Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Desi Lydic on Comedy, Chaos, and Covering Trump (Again)

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Jessica is joined by the hilarious and razor-sharp Daily Show host Desi Lydic. Jessica and Desi dive into what it’s like to create The Daily Show in today’s political climate, the challenges (and perks) of stepping into a lead hosting role, and how the show balances humor with the heavy reality of the news. They also break down whether satire is helping or hurting the national discourse, which party is more fun to roast, and how Desi approaches the unique chaos of covering Trump this time around.  Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now you can. With partial shares from TD Direct Investing, you can own less than one full share. So expensive stocks are within reach. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD, ready for you. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I am so excited about this.

I'm Jessica Harlow, joined by the hilarious and brilliant Desi Lydic from The Daily Show, also from Awkward, which she started on with my little sister for years. So we go way back, and such a reservoir of affection for you. Desi has been a correspondent since 2015 on The Daily Show, and now she's one of the show's main hosts, absolutely killing it, covering everything from Obama's last term to Trump's first,

and now second presidency, plus all the chaos in between. Desi, welcome to Raging Moderates. Oh, it's so good to see you. Desi, welcome to Raging Moderates. Oh, it's so good to see you. I love an excuse to hang out. So even if we're doing it over Zoom, I'll take it. I'll take what I can get. There are no cocktails.

I mean, there could be. It's a morning record, though. There are no cocktails that you're aware of, but you don't know what's in my travel mug. Is that how you guys do it at The Daily Show? This is the only way to get through the day. I feel like probably by the third month of the Trump presidency, I will be there. Maybe live on the 5 with a shaker.

Of course. Hey, you got to do what you got to do. You got to keep everything under the desk, pull it out as needed. Yeah, if you can make it three months without resorting to that, I'm impressed. It's also my first year not being pregnant in a while. So I'm taking advantage. Oh, God. It's been a while for you. Anyway, women are goddesses, blah blah blah. I want to talk to you about

everything that's going on. Want to start though with doing comedy in times like these and we've spoken about this a bit. We were both at the RNC, obviously after the assassination attempt you guys ended up canceling your shows. It was not the time to do comedy. Can you talk about what it feels like to be making something like The Daily Show in these times? Is it cathartic, just exhausting? Yes.

OK. To all of it. It's exhausting. It's cathartic. I think it depends on the day. I mean, some days are more exhausting than others. But, you know, I'm someone who likes to be tapped in to what's going on.

I completely understand the urge to pull the plug on news every now and again and take mental health breaks and just sort of disconnect from it all. I get that and I think people should absolutely do that when they need to, but I do like to be tapped in. And so for me to be able to process everything that's happening in the world, politically and otherwise, with a room full of my funniest friends is,

I mean, that is, that's cathartic. For us, we get to kind of find the joy and find the humor in the wild things that are happening and sometimes it's really hard to find it. I agree with that for sure. Have you felt like you've changed the show? Well, first of all, what's it like having the hosting role now and this rotation that seems to work incredibly well for all of you and for the show.

And how are you taking on politics specifically when you are the lead host for this? Well, I, you know, I loved The Daily Show all through my 20s and watched John and the other, all the correspondents religiously and thought like, that is what I want to do. I want to be a correspondent on that show. And that's something that I, you know, I auditioned for The Daily Show three different times over the course of many years. And when I got the job, it was, you know, it's been a dream job. It's continued to be a dream job.

I never set out to host a late night show. I never thought that that would be part of my destiny. So to get the chance to do this, you know, even every few weeks is, like, that's beyond anything I could have ever imagined. But it is, it's so much fun. I'm having the time of my life. It's like, it's flexing a different muscle for sure.

The pace of the show moves so much more quickly when you're sitting at the desk. You have to make decisions very quickly about what you want the show to look like and what your point of view is on a particular story, even if you're just hearing it. But I think for me as a performer, just creatively, the role of a correspondent is, it's very specific and you're playing a character

and you're playing a heightened point of view. And often you're embodying something ironically, right? The other perspective. And as a host, you're yourself. Like I get to sit there and be myself and think about, like, what do I really think about this and what do I wanna say here? And of course with the help of several Emmy nominated writers

who make us all, no big deal, no big deal. But it was really freeing to get to do that, to kind of shed the armor of the character and be like, all right, this is cool. This is, I'm just gonna be me. And this is just kind of share what I think about the news of the day. I'll do procedural for a second longer because I feel like it's really interesting to understand how this all works. Do you get to play a role in picking who the guests are for it,

the stories that you're going to be covering more so when you're a host versus when you're just participating in the show? Is it really like Desi's week and you have hand-selected everything that you want to be doing? Yeah. We have a full staff of producers who do a lot of heavy lifting. We have excellent producers who help book the guests and do pre-interviews and pitch ideas for guests,

and obviously a full staff of writers and a whole studio production team that provides the footage of the top news stories of the day. But we get to curate, like we really do have a huge voice in the process. So if I know my week is coming up, I can say, hey, can we look into this guest and this guest or I listen to this podcast and I think it's really interesting. Could we have this person on or I read this book and I think it's really interesting. Could we have this person on? Or I read this book and I think this author could be an interesting conversation.

And any guest that is booked, there's always a conversation with us, whether we've pitched them or they've, the producers have pitched to us. It's always a, it's a conversation. So it's exciting. It's like, there's nothing, and that is, that's become my favorite part of the show,

is getting to have people on who can come on and be experts in their field. Like, I'm not an expert in everything. I don't, it's, I count on people to come on and teach me about what they're working on. There's no one more passionate than having an author on who's just spent, you know, five years writing their passion project. It's fun for us. I'm sure. Well, you guys always look like you're having a great time. And it feels like the

political scene is kind of writing the jokes for itself. At this point, is that how you guys are looking at it? It does. It does feel that way. It's so funny. It's like, for so many years, it's like, hold on. No, we're supposed to be the clowns. We're the funny ones. And we're trying to find the comedy and heighten from what's actually happening. But there are so many wild, comedic characters in the political world right now that it does feel like we'll show a clip and we're no longer the clowns,

we're the straight people and we're reacting to the madness and the humor that's happening out in the world. So it's challenging, you do have to kind of pivot a little bit for when I do Fox Blains, I think that the bar on having to heighten and heighten and heighten as we go has become more challenging. So that like, yeah, you can't always out parody parody. Like it feels like, you know, Trump himself, whether you agree with him or not, whether you're a fan of Trump or not,

as a comedic character, he's hilarious. I mean, just as a person, his personality traits are very, very funny, and he's completely uncensored. So the way that he talks and does the swerve, the bob and weave, and following his logic is funny. So you sometimes can't try to out-funny that, you kind of have to just react to it. So I totally agree with you and I said multiple times on air,

if you watch him doing these long-form interviews, you completely see the appeal. When he goes on with like an Andrew Schultz, he did an episode of Gutfeld with us at Fox and close to the election day. And I thought he was completely charming, right? He actually didn't talk about politics the whole time, right? He was, cause he's a pop culture icon, right?

He's a, who became president, right? Which says something about our society, obviously, but how do you balance the fact that he is so funny and entertaining with the seriousness and the gravity of what's going on? Because that has been a criticism more of John than of you, that, you know, poking fun or going after Democrats makes people feel like Trump isn't necessarily as bad as he is, right? That it's, and I'm finding the right way to formulate it, but that it's essentially making it like two sides of the same coin, right? They're all bad or they're all, you know, they're all too old, etc.

is such a dangerous place. And how do you think about that when you are going out there to do your show? Well, I understand why people feel that way, but I think the job that we've always tried to do is to find the comedy on all sides of things. And John has always done that. That's not... A hundred percent. It's not new.

No. Right. That's not new. And, you know, I think there is, there are blind spots on both sides, for sure. And to decide, you know, every day you have to go, okay, what am I gonna talk about today? And just from a purely creative place, you don't wanna be shouting about the same thing

every single episode. So I think we do look for ways to vary up the show and talk about different issues and kind of like, you know, find hypocrisy and the humor on all sides of the issues. I understand that when the stakes, I think the challenge for us sometimes in finding the humor in Trump is when the stakes feel so high, or it's a particularly precarious issue. It can be hard to let go and laugh about it because it's hard to not have the perspective of, oh, but we could really be fucked. There's nothing funny about that.

But we're not, I think we keep telling people, we are a comedy show. It's our job to find the humor, okay? And for us, it feels cathartic. We hope it feels cathartic for other people. But it's to your point, that's something that we talk about every single day. And sometimes there are bigger fish to fry,

and sometimes you go, do I wanna to jump into that outrage machine right now on this one issue, you know, the Gulf of America, are we going to pounce on this? And even though that something like that is in the phone and concerning, but it's like, you know, we don't want to waste all of our outrage on one thing. And then, you know, he's flooding the zone.

So I think just to keep ourselves from being completely exhausted, we have to sort of pace ourselves and pick and choose our battles. It's especially important right now because you guys are filling a space where there are a lot of these key voters who didn't necessarily even vote before, right, that are coming into the fray, where they are not traditional news consumers. They are podcasts and TV shows and YouTube clips that they like consumers. And it feels like there's heightened responsibility on, you know, obviously you have a show that plays on Comedy Central, but you exist much more in the social ecosphere,

right, than an average show going viral all the time. Sure. So there's a lot more responsibility, I feel like, that you guys must be taking on or sensing as you're crafting your show versus regular times. Yeah, I think we try not to get bogged down by that when we all first came into this set up at the beginning of last year with John coming back

on Mondays and the four of us rotating, we had a meeting and John was so gracious and encouraging and just like, just wanted to check in with us and say like, hey, this is new. This is gonna be working a new muscle. Being a correspondent is one thing, being at the desk is a vulnerable experience. You're gonna feel pressure to say something

incredibly insightful every show. You know, like John has, he's very aware that he built a particular DNA in the show and that there's sort of an expectation that the show has because of that and because of what he brings to it. And so I think he didn't want any of us to feel that pressure to take on like us having to change the world Tuesday through Thursday.

And he's like, just go out there, find what makes it yours, and try to make the funniest, smartest shows that you can every single night. That's it. Don't take on the burden of changing this or changing that or, you know, don't put too much pressure on yourselves. And I think we continue to remind ourselves of that. Last week, you covered some very serious topics. What's going on with Doge? What was it called? The destruction of government by Elon.

Congressman Jasmine Crockett, who I feel like has been everywhere, speaking her mind, telling Musk to F off. I think I can say fuck off, it is my podcast. Fuck it, say whatever the fuck you want, fuck it. Good point, fuck it. Fuck it, fuck Elon. What do you think that level of rage

or that level of energy is doing to the national discourse, do you think it's helping or hurting the Democratic Party? This is something I think about a lot in terms of effective messaging. How is that resonating with people? Yeah, I don't know how effective it is from a political perspective. I certainly understand it.

I get it. Like I understand the impulse to do that. And, you know, is it effective? Is it resonating with the party? I don't know. But I think like, I think there's room for all of it. And I think the most important thing right now is that our legislators and people who are in positions of power are speaking up and saying something. And then you have protests and you have activism. And in times like this, you want people to make their voices heard.

And they're going to do that in a million different ways. And I think there's a place for all of it. I think at the core, the most important thing for the Democrats is to really take this time and figure out what is the vision? Who is gonna lead this party? What do we want? What does that look like? What is the democratic version of Project 2025?

I think there's so much disagreement in the party and, you know, there's a, they're kind of like stuck in this cycle of reacting all the time. And that's only going to get you so far. Like you can't be on your, on your back foot, just reacting. It's like there has to be some kind of proactive mission. And until the party really figures out what the vision is, what the path forward is, then it's going to continue to be rudderless. Yeah, I'm definitely feeling that deeply at this particular moment.

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and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Vox CA. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. It's official. The United States is breaking up with Ukraine. On Monday, the president suspended military aid to the country. That's about one billion in arms Ukraine isn't getting until it commits to negotiating peace with Russia. That move, of course, comes after a perfect meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Oval Office on Friday.

They talked about playing cards You don't have the cards right now With us you start having cards I'm not playing cards Right now you don't have your playing cards I'm wearing a seater's missus bread You're playing cards You're gambling with the lives of millions of people

You're gambling with World War 3 They talked about being thankful Have you said thank you once? That entire time They took questions from the crowd What Today explains looking into why humiliating Zelensky appeals to the MAGA base and what Europe plans to do about it. Today explained, every weekday afternoon wherever you listen. Hey there, I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, the podcast about tech and media and the way they're colliding. And this week I'm talking about the state of the

movies and the state of TV and how they all get melded together in the Oscars. A huge event that looks like it's going to get smaller every year. Here to explain what happened this year and what's going to happen in the future is Matt Bellamy, the veteran Hollywood journalist from Puck. Matt is smart, and he's going to make you feel smart for listening in. You can hear our chat on channels from the Vox Media Podcast Network. When you're approaching a show and you're thinking about there are going to be jokes that poke fun at Republicans and jokes that poke fun at Democrats, which party do you think is more fun to roast?

That's a great question. It depends on the day. It really depends on the day. I think there are great characters on both sides of the aisle. It depends on what the stories of the day are. So much of it is visual for us. And if there is funny footage of Biden doing something, it can be golden. If there's funny footage of Trump doing something, then we lean into that.

I think there's definitely a real lack of censorship or restraint in the Republican Party that tends to be funnier when people are just off the rails and saying whatever the hell they want to say. There definitely seems to be a little more of that energy happening on the Republican side. So they tend to give us a little more material. But listen, we're out to poke holes in both sides and call BS wherever it exists.

Yeah. No, it's definitely true. I feel like the Democrats, the funny stuff about Democrats, you kind of have to peel back a layer or like look under the hood a bit for the absurdity of everything. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene is just Marjorie Taylor Greene. And so- And that's the, that's the other thing that we, that we kind of grapple with is, I mean, she's, she's a machine. She's just out there saying wild stuff all the time. And I think that the other, the challenge that we're coming up against is like, you know, sometimes these politicians are out there just saying stuff because they want the press.

They want to be covered, you know, and it feels like taking the bait. So for us to kind of figure out, all right, Marjorie Taylor-Green said this thing that was very upsetting today, and we want to respond to it, we want to call it out, but then we don't want to feed into it, because this is exactly what the reaction that she's trying to get. So like that's, I mean, that's another conversation that we're constantly having. Yeah, they're definitely looking for the amplification. I'll regularly say on air, well, they won, right? Because they're going to be on Hannity or whatever tonight to talk about some ridiculous stunt

that they did on the floor or what they said in an earlier interview. But I mean, that's the way that it works. The Democrats are desperate to get out there now even more so since the election that everyone thinks, you know, if I'm on a million podcasts, we're going to win. Right. And I'm a beneficiary that people want to come on the podcast and talk to me about their vision for the future of the party. But it doesn't feel authentic. And it's so hard to get that for people. I mean, that's what voters are desperate for.

And Trump weirdly feels that way to people. Right. Yeah, or they're out there starting podcasts. Gavin Newsom just is starting a new podcast. I'm like, oh, OK. His promo feels like a Daily Show bit, actually. And I really like Gavin Newsom. But it obviously fits into a particular mold.

Exactly. It was so funny. I mean, yeah, that whole, I thought, well, we couldn't have written that any better. No, that one was a gift. That was a Democratic gift to the Daily Show gods. You covered both Trump presidencies now, or I guess we're in the beginning stages of the second.

Is that all it is? Yeah, no, when people do it in days, I think this is like day 41 or something like that. Oh my god. I know, definitely gonna get my first gray hair. How does it feel covering him in comparison to the first time around? Is it different? Does it feel largely the same?

It feels a little different this time around. I think, for one, I think we all feel fatigued. I mean, there's so much fatigue because we had his first administration, the first four years, then there was the campaigning for the next. And it's not like he ever really went away. So we've been covering him this whole time. And now for the next and it's not like he ever really went away. So we've been covering him this whole time and now for the second administration. The biggest change is probably that things are moving along at such a rapid pace. There is a lot that he is doing. I guess you got to give him credit for that. He's seeing things through whether they're effective or helpful in any way, that's debatable. But he is getting stuff done, which

is what he said he would do. So the pace in which things are happening is real rapid. And it hit us right after the inauguration. It was like the first week that he was president. We kept getting these news bombs at 4.45 PM, and we taped the show at six. The second it started happening, we went, oh, right, that's what this is like.

That's right. This used to happen for the first four years. We're like, he would just do something at the end of the day, and we'd have to upend the show and rewrite the opening or whatever. So I think the pace is moving much more quickly. There are a lot fewer guardrails. I think there were a lot of people in his administration before that were kind of old school Republicans that were going to kind of keep him in line. And now he's able to appoint whoever he wants, this media star and that media personality.

And so it feels a lot more out of control right now. Yeah, it's funny. To me, it feels like what we all thought the first term would be like. Yes. Right. Or what we were promised about the end of days of all of it. And then there were mainstream Republicans that stood up to him at certain times,

or at least there were people resigning. And it doesn't feel like that is going to happen at all. The folks that you thought were the safeguards on this have actually either been completely converted or just want to be Secretary of State bad enough, like Marco Rubio, that they're going to go along with it all. And I think everyone is struggling with how to meet the moment of covering what's going on while also understanding that a lot of people want this. Right. I mean, some of your viewers as well, right, are not against what's going on.

Do you think any of that will change in terms of people in the Republican Party standing up and saying, you know what, no, this is not what we want? You know, it seems like no one is doing that currently. Do you think that would change? What would be the thing that would change course on that? I think the only thing that'll move the needle basically on anything is the economy. So I mean, it's already not going well. People know what tariffs are, and they don't like it at the market. Drop were recording on Tuesday, drop what, like 750 points yesterday because

of that. So I think it has to be that, or you see like if they're gonna take away people's Medicaid, it'll be something like that, where people think that they won't get reelected. But it feels like the bar has shifted so far compared to even the first term that you think it has to be extraordinary circumstances and you don't want that to happen to people.

You know, you guys have, you're making fun of things, but your show has a tremendous amount of heart to it. And so you wouldn't want anyone to be suffering. Of course. Of course, I'm not touching that. Obviously. Yes. Yes, of course. I know we're almost out of time. I want to quickly talk about the people on people segments because it's absolutely a favorite.

So if you were playing a hype woman for the Democrats right now, I want to quickly talk about the people on people segments, because it's absolutely a favorite. So if you were playing a hype woman for the Democrats right now, what would your rallying cry be? That's such a good question. We will win. If that's OK with you, and then someone else in the Democratic Party would say, no, no, I think it should be we will win.

And then someone else would be like, we will win. No, it should be this. And then they wouldn't be able to decide on what the rallying cry is. And it would just be pure chaos. And then we have nothing. I love it. Definitely gonna send that right over to Chuck Schumer and be like, next time you do this, take a listen.

My last question, we do this with every guest. What's one issue that makes you absolutely rage? And what's one issue that you think everyone needs to really just chill out about? Oh, the issue that makes me absolutely rage would probably be subway train delays. That would be top of mind. Do you feel like the subway is much better since congestion

pricing? Kicked in because I do. Yeah, I think everything has been a little bit better since congestion pricing. I hate to admit it, but. I know, me too. Yeah. But we did publicly just now.

Yeah, we did. We'll cut that part out, right? Yeah, totally. What about chilling out about? Chilling out about, this is so small, and I don't even know if you're, are you on Blue Sky? Yes.

Okay, there's a lot of- It's a weird place. There's a lot of discussion on Blue Sky not wanting to be X and a lot of like tampering down on having a variety of perspectives on Blue Sky. There's a lot of like, you can't say that here, that's toxic, that's, you know, and it's like, no, no, there's,

it's not abusive. It's not toxic. It's just varying opinions. And I think there's, we can't be so afraid to share varying opinions and have calm, thoughtful discourse, you know? Again, it's so small. I don't even know if this is like a thing,

but it's just something that I was noticing. People were jumping off of X and hopping on blue sky or threads, but then wanting to police people only having one perspective, one frame of mind, and that's not what this is all about. I think we have to be able to go to places and have thoughtful conversations and disagree, and hopefully come out a better, a better way through all of it. Which is why I appreciate your podcast and what

you're doing. I think what you and Scott are doing here is so amazing and your work on Fox is, I mean, I just, it's a master class. I wouldn't go that far but I definitely feel what you're saying about Blue Sky deeply, also vis-a-vis my TV work. And I've been shocked actually by how siloed the Blue Sky users are, you know, because they all went over there as a reaction to the election. And I get it, you want to save space for a few days. But then if you're actually thinking tactically about winning, how does it benefit anyone to be that snipey and that exclusionary in the name of inclusiveness? That's exactly right.

Like I posted something about, you know, while we all agree with the mission of Doge, which is technically to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. And then I go on to argue that they're not actually doing it or whatever. The amount of replies that I had that were like, we don't agree with the mission of Dozier. And I'm like, you love government waste just because you hate Elon that much, or you hate Trump that much, or you genuinely feel that way. It's like the Blue Anon crew.

I didn't know that was a thing. My husband told me about it. Wait, what is the Blue Anon crew? There's like QAnon, which is like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Uh-huh. And then Blue Anon is the left version of it, where they believe like every conspiracy thing possible. OK. About Trump and co.

And I mean, I'm willing to think like some rando thing is actually true, but generally speaking, I don't know. I don't want to call Trump Krasnov or whatever they say is his actual like Russian asset name from 1987 when he got recruited and like, you know, it's a lesson in insanity in a different way. So at least I have a seat to both sides of it, which I feel like is where everyone should be and you guys do as well. You see it all. You're doing a great job.

Well, thank you. You're over there doing God's work. So thank you for the work that you do truly. It's all great. And I'm thrilled for your success. And it's great how much people are connecting with the show and with you. My friend was so excited that I was interviewing.

He was like, Desi is the star. I was like, I know. She's always been a star. That's so nice. Thank you for joining me. I'll text you later. It was great for our listeners to hear from you. Thanks so much. Thank you.