The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Claira Janover

Episode Date: October 10, 2020

Claira Janover, the Harvard student who got doxxed and went viral after she made a TIK TOK about Black Lives Matter. 

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on Sirius XM 99, Raw Dog, and on the Riotcast Podcast Network. Dan Adam here, coming at you, the official announcer during lockdown for the Live from the Table podcast. I'm with Noam Dorman,

the owner of The Comedy Cellar and Periel Ashenbrand. We have Clara Janover who's joining us soon and we'll talk about her when she gets here. But Noam, before we do that,

I just wanted to talk briefly about the Chappelle. Didn't you go to the Chappelle's for the comedy compound thing that he's having there? Why? Because you never talked about it. And I,

you said you were going and then I assume you went and then you never brought it up again. And it seems like it's something that could be interesting. Yeah, I did. I did go. I did go. It was interesting.

And you'd like to elaborate maybe on that? Well, what do you want to know, Dan? What do you want to know? Did he send a private jet for you first of all, or something like that? He didn't send it for me, but it was me and Louie and Questlove took a private, Questlove and his wife, partner, girlfriend, I don't know, and my wife.

Yes, they flew us by private jet to Ohio. Here comes my wife, too. Oh, it's okay. America can wait. What is this? Yeah, so he sends you for a jet for you. He flies you, Louie, Questlove, and... Are we talking about our trip?

Yes, so he flew us. We flew directly... He flew us to Ohio, and then we got out, and as soon as we get out, we had a COVID test. I guess it's one of those Abbott's rapid fire COVID tests. Right. And then we were, as soon as we were, you know, certified clear, that we went and played with

the comedians. We went to a shack. He has a bar there. We hung out. We had a vitamin B drip. He has nurses on him. A vitamin drip. Then he does a comedy show.

Yes. It was fun. In the comedy show, does the audience have to get tested or are they just distanced properly? I'm not sure the answer to that. No. I think they just distance.

They're distanced and they all have to wear masks 24-7. So who was on the show? So you went to see the show. So who performed? Was there any talk of Dan Matterman being invited out there to perform? Well, it's funny you say that because Louis

said to me that you were, that he really enjoyed it when you opened with him and he thought you were a really good hang. We didn't really hang much, but Little We Hung, I guess, was what we liked.

So the show was Mo Ammer, Michelle Walsh, Louis C.K., One Night Chris Rock showed up. I can't remember who else was on the show. Darnell Rawlings, who was fantastic, by the way, just fantastic. And maybe there was somebody else that's escaping me right now. But the shows were really, really, really good.

Demographically. Hannibal showed up for one show. Well, demographically, it doesn't sound necessarily like the ideal show for me. I certainly would find it interesting to go out there. What do you, demographically, it doesn't sound necessarily like the ideal show for me, but I certainly would find it interesting to go out there. What do you mean demographically? It's an all-black show, apparently.

Michelle Wald. Louis C.K. Black and red-headed. Michelle Wald, Louis C.K., Mo Ammer. None of them are black. Well, I said black and red-headed, and Mo Ammer is of color. All right, Dan. All right. You would have done very well. I'm just saying, I just black and redheaded and Mo Amor is of color. All right, Dan. All right. But I mean, like you would have, you would have been,

you would have done very well. I'm just saying, I just don't know if I, yeah. All right. Okay. You know, you want to be on the Lenny Marcus show. And of course the, the, the audience was mostly almost exclusively, you know, middle American white people. I'm sure there were, there were black people there too, but you know, it was, it was not an, it was not an urban show, if you will. When I say urban black,

I mean, it wasn't like a city audience. It wasn't a blue state audience. It was a red state audience. I was being tongue in cheek about the demographics. As long as the audience is, you know, not too,

I find that if an audience is all black, I tend to not do well historically. But generally, in all other cases, things go okay. In any case, if I went, I would like to go with, you know, I don't know if you're going to go back. But, you know, people that I enjoy hanging with, I don't know if you're going to go back, but you know, people that I, that I enjoy hanging with, I don't really know most of those other guys. I don't think I'm going to go back. Not because I don't have a good time. I just, I'm getting re spooked about the whole COVID thing.

And I, I feel like, I don't know. I know it was private jet. It was tested. It was safe, but I, I don't think I'm going to travel like that. I think we're close to, we're almost out of the woods on this COVID thing with the vaccine and everything. How stupid would it be to catch it now? After investing all this time in being careful, this would be the dumbest time of all to catch it.

Well, I would like to get into Trump and COVID since it seems like a logical segue, but Clara is joining us soon. I don't know if she, is she coming on now? By the way, am I allowed to discuss what's going on at the comedy cell or no, with regard to the olive tree with the, the dinners quote unquote? Yeah, sure. Well, for some reason, Liz is keeps sending out these Instagram posts saying,

we're having dinner in quotes tonight at the Olive Tree with comedians. But what she means is there's going to be a show. No, there's no shows. There's no shows. There's a lot of comedians hanging out there. And, you know, they get up and they bullshit around. But there are absolutely no formal shows going on there. Well, but you're saying, well, the comedians go up

and they do jokes, is that correct? Or they just bullshit or they don't go up at all. It's not like there's any particular formalized thing going on there. Oh, here she is. Clara, is it Clara or Klaira? I'm so sorry. I like read 730 and then-

I say I know, you have nothing to be sorry about. I thought that you didn't see 730 and that's why you came at seven. And I was like, oh my God, I didn't want to keep you waiting. But it's all good. How do you pronounce your first name? Clara. Clara. Okay. You're apologizing to a woman who gets the things that I send her

clearly written wrong about four times a day. So I wouldn't apologize. Well, let me introduce, I'm the official introducer during lockdown. Right, right. So I will introduce Clara Janover, 22 years old. Her whole life ahead of us, unlike some people on this show. A Harvard student, most known for being doxed and a source of tremendous controversy in July for a viral TikTok

in support of BLM. Welcome, Clara Janover, to the podcast. Hi, guys. I'm super excited. Thank you. Are you coming to us from Cambridge, Mass? I'm coming to you from Los Angeles, California. That's nowhere near Cambridge, Mass. Is that because Harvard is doing it remotely? Yeah, I'm also not currently enrolled this semester. I took the fall semester off. And so I won't be back until like late January, which is when the spring term starts. And I will be back in Cambridge at that point. Okay. So let's talk about what happened. So now, by the way, I, Perry doesn't think so, but I don't know if this is traumatic and stuff. Like for people who are watching, I'd like to play the clip of the video to set the context.

You don't, you don't have any problem with that? Yeah, go for it. I've seen it a million times. Okay. Okay. So, so let me just start by, by just playing the, I'm trying to remember the whole thing myself. I'm going to play the, so I can share computer sound. So it starts with, this is the first video that kind of went viral. The next person who has the sheer nerve, the sheer entitled caucasity to say all lives matter,

I'm gonna stab you. I'm gonna stab you. And while you're struggling and bleeding out, I'm gonna show you my paper cut and say, my cut matters too. Okay. So for some reason, first of all, the first thing I actually, the first thing I just want to say that how can anybody take that seriously? Like people were actually acting as if you were actually threatening people with real violence. Is that true? Yeah. So when this first happened, right, this was a jolly good morning. I thought it was like a joke. When you are educated with the critical thinking abilities to interpret satirical hyperbolic

analogy, you immediately see people that are tweeting at you tagging the FBI and Homeland Security and Cambridge Police. And you say these people are either really psychotic or really stupid. They're not mutually exclusive, but they fall under those domains. And because of the nature of, you know, the Twitter sphere, which I was very unfamiliar with, and the nature of doxing, and these essentially smear campaigns against people, the news circulated so fast, because people had like, what are called Twitter bots. And so they would respond to every tweet in my name, or like, in response to the videos, with like this statement, Harvard student threatens to stab people and then the video and like no one really watches the video or if they do it's the beginning and the figurative

speech is like so important to them and it just really it accelerated so much faster than i could have imagined and so let me let me let me tell you where I might disagree with you. I know where Noam is going. Noam, can I guess where you're going for fun? Yeah, go ahead. Just knowing Noam as I do for some number of years, Noam had an issue with the word caucasic. No, no, no, I don't have an issue. I do want to talk about that, but not that where I was going. I want to say that I think that part of the reason people jumped on this is the context of it going in the other direction just as insincerely, or in both directions.

I'm not trying to lay it on one side or the other. So, for instance, the only thing that can come to my mind, I should have done some research. like i remember sarah palin years ago had some uh ad where she put a bullseye on uh either either on a location or on a particular candidate that they were going to target for a defeat or whatever it is and people were saying she's encouraging violence against the you know the same guys and everybody was like no she's not encouraging violence you know we're using a metaphor of a bullseye someone you're targeting but very few people we use targeting all the time it's not encouraging violence. You know, we're using a metaphor of a bullseye, someone you're targeting, but very few people, we use targeting all the time.

It's not a, so there was a glee in seeing somebody from the left, which you are, putting themselves, exposing themselves to the same sort of bad faith attacks that the left had often handed out to the right. Would you, you think that's unfair what I'm saying? No. And I, I mean, I've thought a lot about this and I also don't ever want to say that,

you know, I think what I said and how I said it was like, if I had known it would be viral, that I would have said the exact same thing. It was a video, it was on TikTok, which is an app for 15 year olds to dance and lip sync. And it was, it was on TikTok, which is an app for 15 year olds to dance and lip sync. And it was, it was entertainment. I mean, people make videos. I'd still stand by it, you know, but I understand that the use of violence and figurative language, even if it be metaphorically, hyperbolically, or contextually, it is going to turn people the wrong way. Now, do I think that that warranted the degree of response, especially since you had all lives matter people making videos,

you know, against the second amendment, you know, and gun control being like, okay, well, want to see what's going to happen if you try to come to my backyard or take away my gun or in response to protesters, um, for Black Lives Matter saying like, well, what would happen if I just ran someone over with my car that was protesting illegally? Or, you know, if there's no cops, like what's going to happen when I break into your house? These are all, you know, ways to convey, again, a very aggressive message, but in a way that people, I guess, kind of understand. And, you know, I'm sorry if I'm going on on tangents, but in my video, you know, the use of, again, caucasity, which is like, I've gotten a lot of pushback for saying like white slurs against.

No, just to interrupt you, because I believe I saw this. You're adopted, right? You have white parents? I have a white mother, yes. White mother. So that's important information for people to know before they think that you hate white people. So go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, and it's also like, I'm not, I don't hate white people. I have white friends. I grew up in white communities. I have white teachers. I think the joke is like like there are people that are white right like you guys are white and then there's like hey hey okay go go ahead no there's like white people like the people who compare the n-word to karen or who say like you're oppressing me because you said caucasity or who say like well you know if you show me a photo of like an entirely black Congress, like that's

racist, you know, to show these. And then they say like, well, what if I did that with like a white Congress? And I'm like, that's not like, that's not a what if, like that's just showing you a picture of Congress. Like the point is to, you know, appeal and understand that like these are, and you know, there are a lot of people who say like, you can't fight bigotry with saying things like Karen or caucasity, you know? And, and I really do respect that opinion,

but it's also one that like, I won't. Oh no. I say you can, I, I, I say that. I just jump in because not everybody is watching on YouTube and not everybody can see Clara and not everybody can detect what, what ethnic group she belongs to without us telling them. So she is not African American. She is Asian. I gather. I would say Southeast Asia. So yeah, I'm Chinese.

Yeah, no. and it's okay. I mean, it's something that I make jokes. I think that I do have more of like a blunt sense of humor. But I mean, I was raised by my white Jewish mother. I was bought mitzvahed. I fast for Yom Kippur. I make content about how like people don't understand that you can be culturally belonging to like something and not embody like this Ashkenazi mentality. I think the use of the term Karen, I don't care about the use of the term, any of these terms in informal jokes

or even to make points in smaller groups, whatever it is. I'm not a, I don't know. I'm not like a purist about this stuff. But, but like when the mayor of Chicago answered one of her detractors, shut up, Karen, you know,

I actually think, yeah, you, you cannot end bigotry by normalizing concepts that embrace the idea that, well, it's okay to judge people by the color of their skin. As long as it's not, uh, uh, black people by the color of their skin. In other words, well, it's okay to judge people by the color of their skin as long as it's not black people by the color of their skin. In other words, no, that's not actually the whole point.

The point is that it's wrong to judge people by the color of their skin. It's also wrong in a deeper sense to dismiss anybody's arguments based on an ad hominem attack, which is, which is, it's another layer of that, meaning that it's not, not even a matter of the generalization that goes into Karen, but even if it wasn't that just by saying,

you know, shut up, you're ugly. That's a, which is not that different, although it doesn't have the racism to it. The person who says that is stupid. Like, and probably says that because they don't have a good answer. Yeah. And I mean, I'm gonna respond to because those are excellent points,

but I'm going to respond to firstly, the online media landscape, right? YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, you're not really having conversations with people, right? Like you're putting out content, you're talking at them. And that's very different. I happily deploy these, you know, and that's my own personal thing, where I will say like, oh, like white people, you know, and I get that white, certain white people are like, you know, flabbergasted by my audacity to racially generalize them. And I will say it. And I, I would not, I would not say that in the same like trope or sense that I would in like a conversation with you guys, right? Because these intellectual and much needed productive conversations can happen, but also on the internet, that's not what's happening. It's

not a fair fight. People aren't sitting there and thinking like, what is this girl's mentality? You know, the fact that I get still thousands of hateful messages and voicemails, like just the other day, you know, I had a Facebook message where somebody puts like the address of the, where is getting therapy from and was like, we saw you walk in and out of there. I get messages calling me. I don't know if I can swear on here, but yeah, I get called the cunt, a bitch. I get messages about how people want to brutally rape and sodomize me and gangbang me and then send pictures of that across the internet. You know, and that's like, I get those weekly, right? So that's not...

That's insane. When I think of... I can carry off of that pointed... No, but it just I mean the whole thing that like seems to be getting

lost here and you know correct me if I'm wrong but it's so I'll wait till you finish go ahead no you usually

don't even have to wait I know go ahead go ahead you were so clearly being funny right like it was so

no no no no no no yes it was it was so clear. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, it was. It was so clear. She was not. No, Clara, you can correct me if I'm wrong. No, she was angry. No. No, she was not being funny.

She was being angry. No. That was real anger, but the threat of violence was not real. The righteous indignation I took as real. She was not joking about Black Lives Matter. No, she wasn't joking about Black Lives Matter, but it was obviously so hyperbolic and over the top. Like when you're having a conversation-

She wasn't being funny. Well, Clara, you can answer. It was my intention to be, it was a satire. Kind of like, I don't know if you guys have seen the water is wet video, you know, where the guy's like, water is wet. Like it, the righteous indignation obviously is much more contextual in the term of politics. Right. And that's why people are like this angry, violent, scaring, crazy bitch from Harvard who didn't deserve to get into Harvard also

represents everything wrong with it. You know, like I get that. And also all of these are culminating factors of the amount of criticism that both my video, my response, my decision to then continue my platform and speak out and write and talk about it. You know, all of these, my experience would have been very different had I handled things differently or like immediately went private and stepped back. But for me, and I, you know, this isn't like the point of all of it, but like, I wasn't, I wasn't ashamed of the video I made and I knew that it wasn't legitimately violent in any capacity. And I was sort of, it was terrifying, but also so eyeopening to see a culture of hundreds of thousands of people, people with millions of Twitter followers and culture, Jack Posaviak coming at someone so quickly and send.

So two things, first of all, I'm just going to say for the record, I'm going to go back and watch it. If that, if that was pure satire, first of all, you're a genius because like that that is like oscar-winning uh performance i i took it to that that some of that anger was was not like i it would be shocking me like after you after you press stop you're like like i felt like that was real but but you know okay but but but either way i i'm not criticizing it. I wanted to say also that- To these conversations. No, no, no. I also wanted to say that,

I'm just to, before we leave it, on the topic of saying white people, saying Karen, I would say the following, because we all say things, that to the extent that you're putting your foot in the arena of talking seriously about the issue of race, principles, objective standards, and those sorts of things. I think at that point,

it is very, very wise, and maybe even it is morally called for to really clean up your language in that context. In other words, if an everyday person is, oh, fucking white people, whatever, whatever. But if my profession is to fight against bigotry and I say, oh, fucking white people, people look at me like, well, okay, then you better stop and tell me what you mean by bigotry. Do you just mean that you're here to protect the people that you want to protect and you have no universal idea about what it means to judge people by the color of their skin or by any other aspect, by who they want to sleep with? I mean, the whole point is that there is something deeply tempting and deeply wrong and part of the frailty of the human condition that we're all fighting against to judge people by immutable characteristics,

including an individual white person can be just as unfairly treated and just as wrongly judged by his skin color as an individual black person can. Now, you can make the argument that in the overall, black people are the, you know, you can't compare the suffering of black people as a group. Yeah, of course you can say that. But nevertheless, as an individual, if somebody bashes me over the head, as has happened to me, actually, because I was white. And you're going to try to tell me, well, that's, you know, it's not racist because you're white and he's black and I'm there knocked out on the ground. You know, you're just not going to convince me

that it was okay for him to judge me by the color of my skin. It was racist. So, so I just think it's, it's very wrong to the, again, not an informal conversation. I don't know, not, not where people are, but if, if you want to be in the arena of fighting against bigotry, there's no need in my opinion to make those compromises. There's just not, it doesn't help your cause. It only, it can only hurt your cause. That's for sure. For just strategic reasons. If you want to win people over, the last thing you need to be doing is giving them the low-hanging fruit. Can I just follow up and ask Clara if her ambitions for the future include this kind of social activism? Are you, is this how you see your future, you know, after college? I mean something that was interesting, I mean there's a lot of points, Noam is that how you pronounce your name, that I, you know, I did think about,

but firstly being, and I again, I recognize my role when you put something on the public, it doesn't matter if you intend for one person or a million people to see it. It's up for scrutiny. But the video that I posted when I had posted it back, you know, this was before I was viral, before I had anything. It was also a month before the whole scandal blew up. The TikTok existed online for a month.

And there's a very big difference. I wasn't doing it as a profession. I wasn't out here trying to have my company or my organization or my movement. And I think that a lot of what the online media landscape and social activism is, is just making points. And I think that there's a tendency of either tone policing or phrase policing, which is correct if you're giving a speech at a school or in front of a United Nations conference. Or even now, now that I have a following giving a speech at a school or in front of a United Nations conference, or even now, now that I have a following and a platform and a name to myself, right? Versus if

you're just an individual on the internet, right? Like you tweet what you want, you post what you want. There's a completely different argument about thinking about those repercussions. But I think like, there are ways that, you know, activists almost are held up to a standard of perfection of like, non-controversy, even though they're stepping into that sphere. And so I, you know, right now, I would never make that video again. And, or if I did, it would be very intentional to convey the emotional gratitude or the emotional gravity of my statement. But, you know, but then to go into the, if you're fighting bigotry, you can't stoop to their level. I do respect that. I do get that. But I think after, there are points where, and this is the,

and we know I'm so good at analogies, but imagine if you are, you know, a kid at school being bullied and every day you're just being punched down. And that's not to say the bully doesn't have a hard life, doesn't have whatever. And then you stand up for yourself and say like, bully, like shut the fuck up, like get out of my face. You know, like that's not, I would say that's not the same thing because that's actually the bully who did it. Yeah. But for people of color who have existed under systems of institutional, systemic and cultural racism, it is white supremacy. So let me, let me give you, let me give you a better now,

not a better now, forgive me, but let me give you another. So right now, you know, there's a big problem with black on Jewish assaults in New York. And if I wanted, and that's essentially the topic to talk about and to be very clear, you know, this is the world we live in, not blaming black people for that.

I'm not even, whatever. It's just a real thing. You can go on the ADL website and you read about it and there's been articles about it. So if I want to wade into that, the last way I would do that is by making, saying, you fucking black people.

I would not, I just wouldn't, that would be exactly the wrong way to talk about. So if you want to talk about white people who are doing something, but you think then, therefore, it makes some logical sense to zoom out to implicate all white people, well, then I would say this is exactly, I've used this analogy before, this is exactly the kind of sloppy thinking that got the Central Park kids, the joggers kids convicted because the jurors associated, you know, what other black kids had done with these kids who were accused.

I'm like, you just can't. I mean, there's no way to look at it. It's just wrong to generalize people on the color of their skin. And, you know, for some reason, that's almost like a right wing talking point now. But I'm old enough to tell you that that used to be what the most far reaching, good hearted liberal people used to say was square one. That's Martin. You could not get Martin Luther King or Baird Rustin or any of those guys to utter any of the types of things that are being said today. And let's be clear. Those are black people who lived through Jim Crow. These people had their heads bashed.

These are people who spent time in jail. These aren't like white rich kids, you know, or you're an Asian Jewish Harvard elite, you know. These are people, I'm saying like this was the gravitas of the people who were actually suffering the real deal. And they did not permit themselves. And I'm sure it would have felt good for them. I'm sure they're human as I am. And they would have loved to call that bully, fuck you. But they didn't because they limited themselves in a certain way that I have an awful lot.

Everybody should admire. And everybody should try to. We're all human. Everybody slips. Everybody has ugly thoughts. Go ahead, Marielle. I'm sorry. No, can we just pivot here for a second because all that is you know well and good and obviously like really carefully thought out and interesting points that

you're making but to backtrack a second the only time she ever compliments my thinking is when there's a butt go ahead but now you literally sound exactly like my husband go ahead um is that clara is a young woman who i would imagine studied her fucking ass off to get into like you know i don't know maybe the best school in the world jews are very brainy jews are very brainy, Perrielle. Go ahead. Go ahead. Made a funny video and like suddenly half the fucking world, including Ann Coulter. Oh, so let me finish giving out her address where she was putting her, not Ann Coulter, everybody else, but maybe Ann Coulter. I wouldn't. No, no, no, no. Don't say things you don't know are true. I didn't say- What did I say?

I said not Ann Coulter, but I wouldn't put it past her. And then you said maybe Ann Coulter. I said I wouldn't put it past her. All right, all right, all right. Go ahead. You didn't say that. I said that. Okay, go ahead.

And I was being a little bit tongue-in-cheek. But anyway, and really putting her fucking life at risk. Oh, you know I'm on i'm on your i know i'm on her side why that's why aren't we talking about that so let's get to the next part of the video and then we can talk about what happened to but what happened listen we are we are where i might disagree with you on politics which i find interesting and because you're because you're so smart and measured, I'm interested to talk to you about it. But regardless of what I think about your politics,

it doesn't affect me in the slightest about whether I think that people should have done such a thing to you. It's terrible. You have a right to say whatever you want to say. I don't care what you say. I thought you were telling me you thought I was so smart and measured.

No, I'm telling Clara that I don't care what you're saying. I thought you were telling me, you thought I was so smart and- No, I'm telling Clara that I don't care what she says. People shouldn't be coming at her as they did. It's disgusting. So let's just watch the second part of the video. Okay, so here is- Sheer entitled, caucasity to say all lives matter. That's the highlight of the end of the last one.

I'm gonna stab you. And while you're struggling and bleeding out, I'm gonna show you my paper cut and say my cut matters too okay now now is the one now is what happened afterwards you're coming trump supporters just took my job away from me i've gotten death threats rape threats violent threats it was okay but now it doesn't make my future my future is entirely compromised because trump supporters have decided to come for my life god it sucks you guys suck i'm too strong for you i'm too strong for any of you. All lives matter. Racist Trump supporters.

It sucks, but it doesn't suck as much as systemic racism. And I'm not going to stop using my platform to advocate for it. And I'm sorry, Deloitte, that you can't see that. All right. So I just want to say, when you were doing that, if you had any idea that someday you'd be on the Comedy Cellar podcast, would you think that your future was really as ruined as you thought it was? Okay, I want to touch on a couple of things, just sort of,

and I know that we're like short on time. No, it's okay, it's okay, go ahead. This video is very meaningful to me, and I'm very glad I posted it. The two videos actually of me crying. This was the one that was more spread across again, like Trump talk, Fox news, you know, the daily mail. And I was prepared for, well, I wasn't prepared for the backlash, but I knew it was going to happen, you know, but I was very intentional when I was crying. I was like, I'm posting this even though,

and it wasn't very thought, I mean, it wasn't thought out. It was literally, I was like, I'm posting this, even though, and it wasn't very thought, I mean, it wasn't thought out. It was literally, I was recording it as I was sobbing, you know, because mind you, I have no living family. So no living parents or siblings. I was living with my friend because of COVID that I then had to move out of because of this whole doxing thing for like their safety and my safety. I was a young girl, I'll be at 22. So I was an adult young girl who for so long, like my job at Deloitte was job security. It was financial security. I grew up low income to a single mother.

And so it was job security. And that was what I saw as my future and I generalized Trump supporters Which again introduced Trump supporters into the conversation in this video had I done it differently? I would have been I more thoughtful about it But I think that there's and we don't have to talk about these social mechanisms behind like seeing a young girl crying and immediately Assuming she's hysterical and irrational and on her period. But we have this, you know, expectation of non-emotion and like hyper-masculinity. I know that's a trigger word, but this idea that strength can only exist in emotionlessness or in like this fortifying behavior of like righteousness, right? And when I said in that video, like, I'm stronger than this, I maintain that you can cry

and you can fight at the same time and you can force people to reconcile with how visceral again and it wasn't just racism it wasn't just Trump and all lives matter supporters but the online media landscape that makes harassment and doxing and all these things so prolific that when it is against one person, right, which it was against me, you know, it was tremendously overwhelming. And the fact that even though in the video I was emotional, I was sad, I was, I didn't know what I was comprehending. I wasn't like writing out a script to recite it. I was also like, I don't want to pretend that I'm okay, given that this is a consequence of, you know, something that is so magnified. And so that's what I did want to say, because I think a lot of people had

not necessarily issue, but commentary on like me crying or me being like a baby or a brat um or me being you know irrational when i think there were a lot of contextual uh pieces of information such as like my financial insecurity and housing insecurity my entire life growing up that culminated into this idea of like my future the woman your mother the jewish lady is not alive anymore? No, she passed away in February. Oh my God. I'm sorry. Yeah. So you've been taking it hard.

So, I mean, I didn't have any, I didn't have that feeling about your crying. I know that your people who attacked you did. I tell you the feeling I did have, and I wasn't alone in this. There was a certain, cause I had had my experience with cancel culture and there was there is this sense when you see that I say well maybe now she understands well was no way to put it would she have been able to feel for someone that she didn't agree with who was being who was facing the twitter mob

and maybe now that's human most i mean there's a lot of people who learn a lesson that way but i mean i would imagine now that you've gone through it you probably don't jump in the same way that you might have when some even even when even when somebody you disagree with is being attacked by the mob is that would you say that's right i've been i was never very integrated into like cancel culture i think the only cancellation that i had known about prior to me being canceled was like james charles and again which one is james charles the makeup dude, like remember the little kid? Uh, so like, I didn't know, you know, and I all hear things about people, but I've never, I've never commented something negative. I've never,

you know, I've indulged in like watching the drama videos, but I've never made commentary on it. I've never been like, Oh, I'm so mad at this person for what they did. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make an entire website. I'm going to Photoshop their picture on top of smut. I'm going to put a Hitler sash on. I'm going to put their website online. I'm going to comment on every single photo of them. And then I'm going to make a video of them telling them to go hang themselves. Like these are all things that have happened to me, right? Like they're literal pictures of pornographic like models, models with, like, my face photoshopped onto it, being, like, Trump supporters, you ready to give this girl some

justice, right? Like, I, again, and I'm not doing that to be, like, I'm some Hail Mary savior complex, but when it was happening to me, it was more of an eye-opener to, like, how profound this was. Like, I had watched Monica Lewinsky's TED Talk on the shaming campaign against her. And I just never really, it never occurred to me to think about what these people go through. Same with Christine Ford, right? Like-

It's so funny that you just said that because as you were talking, I was just about to tell you, but think about how amazing your TED Talk is going to be. That's my career goal is like a TED Talk. I've been watching- We watching on your way a hundred percent so now what happened to deloitte fired you so deloitte at first when deloitte so deloitte i had emailed deloitte like a long email the day that this all happened before i got fired

obviously explaining everything, including photographs of some of the messages I was getting, um, saying like, I really think this is going to die down. Like, I didn't think that I could be a national scandal. Um, and then I got an email from them the next day, uh, being like, jump on the zoom call in 15 minutes. And it was two people with like just their photo on the zoom, so not their video. And it was literally like, okay, Clara, like we can not in any shape, way or form, you know, condone violence. And we've received so much pressure that we are terminating your job,

like your full-time contracted job offer. But you're a student. How do you have a full-time job? Job offer, job offer. Yeah, so it was a full-time job offer. So it was contracted like i had my entire deloitte digital page it was upon graduation you start full-time you would intern probably or like associate summer associate type thing and then they make an offer so i was supposed to be

a summer associate and then because of covid they gave all summer associates or like all business analysts summer interns a full-time job that is the only reason I had a full-time job there. I had not initially when I was hired via the recruiting process, which is like a month long things of interviews, I was only hired as a summer intern. And I knew that, but then I got an email in like April saying like, all of those are canceled because of COVID, but we're giving you a full-time job. Congratulations. And so that was contracted. Like it was in, it was in writing, it was in pen, and then they canceled that, or they, they terminated that in like 20 seconds, right? And then I asked, right, I was sort of taken aback by the bluntness, because I was also,

I was encouraged to apply and to work there over another consulting firm because of their diversity and because of, you know, their openness and their, you know, political activism. And then they, they fire me in like 30 seconds. And then I asked if I can talk to them or like, you know, articulate myself. And they said like, we don't want to waste anybody's time on this phone call. Like our decision is final. And that was it. Like that was an entire for me right and what was going through my head was like parentless jobless legally homeless that's COVID no school like my body was just like what is gonna happen to me I was sad and I cried and I was alone and um it sucked and but again and I will say this and I've said this before I didn't see like Deloitte's decision as like out of the blue which is why I

had anticipated by emailing prior to be like this is what's happening can we jump on a phone call but then for them to gaslight me in this, in the events following, to just like disregard me, to make statements that were not untrue, but misleading, right? To say that I was never an employee because I wasn't, but I was a full-time hire and they didn't clarify that. All of a sudden, hundreds of thousands of people think that I'm lying about working at Deloitte, when in reality, it was a semantical difference between an employee and a hire, which, like, it's not their job to clarify that. But me being the naive, like, person who had never undergone this culture of the media landscape was like, how can they do that? Like, how can they imply that I'm a liar on Fox News and Trump Talk

and then have me deal with the consequences of being that fraudulent, hysterical, lying, manipulative bitch. So, I mean, fuck Deloitte. But they're not unique because it's only...

They're cowardly like every single major corporation seems to be, except the comedy seller, by the way. But like they buckle, they all buckle. And this also is instructive to the, I mean, there's a certain, you know, movements to boycott and to have repercussions to advertisers and whatever it is. And people

don't understand that it's a very blunt, inexact weapon that they're wielding here. And when you start handing out punishments or demanding punishments in the court of public opinion, and nobody's testifying under oath, and there's no due process, and there's no uh there's no uh nobody's testifying under oath and there's no due process and there's no disinterested decision makers yeah you might get the right guy from time to time but it's it's just no it is a terrible formula for a free society to embrace even if from time to time i used to make the analogy that you watch the movie death wish yeah but it's definitely like you watch a movie about about a vigilante and when he gets the the murderer you're i mean it's nice to see the murderer get shot by the vigilante that's not what's wrong with being a vigilante it's not you

know it's it's it's the it's all the risks involved in it we just can't live that way really fuck deloitte it's so it's so outrageous i mean what what could have happened to them? Like, why couldn't one corporate guy step out and say, listen, yeah, we don't like her video, but we're not going to fire her. You know, it's none of our business what video she made. It also is just one of those, like, things blow over. I think the situation was a day. Like, obviously it was like a day of like,

holy crap, I'm getting harassed online. But it would have died. What actually really started and catapulted my virality was getting fired. And that statement of virtue signaling by corporations. And mind you, I'm not saying that it's just Deloitte. Like, I think a lot of others. It's all of them.

It's all of them. Netflix is, you know. All of them. They're all cowards. The only one who stood up was Trader Joe's. They were going to stop. They're like Trader Juan or whatever it is. And then they said, you know what?

One second, though. We're not going to stop Trader Juan, you know. That woman in Central Park worked for Deloitte as well. Remember the woman in Central Park with the dog? Cooper? Cooper? Oh, oh, oh. Amy Cooper?

Is that her name? Was that also Deloitte? I know she got fired, but I'm not sure. I seem to remember. Maybe it was Deloitte. Clara, so where oh. Amy Cooper? Is that her name? Was that also Deloitte? I know she got fired, but I'm not sure. I seem to remember. Maybe it was Deloitte. Clara, so where are you at now? Have you, I mean, you're- Before we go, Dan, you ask whatever.

Before she leaves, I have two other questions for her. Go ahead, Dan. You're not, well, I don't know if you're homeless, but you're in an apartment now. So I assume you're not on the street. I've never been on the sidewalk homeless. Don't worry. I will never claim to do that.

I've been housing insecure, mainly either couch or home surfing. I am subletting an apartment in LA with a friend. And hopefully people don't find the address because it's not legally anywhere online. But that's where I am. So I unpacked a suitcase for the first time since March. I know. So how are you making... Your Deloitte job is gone do you have any means of making money and paying your rent?

I do yeah so I'm very fortunate I've always been very financially responsible I've worked between four and eight jobs every semester of school so I've built up a savings. During the past like spring, summer, I've tutored, I work online creating curriculum for government involvement, civic activism. So I like financially, I'm okay. Like, am I as okay as I would have been working for corporate America? No. But I also haven't even graduated college yet. I have one semester left. So You could also probably make a killing as an influencer on social media you might want to tap into that's another conversation but a conversation I've had

a lot with people in LA because that's what people come here to be is like that influence yeah I mean I think ultimately this will ultimately help you platform is like I don't really know if I want to use it. And everyone is trying to build one. And I'm kind of trying to like, keep my head down. I mean, the overwhelming sentiment that I felt was that everybody thought that firing you was horrible. Like, you know, you judge by Twitter, you're getting the wrong impression. It's just like that, like a Dave Chappelle special.

It got panned by the critics and Twitter, and they got a 99 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. You know, Twitter is not the real world. All right, I have two questions. I also just want to say that it seems to me like you're very lucky to not just be brilliant, but to be resilient, to be able to, you know, to work all those jobs and be a Harvard student. And, you know, I don't think you can be stopped. So, you know, I'm not particularly concerned with your future. Thank you. In the old, in the pre, in the old, I was, I don't know, the old world where you, where you didn't worry about getting called a sexist, you would say, she's a tough cookie,

Dan, you know, but now you're not, you're not allowed to say stuff like that. But you do seem pretty, pretty tough in a very good way. So here's my question, because you're adopted, if you don't mind me, I'm fascinated by it. So we had a guy named Robert Plowman on, do you know who he is? You'd probably be interested to read his book. I forget what the name of the book is called, but it's essentially talking about how preeminent the role of genetics is in everybody's development. And so here are my two questions to you. Yeah. Now, you grew up with a single Jewish mother. Mm-hmm.

That was your environment. From what age? From baby? Yeah. Right. How did a single woman adopt you? Or was she not single when she adopted you no she was she was very much single she was older she was 48 and she flew to

china and adopted me that's wonderful so i wonder i just didn't think that that a woman in that demographic would be given a child because they they wouldn't want they aren't anymore but they were back um again when there was a huge, essentially, like, overpopulation crisis in China. So wait, so here's my question. Knowing your mother's personality, her interests, her sense of humor, her tastes, all of it, and knowing yourself as you do, do you feel that you are influenced by her in those deep ways, or do you feel like you grew up to be the person that you are influenced by her in those deep ways? Or do you feel like you grew up to be the person that you were going to be? Do you have your mother's sense of humor, your mother's personality, your mother's taste in clothes and movie, whatever? What do you see you got from your mother?

Yeah. I mean, I think I got a lot. I think I got her tenacity. She was a union organizer, a protester. I grew up, again, when, when I was a kid going to, like, the polls and phone banking, it was, like, normal for me to just be like, Obama, oh, wait, like, it, I was an eager kid, my mom was a history and women and gender studies teacher. I wasn't, like, captivated by it as a kid, I wasn't, but I never questioned it, I don't know, I never questioned, like, leadership of women or, like, outspokenness. My mom's friends were all former union organizers. So like just kind of picture, I don't know, like a freaking Jewish Purim like dinner, just a bunch of people talking about the old days with such passion and like essentially railing on corporations. So it's like, yeah, that's a normalcy. But you know,

my like type A drivenness terrified my mom. Like my mom used to ask me to stay home from school because it was giving me so much anxiety. Whereas like I was that kid that was like at school from like 7am to 7pm and then going home, doing homework, going to bed at one, waking up at six. Like it was a cycle that I think was very much like invested in me. Like I don't think I got it from my mom, but I think she did a lot to nurture that and that like she never forced me to or not to do things which I thought was very for me good as a kid but like I know when I've had conversations with so many people like I could have been a crack whore you know like there would literally be times where my mom would like leave

for like weeks at a time me at home home. And I use that as an opportunity to like spread out my homework on the floor, but like, it could have been a party opportunity, you know, things like that, that are like, did you see, did you see three, three identical strangers? The movie about the three, three identical twins. So I speak psychology and government. So like, I'm fascinated in the whole nature versus nurture debate and I've taken on it. So I've thought a lot about it. Yeah. So I just sent you in the book by Robert Plowman. You'd probably be interested to read that.

And the other question I have is because this is coming up now, please. I know it's hard for everybody. Leave aside Amy Coney, Amy Coney Barrett's politics. It has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about. She, she has gotten some nasty comments from like Ibram Kendi, Amy Coney Barrett's politics. It has nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about. Okay. She has gotten some nasty comments from like Ibram Kendi and other people

who are very enamored with critical race theory making nasty remarks about the fact that she adopted interracial. She has two Haitian, she saved two Haitian children. And I know these are, this is coming from the

people who you generally agree with, I think, in your worldview. Would you say that they are wrong to bring race into the question of whether a loving parent should be able to adopt a child in need? No, I mean, well, sorry, I didn't mean no to your question. I meant, I think like bringing in the topic of race is important. Like I think that pretending that race isn't involved when you're interracially adopting is foolish. But I think that, you know, you have to go in intentionally and mindfully. And I think the adoption processes, if anything, requires parents to be so diligently intentional with their decision making. Now, I know there are those stories, like there was that woman who gave back her child of color after adopting it. You know, there are so many- There's people who give back their white children too. Like a lot of the Russian babies get returned by white parents. Yeah. But again, and so that's why I don't like deny it. You know, like the stories that have race in it are often, you know, glamorous. I think you know what I'm asking. I'm saying that I just found it so offensive. And this is kind of, it kind of ends where we began

in terms of normalizing the things that you want to fight against. You would think that the natural expression of the healthy world we all want to get to would be one where a white woman of means who seeing an earthquake in Haiti and children who need homes, you say, honey, let's adopt some children we can help.

And what so much of this seems to me to be doing is actually putting brakes on what would naturally happen if people really were trying to live in a in a not racially blind but in a racially decent and and and moral world like look I don't care what I'm not saying you're not black of course I see that you're black saying I don't care that you're black you're a beautiful child I want to and you need you need a mom and a dad and we're gonna adopt you just like your

mom so beautiful Chinese baby I mean imagine somebody came at a mom and a dad, and we're going to adopt you just like your mom, so beautiful Chinese baby. I mean, imagine somebody came at your mom and said, how dare you adopt a Chinese baby? What do you know about being Chinese? I think, well, so firstly, I think that is extraordinary to adopt kids from impoverished or even from any country that needs a home. But I that like you can't stop people or you shouldn't stop people from saying like even if you don't care about the race of your baby it's going to play a part in their childhood in their development and you have to acknowledge that not saying like don't do it but that's but that's not the issue nobody said that i know like the the rhetoric almost of being like you can't like don't don't try to stop a white woman from adopting a person, a baby of color.

Cause like you wouldn't, if it were white, like, yes. And I think, but you can have those conversations about why that exists without like reprimanding. They were attacking her. Dan, let me tell you one other thing. First fact is that your mom made a Jew out of you. Wow. And, um, and,

you know, some people might find that problematic. Like, why are you imposing your Jewishness on this Chinese baby's thing? But you seem to be fine with it and you're maintaining your Jewish identity. We don't know that her mother made a Jew out of her. We know that she was bat mitzvahed.

We know that she... Well, that's how it's done. We don't know how Jewish she feels. She says she fasts for Yom Kippur. She just told us that at the beginning. Didn't you say that? Yeah. Like, I'm culturally Jewish. Yeah. You know, and again, similarly, and I get, I

don't want to go on because I think we fundamentally agree that there should be this freedom. I think I'm of the perspective of these conversations can be had without just saying like, oh, just because people shouldn't put this emphasis on race doesn't mean that they don't. And talking about the mechanisms underlying that and how pervasive that is. It's different to bring it up in a way where you're trying to do right by the world and let's examine this because we want, it's another way to use it as a blunt instrument to try to, with hate. I mean, when Kendi does it, it's with hate for sure.

It's really disturbing. And by the way, we didn't even get to Asians being kept out of Harvard, but I think we have to. Yeah, but we've been beating that horse last week. That's a big. And by the way, we didn't even get to Asians being kept out of Harvard, but I think we have to. Yeah, but we, we, we've been beating that horse. That's a big issue for me,

but I know it. A lot of things. So we should have, we should have you on again. If you're not too bothered by it, you'll feel. And we didn't expect, by the way,

to go down this road. Cause I don't, I didn't know you were a dog. I don't think no one did either, but yeah, I did. I mean, I looked it up.

I, growing up, I knew, you know, I knew, uh, uh, a knew a Irish couple that adopted a Korean girl, and they felt it was important to bring her to Korea to expose it to aspects of Korean culture. Do you feel or was that the case with you? And do you feel cut off or in any way, uh, um, deprived of what really is your heritage and your, and, and, and your right to, to that heritage? Yeah. So I guess the simple answer is, is no. Um, mainly because I never grew up being like, oh, like I'm forced to

be here. Or like I, my mom was so transparent with me. In fact, like I remember in kindergarten, I'd be like, wait, aren't I white? And my mom would be like, no, no, no, no, no. We didn't go back. We couldn't afford it. But my mom tried to put me in like Chinese lessons and like we did Chinese new year. It was sort of like, imagine if I were just to all of you guys, like, okay, like actually you're Asian and you're gonna look Asian now and you would sort of be like okay so the world will see me as Asian the world sees me as Asian none of you guys are like she's not Asian um I am Asian I'm a person of color I'm treated as such by society but I culturally grew up pretty white now that's not to say that I haven't made intentional efforts to embrace like

Chinese heritage and life but like I didn't grow up in any semblance of Chinese culture. Like, I didn't speak the language, celebrate any of the holidays. I know that the, like, province that I'm from in Shanghai, but, like, I don't really know it, and a lot of my childhood was spent rejecting my Asian-ness, not celebrating it, and that's confusing for a parent, like, if you're raising a kid, and you're just, like, why aren't you more in tune with, like, your obvious Asian-ness, it's, like, well, it's the same as if I were, like, mom, actually, like, you're from Africa, like, go feel part of that community, you know, it just, it felt very different from me, and I think that's like college especially

the diversity at Harvard was the first time that I was around extraordinary diversity was when I started to to recognize and empower myself via my Asian-ness and my Asian identity but before then I was sort of just like I'm Asian and I know it but I you know it just it's sort of just like I don't know it's like the color of my hair you know it just it's sort of just like i don't know it's like the color of my hair you know it just it's there it's a factor about me but i don't let it you know you know the people of color thing um um uh always has bothered me a little bit and then i actually and i've heard more and more black people saying what i'm about to say that that on so I don't think it's out to lunch if you would have if you would have the experience of um black people in this country is so outrageously has been so historically and outrageously brutal and horrible

if you were to plot it on some type of graph, the distance between Asian and white would probably be almost invisible to the naked eye if you had to zoom out far enough to see the distance between Asian and white and black people, if you know what I mean, that, that, that, and yet for some reason it's fashionable today to talk about people of color as if there's an experience of people of color. I don't actually buy that. There is an experience of every, everybody has an experience, but the umbrella of people of color,

which includes goes from Asianian to jim crow 60 people you know and they're still living jim crow to you know chinese people and indian people have the highest income in the country really um is there something about that description of the world which i think is quite distorting and And like I have children, my children are children of color. My wife is half Indian and half Puerto Rican. And for them to think that their experience can be labeled as a black person's experience because they're a shade, I'm not saying there's nothing to talk about there, but I think it would be quite distorting for them to see the world that way. They are very, very, very lucky, my kids are. And they don't share any,

and will never, even if they wanted to, understand what it means to be black in America, to be watched, to be pulled over by the cops, any of the things that black people have to go through. So that's just, I'm just jumping off of something you said. I'm not, I hope I don't, don't take it as an attack. Please don't, because it's just the way everything is spoken about today.

I could write a book on that because I don't disagree because the privilege that lighter skinned and Asian, especially people of color face in comparison to dark skinned people of color, like that's not, especially people of color face in comparison to dark skin people of color. Like that's not- Black people of color, because even dark skinned Indians don't deal with that. It's African. I understand that is very true. But what I'm saying is that when we look at mechanisms of colorism and we look at, I think that this idea of like a model minority, it's not a myth, but it really simplifies. And I'm not, again, I'm the first to say, or not the first, like you just said it, but the plight of Asian and non-Black Americans in the United States is like pales in comparison to that of Black America, right? But I also think that the, you know, encompassing of people of color speaks so

broadly to just a lot of the underlying social mechanisms that might not, that might be obviously based on Black or anti-Black racism, but are pervasive through examples and through manifestations of colorism, right? And so obviously, yes, you have Asians succeeding, you have the over-representation of Asian and South Asian Americans at top Ivy League colleges, and like, we can talk about that later in the future, but the experience, like, yes, I'm never going to get pulled over, and people, cops are never going to interpret me the same way that they would interpret a lot, most Hispanic, Latino, and Black people, right? But I think this domain of women of color is really, or people of color, is important because that experience in and of itself, even if, and I'm not saying this to

like belittle the Black play, which is why, again, so much of what I've done has always been, you know, for like anti-racism focusing, or now recently a lot more on Black Lives Matter. But it also, again, when we get focused in like the nitpicky of the person of color experience as, you know, like white people, there becomes sort of a, well, you're not wrong, but when you try to explain an experience of essentially, whether it be black America or just, again, the spectrum of colored America is extraordinarily different. And one that like I won't ever experience not having.

So let me ask you this. We do have to wrap it up. I think, I think, by the way, well, two things, I think you're describing some, something else. And I, and I actually, I give a lot of credibility to this because I, well, two things. I think you're describing something else. And I actually, I give a lot of credibility to this because it stayed with me. It's got to be, it has to have an effect on you psychologically to not be the default value in some place. The default value in America. This is Robin DiAngelo. It wrote this in White

Fragility. It was one of the only things in the book that I said, you know, there's a point to that that I have to really think about. When you're not the default, in so many different ways that the default may not ever realize, it's pointed out to you every day that you're not the default value. The default value is white, so you're other. Jews, we feel this a little bit, especially in a previous generation where at Christmas time, there were only Christmas carols in the school and only Christmas trees, and you said, oh, I'm the other. I'm the other. But that is not the same as feeling that I'm being mistreated or I'm a target or I'm the hated or the object of racism. I never felt those things, even though anti-Semitism is real.

I never felt those things. But I have in some way can understand a little bit of what it feels like to not be the default. And that's interesting to talk about. but i do think in some way and i spoken a few black people about this and i bet you if you speak to some of your black friends and you and you probe them on this you will they will admit to you that they have this feeling that there is something wrong with diluting the utter uniqueness of the african-american experience by in any way describing it along with all the other shades and different ethnicities and whatever it is

who have their experience in America, but it has nothing to do with that. What about those who would further divide the black experience from what one... Descendants of slaves? ... calls foundational black Americans or American descendants of slaves and later immigrants. Yeah, I think that's one of the most difficult parts about the reparations argument is that I just can't picture lining up 12 black people and

saying, okay, show us your papers. Oh no, your parents came here from Jamaica or your parents came here in 1965. So even though you're all getting mistreated in this way and none of you are going to get jobs and you're all going to get pulled over by the cops, only you three on the left are going to get these big checks because the reparations are only for people who are descendants of slaves. That I think would just not work. And I think it would cause tremendous, tremendous resentment within the black community if you start segregating, because the point is, is being the victims of racism. It's really not, it's really not about being a descendant of slaves, in my opinion. But there are those who would argue that the Nigerians, for example, have done very, very well,

and they're not being, you know, discriminated against, or that they're succeeding maybe you would argue in spite of racism i'm not for reparations i'm not against i'm for reparations definitely like coleman hughes for the people who were like uh who and there's a lot of people alive who fit this who were victims of jim crow absolutely i i don't have and that's a no-brainer in a way if somebody could do that but the idea of cutting a, I think it can be very divisive. I'm not dead set against it if somebody could come up with a good way to do it. It doesn't offend me. There is a logic to it, for sure.

Beyond the realm of reparations, do you feel that a Nigerian family, where the father's a doctor, the mother's, you know, they're not professional, they grew up in a nice neighborhood do you feel they have the right to uh put themselves in with the black experience the greater black experience uh because you said you don't like to dilute the black experience with the asian experience yeah of course they do because that's the thing their kid who walks around in the street, in many experiences in life, he's just taken for another black kid. And he will, there was a senator, I think a Republican black senator,

who talked about all the times he was pulled over by the cops a couple years ago. You know, and he spoke very beautifully about it. There was this soldier, it wasn't a black guy who was just appointed the first, not the first general, but the first, like a very high position within the military you know maybe in charge of the armed forces of charge of the army or something like that and he did this he did this speech and it went viral everybody should look it up where he talked about what it was like to be viewed as black even at those, where people would make assumptions about him, confuse him for being something he wasn't. This is real. This is real life. I don't think any other group of people, and I'm quite right wing, Clara. I don't want to pretend I'm not, but I'm not an idiot. Isn't it a little bit scary that you have to clarify that?

Well, because we haven't touched on the things that I'm really right-wing about, so I could almost sound reasonable to you. But why can't you just stay with that? It's going so well. I just don't want to be accused of misleading her. I agree with her on a million different things. But I can't deny those things. You just can't deny that stuff.

As a matter of fact, the right discredits itself. Okay. It doesn't discredit those. What about everything else that was on the list of stuff to talk about? Well, we didn't expect to talk to Clara about, we clarified the podcast. If you want to talk about Clara?

But we didn't expect to talk to Clara about adoption and these other issues. So we expected. But it was interesting. But it was interesting. But I did want to talk about

with Clara or without Clara. Well, if Clara would like to stay. You're going to kick me off? No, if Clara would like to stay You're going to kick me off? No, no, no If you want to stay You're more than welcome I want to hear Noam's thoughts about

With Trump's COVID And whether you think that In particular, my question was this A lot of people have made a lot of Talked about the fact that Trump had the best care and, uh, yeah, obviously, you know, uh, he, he, he, uh, he, um, uh, he conquered COVID because he had 24 hour medical care. But I question whether that was really, and of course,

he's not out of the woods yet. Anything could still happen. But I question whether or not that's the factor, that Trump's medical care is 24-7. I think you're right, Dan. I mean, they say he got some experimental care. I don't know what that is. And, you know, experimental care is injected into. This is also based on things that I've read from the news.

I don't want to stand by, but he received, allegedly, essentially antibodies that are currently in the clinical process for... Plasma therapy. This is not unique to Trump. This is being done around the country now.

My interpretation of this was like, truthfully, at no point in my mind was I worried that Trump was going to die. I'm not really going to get into the potential conspiracy theories about whether or not he had COVID or about like whether or not, you know, because we see like the Hill had so many cases of COVID coming up. I don't know if you guys have been familiar with Claudia Conway's content, but all of these, you know, and it's just interesting because when that did happen, it was right after the debate and it was right after essentially one candidate said wear masks

and be safe and then the other didn't. and then the one who didn't happened to get COVID and then that was publicized and I truthfully my my opinion was I am surprised that Trump announced that he had COVID I I figured that he would if he ever got COVID would like get through it and then say like I survived um but then it became a huge thing and like I don't the the rhetoric around it of like some people being like joking, some people being serious, some people, I was sort of just like that is an important dialogue about this, but just in terms of, like, you know, how did he heal, how did X, Y, Z, like, the, you know, the medical treatment available, the infrastructure available now is so much better than that of it was in March, you know, like, this isn't Trump getting COVID in March. This is Trump getting COVID when there are hundreds of people on the beach every day.

There are, you know, people in indoor seating in New York City type of thing where like we've really readjusted our lives to COVID instead of, you know, for example, like New Zealand, which is like the gold puppy that everyone holds up, where they don't have cases anymore. Like they don't wear masks. And I think that like juxtaposing that. He got, he got COVID early. I mean, they caught it early. He took a, he took a full course of remdesivir, which is, which was proven to be helpful to people who get it early.

This is what our friend Hatem who had COVID in the midst of a heart transplant, recovering from a heart transplant, recovering from a heart transplant, he got COVID. He got remdesivir early and he recovered without having horrible symptoms. So, I mean, there's just no way a scientifically grounded person can draw any conclusion as to why Trump recovered, especially when we know that some people, even without any medical care, just get better. They were telling, they tell people not to come to the hospital unless you're dying with COVID because there's not much we can do for you. And conversely, there's some people that certainly had the best imaginable care, wealthy people, that died anyway. And look, Trump seems to have a tough constitution, to be fair, and he doesn't smoke.

He's fat. And he's, you know, I mean, I think that statistically he only had a 5% or 6% chance of dying as it was. It's not like, you know, it's not like a shocker that he recovered from COVID. You really cannot draw any conclusions from that. In his age group, like, he's pretty high risk. Even in his age group, I think the high risk. Even in his age group, I think the death rate

is about 5% or 6%. Yeah, it really goes like that when you get to 80 years old. Something like 60, 70% of the people dying are over 80 years old. It's tremendous numbers of people. And then when you're younger, it's people with all sorts

of comorbidities, diabetes, including being overweight. But Trump is overweight, but he's not, you know, like they call him obese, but we've seen fatter than Trump, right? People in nursing homes, they call that a comorbidity. Yeah. So, I mean, but like, you know, I know people who died in old age homes. Is my theory like completely trash that he didn't really get it?

You believe he got it. So then you say, look, it wasn't really that big of a deal. Nobody's going for that. This is not going to help him. Listen, he handled it terribly as he's been handling everything terribly for lately. It was like the doctors are contradicting themselves. And then he's. You're sounding so left of center this show.

I just love it. Who could say he handled it well? I said for years. I mean, a lot of people are saying that. I said for not a year, for seven months now that God gave this man a pandemic on a silver platter. Every single leader in the world saw his approval rating rise,

including people like Cuomo, who sent everybody to the death chambers, right? Put them all back in the nursing homes. 30,000 people died in New York, and he's at 70% approval. Only Trump was somebody who couldn't handle a naturally unifying incident in the country and turned it into something so divisive as approval rating went down. So that's on him. That's on him. Garbage. Do you think that he is irresponsible when he says,

don't be afraid of COVID? Yes and no. I think that we talked, it's funny because Perry Allen and I had a big argument about this. And then right afterwards a wall street journal editorial came out saying essentially the same thing that i said which is yes that was really unfortunate he put he puts it very trump like in a very in a way which the people who were already disposed to uh not give a shit or to take stupid risks with their lives, whatever, are liable to misinterpret it. But what I thought he meant when I heard it, actually as it came across me was he was saying,

you need to, we need to move on with our lives. I didn't take it to mean don't wear a mask, don't be careful, don't estimate your own risk, Don't be reckless. Essentially saying what other countries are doing. France, Sweden, they're like, in Asia, they're masking up, they're being careful, and they are not going back into lockdowns. They are learning how to have a life with this. And that's what I took him to mean. Yes, it was not, he does this all the time. I mean, he's the president and he needs to think six times

about the way he says something and he doesn't. He doesn't even think one time about how he says it. I say this all the time. I said, this is my new thing about Trump. You know about, Clary, I don't know if you're into sports. In sports, you can bet the over or the under. Like the Ozmakers will say, it'll be the Jets by 10. And then you can bet,

well, the Jets will win by under 10 or the Jets will win by over 10. And with every story on Trump, it's not about whether or not the story is totally bullshit. There's always some grain of truth. Always bet the under on those stories. Whatever the story is, discount. There's always some grain of truth. Always bet the under on those stories. Whatever the story is,

discount it by 20 or 30% if you're trying to find metaphysical truth about what it is. Yes, he's a schmuck for the way he said it, but if you want to attach to what he said, you want to assume he meant the most outlandish thing that any human could have meant by that statement, you are not likely to get that right.

It is likely to be somewhat less than his worst haters are saying it was, just like his taxes turned out to be an awful lot less incriminating than his haters, just like his involvement with Russia turned out to be, not that it didn't exist, much less than his haters said it was going to be. You go through every single story about Trump, and when the final truth came out, it was less than what they were saying on, you know, the most liberal state. Nothing was totally fabricated. Nothing was totally false.

It's just less. Just bet the under on every story of Trump, and I think that's, you get it about right. So that's my rule of thumb on Trump. What Trump should have said is, obviously be prudent, take precautions, but we need to live our lives and not be. Yeah.

And you know what? I will say this. Perrielle was with me when we watched Trump's Twitter speech. She laughed at him. She mocked him. And she... You know what? You made fun of the way you used the word condolences even though we we looked it up, it was, it was, it was an acceptable use of the word condolence.

What I said to you at the time was this, and I, and I think I, I'm happy I said it, which is this. Trump is a bullshitter. We know he is. We've seen him bullshit all the time. We see him lying through his teeth. But it was important to realize that when he was in the hospital talking, he was a man scared for his life. He was not bullshitting men. He said, Melania is doing as she statistically can, as statistically should. I'm doing okay, but we're not sure. The next few days will let us know.

There's a little vulnerability there, but whatever you want to say about him, he was not faking something. He actually was sick with COVID. And whatever he was saying as a man with COVID was no longer Trump being an asshole to somebody else. You might think he's being like, like you disagree with his attitude about his own sickness. But, but, but in the end, but in the end, now he's not talking about some kid in a cage. He's talking about his own sickness. And he's saying, you know, I was a leader. We heard him say to Woodward, this virus is deadly. He said that to Woodward. And he said, I was a leader. And I felt that I just needed to be out there and just be a leader. I don't think he's right about that. I think a strong leader, the best leader would have

been leading by example. He would have been wearing a mask. He would have been showing the country, but that's not Trump. But his motivation, I'm not saying that it's not the, it's a unwise thing he did. I agree. But the motivation was not evil. And I think we saw it there. His motivation was, he really thought that this is how I'm supposed to be. I'm not gonna be afraid of COVID.

And even in the hospital, he's like, yeah, I'm not gonna be afraid of it. And he's not lying. Again, well, my point is this, whatever you wanna say about him, he's not lying there. Well, my point is this, whatever we want to say about him, he's not lying there. He actually is a man with a real risk of death, talking into the camera about how he's feeling.

And you got to process that in some way. That's fair to him. That's all as a human, as a human being, you know, someone you hate. I want to get ready. I got to go.

It's a long project. Vice presidential debates. Clara, will you be watching? Of course I will be watching. I hope it will be less of a train wreck. I'm sure that it will be. You know, we have Pence is not Trump. So I think that it won't be what we had last week,

but I look forward to it. You know, can I say something that reminded me? My father hated Louis Farrakhan. He hated Louis Farrakhan. He's Caribbean. I didn't know. I learned recently that he's not an American descendant of slave. He's a Caribbean American.

But as every Jew of my father's generation hates Louis Farrakhan. But there was a time Farrakhan had brain cancer or something. He had some kind of serious cancer. He needed surgery. And he, without going into detail, and he was talking while he was sick. And he had, you know, he lived, he was prepared to die by his word.

He had only black doctors around him because he's very much about keeping things in the community and whatever it is. And I remember my father crediting him and said, well, you know what, you got to hand it to him. You know, when, when, when it's coming down to the wire, when he could, when he could die, he's not bending at all. He's saying all the very same things. He's ready to go in to the, to the same surgeries.

He's not going to get the fancy white doctors, you know, who would face it, you know, and he wasn't, I just remember him registering that with me. He was seeing it from behind Farrakhan's eyes. Not hating him any less for what he stood for, but understanding that there was a human thing going on there. That's all I'm saying with Trump. There's actually a sick man there saying things and taking actions. Yeah. And it would be a lot easier to be sympathetic toward that if he hadn't been so careless with 200,000 dead people. But I'm not even asking you to be sympathetic, even though what you just said is very unfair. I'm not even asking you to be sympathetic. Why is it very unfair? Because Europe has as many COVID cases as we do now. I just think Trump has been so cavalier about this.

Yes, that he has. Yes, he's been cavalier. But to say that you think 200,000 people will be alive today is just absurd. Well, I think he has been very cavalier about 200,000 dead people. Okay, that's fair enough. I will accept that. Then it's like, oh my God, so now you have COVID. It's like, yeah, well-

I have to run to the doctor. Yeah, I got to go. I'm not asking you to be sympathetic to him, actually. I'm asking you to understand, without being arrogant, to understand what you're seeing, that this is not the typical Trump asshole that you're seeing. That this is not the typical Trump asshole that you're seeing because this is not false. He's a fucking con man. But he's not conning right

now. He actually has COVID. That's all I'm saying. Anyway. You're fantastic. Fuck Deloitte and Touche or whatever. Thank you guys so much for having me. Clara's future is, I think, very bright, obviously. I think she knows that. She's future is, is I think a very bright, obviously.

I think she knows that. She got to come to the comedy cellar. Once COVID is once, once Trump was my president gets rid of COVID. I'm kidding. I can't help, but wonder, and I don't know if this is appropriate,

but I can't help, but wonder whether her and Coleman use wouldn't make an interesting couple, but couple, couple, like as a parent, like to meet each other. No, I'm saying couple. I was thinking romance. Oh, no, we don't talk that way.

But call me you. I don't actually know. Dan is a yenta, alright? He's already trying to hook you up with a friend of his. Who's age appropriate? He's 23 or 24. Anyhow, Dan, you know what?

That can be considered very bad taste. I hope you forgive me for that. I don't mind. I just don't know who that is. I know who you are. I watched you on America's Got Talent. Oh, yay! Yeah, no, I immediately recognized you.

You can look up Coleman Hughes. At a minimum, I think you guys would have a nice friendship anyway. Yeah, you'd have a great talk, yeah. I feel like if any, that's a fair, um, that's a fair person because he's so brilliant and there I'll, I'll send it to you. But anyway, um, you're fantastic.

And we're on your side. We don't care what your political opinions are. It's terrible what they did to you. And you were a fantastic guest. Thank you. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody.

Uh, podcast at comedy seller.com for, I know I'm already left, Podcast at ComedyCellar.com for, I know I'm already left. Podcast at ComedyCellar.com for questions, comments, and suggestions. And at live from the table on Instagram. And vote. Everybody go vote.

Right, Dan? I guess. I don't know. Does it matter? I mean, if you live in New York, maybe. I mean, I believe in voting, you know. We'll meet you with your voting plan in place. This is an important message.

I'm gonna go to the polls and vote. What do you mean? I don't have a voting plan. I go to the polls. That's your plan. I'll go to Roosevelt High School and vote, where I've been voting for, you know, 15 years. But, okay, so we'll see you next time. Bye, everybody. 007 007