bolivian politics. She styles her hair and dreadlocks. Despite being white, spiritually, I just feel Jamaican, you know. On fourteen, Lauren got to work and she did what she does every day. She made coffee, a large drip with cream, an Americano with four scoops of sugar. And then at seven am, Lauren received an order for a latte.

And though it was impossible to know it at the time, Lauren Mills was brewing a beverage that would change the course of presidential history. This is The Daily Show presents Slow Obama, a podcast about the latte salute, the greatest American political scandal of the century. Everyone's talking about the disrespectful way the president saluted a marine yesterday with his latte in his hand, two marines after Marine one landed in New York with a cup of coffee in his hands.

That's back all off from what many are calling President Obama's latta salute. By Obama may serve as a useful metaphor for his entire administration. His entire administration is entire administration. How did it feel to wake up every morning knowing the President saluted a marine with a latte? What was it like to live through that horror? Has America ever truly recovered? Episode one? A Cup of Shame? September Barack

Obama is halfway through his second term as president. He flies to New York for a meeting at the United Nations, and the White House releases a video of Obama getting off the helicopter. He smiles at a small crowd, walks down the stairs. Marine salute him. Obama salutes back, a typical scene, except something isn't right. The White House both of this video on Instagram on Tuesday shows President Obama stepping off Marine one here in New York's saluting marines

with a coffee cup in his hands. Some are now calling this disrespectful. But how did the video reach the Today Show? One reason is Tom Stoneman. Tom is a writer for shout Pundit, where he blogs about politics and alpha mel testosterone pills. Tom is your typical conservative blogger. He's five ft seven, lives in a bomb shelter, and has never eaten a vegetable. I always kept an aisle. President Barak said, damn, who's saying? Oh, Bungler? The man was corrupt and he was also This is based on

my own reporting. Born a lady, Obama's two terms in office had already been defined by scandal. You probably remember the big ones. He used grape poupon instead of regular mustard. I hope you enjoyed that fancy burger. Mr. President. He wore a tan suit to a press briefing. President Obama's decision to wear a light tan suit it Yesterday's news conference. He droned a wedding a US drone strike in Yemen that missed its target. He even used a selfie stick

in the White House. Here's the leader of the free world, the guy we trust with a button for the nukes, acting like a twelve year old. The scandals kept piling up, and there were steady calls for impeachment from Americans with a o L email addresses, which is why Internet salutes like Stoneman were on high alert for more missteps. He saluted that marine with a coffee cup in his hand. I couldn't believe it. He might as well have pooped on the American flag and wiped his butt with the Constitution.

Stoneman and many other conservatives on the Internet were incensed. The video was soon posted at all the major right wing blogs, Patriot Shriek, Brainpower, American News, Red Anger, Rising, Storm Surge, The Angry Church Wife, Angry Man's Angry Blog, Angriness Today, the Anger Report with Doctor Mike Angry. The right wing radio host Mark Levin included a segment about the Latte salute during his afternoon show. It's about damn time, almost six years in office, that you show our men

and women in military respect, which you do not. And when you get off that damn helicopter, you salot, and you salote with respect. A nice crasp right hand slot. Got it. Now here's something you have to understand about America in two thousand fourteen. This was a different time, a different place, a different country. There were only six fast in the Furious Movies. Donald Trump wasn't yet the commander in chief. He was still a loudmouth businessman with

a reality show where he pretended to fire EMC. Hammer. So there was no telling whether this story would break into the mainstream. And then this is a Fox News alert on Chris Walla. Buckley Churnsworth is your typical Fox News intern. His father is a GOP mega doner, and his mother is not allowed to talk at parties. In September, he was a seventh year sophomore at Dartmouth. He was taking off the false semester due to a drunken disorderly charge out of Panera bread and found an internship at

Fox News. He remembers stumbling on Tom Stoneman's blog post we caught up with Buckley at his favorite New York City bar, Mick Chuggers. Yeah. So I was reading an article on epic bro moves dot com and an ad caught my eye. It was a link to a shout punded story. I'll never forget the headline, unbelievable, Brocko Boner does it again? Given Muslim salute while carrying a cup of Indonesian coffee. I immediately told my boss alright, I told someone on It's pretty coked up that day, And

suddenly the scandal was on. Marine manual states do not salute quote when carrying articles with both hands, or being otherwise so occupied as to make saluting impractical. Floppy, ill thought out, inappropriate, callous, selfish, and disrespectful. His heart wasn't it? After all? We gotta chi swilling, golf plan, basketball, trash talking, leading from behind, I got no strategy. Osama bin died lotting his dead GM is alive, a community organizing commander

in chief. How disrespectful was that? There are a lot of drinks you can order at a coffee shop Latte, espresso, Americano, makiato. But what Barack Obama received that was a large steaming problamo. After the break, President Obama faces the biggest White House scandal since William Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub.

Hey everyone, if you're enjoying slow Obama, consider subscribing to Slow Bama plus for just nine d nine a month, you'll get exclusive access to extra features, like a bonus for our interview with the dry cleaner who press Barack Obama's tan suit. We've also got free podcasts where we've removed all of the hoos, oz and us from all our episodes, and for Slow Obama Plus subscribers, the answer to this week's trivia question was once again, Leon Panetta,

And now back to the podcast. Do you remember where you were when you first heard about the latte salute? For many Americans, it's like the moon landing, except the latte salute actually happened, and people were angry. America had already been burned by the series finale of Lost, and now the Hope and Change president was saluting marines with coffee. We know that anger on the right was high, but what about the left. I was on that helicopter with

the president. My failure to stop him from saluting that marine with a latte is my single greatest regret, not just of the Obama presidency, but in my entire life. Jon Favreau is in many ways your typical former aid to Barack Obama. He hosts a hit podcast, He sends a hundred thirty tweets per day, and he is unable to make eye contact for more than three seconds without looking at his phone. And even now, five years later,

he can't stop thinking about the latte salute. Sometimes late at night, I hear a voice whispering in the wind. Latte Salude, lad Salude, La salude. It's my rosebut it's my white whale. It's whatever. Tim Burton season, Johnny Depp an obsession. Looking back, it's hard to believe that Barack Obama would salute a marine with a latte. But remember

this was two thousand fourteen. Alright, time now for the ice Bucket Challenge, and a lot of things we enjoyed in two thousand fourteen seemed ridiculous today, like The Walking Dead or McLemore. But another thing that's hard to believe is something John brought up that no one on the helicopter stopped the president, and it made us wonder was it really possible for John or anyone else on the

plane to stop the latte salute. To find out, we rented a helicopter with the exact dimensions and configuration of Marine one and ran a little experiment. Okay, so I'm here with my producer and the helicopter and what are we doing. We're gonna find out if one could have stopped the latte stilly. Okay, So I'm seated where President Obama would have sat. I am holding a latte that we got from Cab Coffee, right. Okay, the helicopter door has opened. I am walking down the stairs lifting my hand.

Is it bad yet? Done? The line with the latte? Okay? So what do we think? I don't think it was possible to stop it. Back in the studio, we called Jon Favre. Hello, John, It's Matt from slo Obama. We just got back from the airfield, and we determined pretty conclusively that no one would have been able to stop the latte salute. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. You know, President Trump by be finnskin semiliterate adulteress and

a serial tax sheet. But at least he's never had a scandal as bad as holding a couple saluting a marine. And to know that I couldn't have prevented that salute, I mean, thank you. You're you're a real friend of the pod. Thanks John, sure thing, and hey, you didn't really rent a helicopter and recreate this thing? Did you m? What do you mean? I mean? This is just a joke, right, I wasn't actually in the plane with Obama. I left the White Has a year before this whole thing happened.

Clearly the tru from the latte salute had left John Favre confused. After all, this was a confusing time in American history. Remember, for both the left and the right, it was hard to put this in context. There's plenty more ahead after this short break. I'm still on the line. Slow Obama is sponsored by WES. Wes is the first ever community underwear sharing program ever. Wonder what it's like

to walk a mile and someone else's skivs? We Undy sends you another member's underwear, along with a photo and brief biography of the owner. Simply where their underwear and then send them back when you feel like you've gotten your fill. If you're like me, you probably still have a ton of questions about the latte salute? For example, what drove President Obama to salute with a latte? Did President Obama ever salute a marine while holding another food

or beverage like a bottle of snapple or a turkey? Leg? Has President Obama ever been to the Renaissance fair, but mostly I think about that marine. Imagine you enlist for the U. S. Marine Corps. You train, you do your push ups, shave your head, you run laps while shouting about how butch you are, and then, during the defining moment of your military career, greeting the presidential helicopter, you get saluted with a latte. We tracked down the marine

that President Obama saluted. His name is Lieutenant Chris Wheel and he retired from the Corps in two thousand seventeen. He agreed to sit down with me and in an emotional conversation, we talked about how it felt to be on the receiving end of the latte salute. Lieutenant Wheel, I know this must be very difficult for you, not really. If you ever need to stop, if the pain becomes too great, please just tell me. I really doubt it. So how did it feel to get saluted with a latte?

I told you on the phone it was fine, wasn't that big a deal. But in another sense, it wasn't fine, and it was an enormous deal, and it didn't seem like America knew how to cope with such an offense. It wasn't like George W. Bush had ever made a mistake with the U. S. Military, But in fact, the United States had faced a remarkably similar situation a century before.

Here's presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. Well, you know, a lot of people forget this, but actually President Chester A. Arthur got into some salute based trouble of his own. I'm back in three Arthur was on a whistle stop tour. At one of those stops, President Arthur saluted some major general while he was holding a bottle of root beer, which, a course, back in those days, was made of pure uncut Mexican cocaine. And the scandal became known in the

newspapers his Chester's Cheese Up. You couldn't open a newspaper without reading about Chester's Cheese Up. Well, the backlast of this scandal was so ferocious that Chester Arthur was forced to find a fall guy, so he fired his secretary of locomotive affairs and then ended up selling him to the Prussian Empire. Wow, and you're a real historian. Yes, I am incredible, a real historian with a real story. Well, no, no, no, this is a real I thought we were doing a joke. Obviously,

that's never happened. As reporters were obliged to consider every side of a story. If there's a football game, you talked to the home team and the visitors. If there's a vote on a bill, you talk to Democrats and Republicans. If a woman is accused of being possessed by the devil, he talked to her accuser and to Satan by summoning the prince of darkness and a blood sacrifice. That's journalism.

And so we knew that before this was over, we had to talk to the latte salute or in chief himself, Barack Obama, because and this is weird, Obama has never actually talked about the latte salute. Here's the president's press secretary in two thousand fourteen, right as the latte salute scandal was escalating, the president's latte salute or coffee salute when he was getting off of Marine one, saluting the

marine with the cup of coffee. Have you even asked to respond to this or I haven't present aware of I don't know. If I haven't, I haven't talked to him about it. After five years, had no one really talked to President Obama about it. So I did what any podcast journalist would do. I requested an interview with Barack Obama, and his spokesman granted the request on the

condition that I not ask about the latte salute. I was told Obama would talk about literally any subject, his marriage, what it was like to be born in Kenya, any subject at all, except the latte salute. I declined the interview frankly, I told a spokesman, that's some weak tea, or should I say a week lot tea. I have been reporting this story for five years straight. In that time, I have lived and breathed the latte salute. I see it when I closed my eyes, I think about it

when I drift off to sleep. I tend to talk about it all the time, and that tendency has frayed my relationship with the people closest to me, with my friends, with my wife, with my wife's divorce lawyer, with my wife's new boyfriend, Dave. But in the end, America needs this story because the latte salute is the story of America.

Think about it. A scandal that nearly brought down a president started with a humble cup of coffee and so I knew that I had to go back and talk to Lauren Mills, the barista who made that faithful latte. I've got a small latte for Matt. Oh God, hello Lauren. Not again, Lauren. I just have one question. How does it feel to have made the coffee that kicked off our nation's greatest presidential scandal? Greatest scandal? What about Chester's

cheese up? And didn't Andrew Jackson like commit genocide? The latte salute, Lauren, latte salute, latte salute. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Are you drooling right now? The word scandal is derived from the Greek word scandal on, which means stumbling block. But what is a stumbling block? And then there's this wrinkle, m how do we even know that the liquid in his cup was a latte? What if President Obama was drinking something else entirely? Did

we get the latte salute entirely wrong? That's next week on episode two of The Daily Show Presents Slow Obama. Archival footage in today's episode was provided by Shout Hunted and The Angry Report Dr Mike Angry. The show's music is composed by Dave my wife's boyfriend. Thanks Dave M. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.