The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Election Fallout and Fallujah Reflections with Jon Stewart and Thomas Brennan

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

Jon Stewart dissects the recent election fallout for the Democrats, offering insights into what went wrong and why the pundits may be missing the mark. Thomas J. Brennan, retired U.S. Marine and founder of The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom spotlights the human impact of military service. Brennan discusses his latest film, “Shadows of Fallujah”, and opens up about the intense memories, struggles with survivor’s guilt, and the journey to healing from the Battle of Fallujah.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central,

it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Jon Stewart, and you're... You know what? You know what? Come here! Come here! Come here! Come here!

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I promise you... CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Actually, being facetious, but OK. I promise you, for the remainder of the next four years, I will only speak to you in this tone of voice. This close to the camera. I will be relentless. Or well, they will. I'm here Mondays. Really not even that many.

There's a dark weeks. Holidays and vacations. The point is this. You can count on me for truly about 15 hours of resistance total. All right. Go back out to the thing. Welcome to the show, ladies and gentlemen. We've got a good one for you tonight. Later, I'll be talking with, after we do the show this evening.

Oh, look at that tie. I'm going to be talking with Thomas J. Brennan. After we do the show this evening, oh, look at that tie. I'm going to be talking with Thomas J. Brennan. He's the founder of War Horse, a nonprofit military reporting organization. They do fabulous work. You know, a gentleman in the audience asked me a little bit earlier, he said, hey, last week, what happened? Now, he may have meant it rhetorically.

But if you remember, the last time that we spoke, it was midnight on election night. And it seemed even at that moment very clear Donald Trump had won the election in a bit of a thumpening. Now, part of the disorientation of the Democrats losing the electoral vote and the popular vote and losing ground in the cities and the areas around the cities and the areas around those areas.

I guess you'd call it America. Was that we had all been told by many of our best prognosticators, it was gonna be close. He-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me.

He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me.

He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. He-me-me-me-me. I was confident because the Democrats had a secret weapon in a close election, perhaps the most important weapon. Since joining the race, the vice president has raised an eye-boggling $1 billion.

Call me eyes-boggled. See the Democrats in a 50-50 election had a billion dollars, a war chest to be spent on data analytics, and polling, and consultants, and very clearly texting. There was a lot of texting. A lot of that money went to how the f*** did they just text me? I'm in the tub. I don't even have my phone. It just came through the wall.

And while, of course, maybe just giving away a million of it every day would have been the smarter, more efficient plan, no! The billion dollars went towards the one thing Republicans didn't have, couldn't have, that would put the Democrats over the top. The Harris campaign has a massive ground game, 50,000 volunteers. With volunteers knocking on 5 million doors in Pennsylvania alone. This is the first time some Democrats have told me they've ever heard of people knocking on the same doors a second time or a third time. You know, if there's one thing people love,

You know, if there's one thing people love, more than someone appearing randomly at their door once, it's that same f***ing person coming back two or three times to talk politics. Even though everyone from vacuum salesmen to Jehovah's Witnesses know that's a losing strategy, in fact, they've known that for decades, let's just spend a quarter of a billion dollars on it. You know what Democrats should do? Whatever money is left over, send those same people back to those voters' doors and just knock again during dinner and when the homeowner comes to the door and goes, what the f***

Scott? I thought we connected. we can act it. But the reason why I give them some shit for their strategies. But there was a method to the Democrats madness. Democracy and freedom. On the ballot our democracy is on the line we have to protect democracy have to work even harder to make sure that we defend our democracy we don't get to choose when we're asked to defend democracy. We just have to to choose when we're asked to defend democracy.

We just have to do it. And this is not a drill. Noble words. And I'm glad to say Democrats did protect democracy. Just for the other side. Because when all is said and done, we had a free and fair election in which the Democrats had been prepared for almost every scenario but one. The Harris campaign has built probably the most sophisticated, robust, impressive voter

protection program in the history of presidential politics. We have millions in the bank ready with lawyers all over the country that are ready. Democrats have been planning on every one of these options for four years. Are Democrats ready? You bet they are. We have county clerks ready to go, secretaries of state ready to go. So it's all lined up. What are we forgetting people? What? We got the lawyers, we got the protectin' the... What do we got? Oh my god, Jimmy, did you bring the voters?

Oh, I thought you were bringing the voters. I brought the hate has no home here posters. Nobody brought the voters? Where are the f***ing voters? It turns out the election was stolen by more people voting for Donald Trump. It's quite a caper. Ocean's 74 million.

So now, as many on the left fear the future as they should, many others rue the past. Joe Biden should have dropped out earlier. There should have been an open primary. People never got to know Kamala Harris. They spend too little time talking about the economy. Wildly overestimated the power of the abortion issue. Chose the wrong VP. Managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos. Abandoned the working class. Democrats need a new way to talk about urban

America, do that Joe Rogan podcast, Trump spoke, Trump spoke to the people, Democrats never once mentioned Arnold Palmer's c*** never once, Yet, focus group after focus group said, you got anything on Arnold Palmer's c***? If not, can you at least stand there and sway to Ave Maria for like an hour? Can you at least do that? But it's a delight to hear about why it happened from so many people who were so wrong about what was going to happen.

And everyone has their own pet theory. But there's one theory that a lot of people seem to be coalescing around. They were too woke. Insisting that people use the term Latinx. Too far to the left on transgender rights. You have to say they. No, you have to do this stop with a virtue signaling step away from woke focus less on who

is woke and more on who is broke social justice issues and take a backseat when your son is in the basement vaping and playing video games and can't find a job. can't find a job. I feel like that last guy was really venting more about his son. Everybody else had sort of a broader point, but his was just so specific. You really got to focus on, let's say say a kid in your basement vaping and just jerking off all over the couch night after night. But point taken. Everyone's talking about this wokeness theory from cable news to the op-ed section

And sometimes the op-ed section being read on cable news We want to get to the Maureen Dowd piece Maureen Dowd's piece for the New York Times entitled Democrats and the case of mistaken identity politics That was morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski discussing a New York Times column by Maureen Dowd on how to escape the liberal bubble. I guess I'll just have to get the Times and read it myself unless there's another way to make this less entertaining. We're gonna read the entire piece, but it's worth it. About wokeness? I couldn't even stay woke through that whole f***ing thing.

Why don't you read us the wordle? I only have one problem with the woke theory. I just didn't recall seeing any Democrats running on woke shit. These were the commercials I saw for the Democrats. Sherrod Brown is working to fix our border crisis. Mondaire Jones is working to secure our border. Pat Ryan is restoring order at our southern border. I'm Laura Gillin and I'm here at the border of Nassau County.

We're 2,000 miles from Mexico, but we're feeling the migrant crisis almost every day. In Nassau County? By the way, Suffolk County, make my f***ing day. If you want a piece of our strip balls, you're gonna have to go through Laura Gillan. Those are the Democrats! The Democrats! I gave the police more money than they even wanted. I gave them planes and tanks! I built a mold around the country and filled it with alligators and chlamydia! They didn't talk about pronouns, they didn't say Latin X, it was the opposite! We can't let China steal Wisconsin jobs.

Benefits for illegal immigrants? No way. Blocking support for white farmers? I mean, look at me. Standing with law enforcement against defunding the police. I've owned a gun my whole life. Let me be clear. I don't want boys playing girl sports. You all know me. I've never pushed for sex changes. Well, that's just a weird one at the end there. Come on guys, you know me.

It's like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. I'm not the guy who pushed a sex chance. I'm in your shops every day. Mary, Mary, it's me, George Bailey. I'm not trying to get you to get a sex chance. I'm just wishing I was dead. And don't forget about Kamala Harris. It's not like she was exactly waving around her NPR tote bag.

I have a Glock. They didn't do the woke thing. They tried. They acted like Republicans for the last four months. They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions. Do you know how dangerous it is to wear a hunting hat around Cheney's? Do you have any idea? Thought I had one more rip in me. I did. Democrats were mostly running against an identity that was defined for them based on a couple

of months of post George Floyd defund the police MeToo Instagram posts from four years ago. What happened was the country felt like government wasn't working for them. And the Democrats in particular were taking their hard earned money and giving it to people who didn't deserve it as much as them. And so the Democrats got shellacked. I'm sure any robust examination of better policies is very welcome, but I just want to please assure people this isn't forever. This is the map in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won. That's the map! The only state the Democrats won was

Minnesota. In the state the Democrats won was Minnesota. Yeah. Everyone thought that's the end of the Democrats, but eight years later there was a Democrat back in office. We don't know what's going to happen in four years at all. The only thing that is certain is this. You all know me. I've never pushed for sex changes.

John Stewart here unbelievably exciting news my new podcast the Show, we're going to be talking about the election economics ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. Listen to The Weekly Show with John Stewart wherever you get your podcasts. We're delighted to have him on. A decorated veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's now a journalist and founder of the award-winning nonprofit newsroom, The War Horse. Please welcome to the program, retired U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Thomas Brennan, sir! Nice to see you. Thank you for having me.

First, I want to congratulate you. What Thomas has created with War Horse, just very briefly, tell them it's such an impressive organization, an idea. It's a very small organization, but it's about military journalism in a different way. Tell us what that is. So the War Horse is a team of seven full timers right now that we're a nonprofit newsroom focused on the human impact of military service. What we do is we publish long form investigative reporting.

We host writing seminars that train the next generation of writers that are veterans and military family members. Right. And they've done great. Kelly Kennedy, who is part of your team, the reporting that she did on toxic exposure was, I think, instrumental. Kelly's impact on the veteran community,

and as far as raising awareness about toxic exposure has I think you know really helped you and other advocates have a tremendous impact on the veteran community and make sure that future service members that are poisoned by the Department of Defense get the health care that they deserve. Yes and they will be that's kind of how that's how that's how they operate. It's kind of their thing. What did you think when you started it? What were you not seeing in military reporting that made you think there is a better way to connect these stories? To veterans themselves and to active military service members

So when I first got off active duty, I worked as a local reporter outside of Camp Lejeune in North Carolina I was the last full-time military reporter in 2014 when I left to go to journalism school. So there hasn't been a military reporter in Eastern North Carolina at the second largest Marine Corps base in the world since, well, for 10 years now. So what I noticed at the boots on the ground level was I was covering stories of national importance and because of the decline in the military or in the journalism ecosystem, those stories weren't being picked up.

People weren't hearing about them, and it wasn't until I published one story about the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, in 2013, where they were cutting suicide prevention care for active duty service members. I wrote a story about that. The Secretary of Defense, within three days, reversed the furloughs, restored mental health care

to full capacity. And it was a moment in my career where I felt like I really saved a life. And at that moment, I asked myself, like, how can there be a national newsroom that focuses on these topics and help increase awareness among the American public to the issues that veterans and military families face?

Yeah, it's, I have to say, it's a remarkable, what you guys do. Now, the tough part is, here's the part that makes me crazy. So it's a nonprofit. Yes. Which most of news is now, not by choice. Right. But how difficult is it? This is such an important service to the military community, to the nation as a whole,

and yet you've got to go out there and raise the money to keep just seven people out there being able to do that. How difficult is it to even get funding for these things? War Horse was brought to life by 550 donors on Kickstarter back in 2016. That was back when it was just myself with an idea. It was just a web thing. It was just a web thing.

I went to journalism school at Columbia, and I left with no plans of having a job. I just wanted to start the war horse. I figured I was young enough, and it was an opportunity for me to have what I thought was a massive impact on the military and veteran community. And I just decided to run with it. And then those people wound up investing in me and investing in the idea.

And at that point, I just couldn't give up. I had to keep going. You weren't just sitting in your basement vaping. You know, that's a thing that's going around now. A lot of kids these days, they sit in the basement vaping. Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Don't answer that. Don't answer that.

Along with the work that you did, so I think what's remarkable about your story, and I've known you for a long time, and I'm just such an admirer of your dedication, but I didn't know your whole story, to be frank, until recently. This is now the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Fallujah which I think Americans for the most part I've heard of because it was considered one of the just most bloodiest dangerous battles that was was it November November is the anniversary of that battle correct November 7th of this month was the the 20th anniversary of Operation Phantom. Correct. November 7th of this month was the 20th anniversary of

Operation Phantom Fury. So you've done something I think that must be incredibly difficult for you. As a journalist you generally are outside of the sphere of the story. But this is something you were

there. Yes. What made you decide to want to tell the story of Fallujah and the group that you were with at that time and to tell it now? For 20 years I have watched as the conversation about war and the experiences of the men and women who actually execute those wars on the ground, be controlled by public affairs officers

and senior military officials, whether they're generals or officials at the Pentagon. And I had a very, I have a platoon that I served with in Iraq, and I have very unique access to be able to talk to them about our experiences. So around the 19th anniversary, I went back to them and I said, I really want to tell our story.

I want to show the American public what happened during Phantom Fury from our perspective. And without hesitation, all of the Marines and corpsmen that you see in the film that we created jumped at the opportunity and never hesitated for a moment to hop on camera and share their story with the American public. And I thought what was so interesting is you don't ever shy away from the fact that many of you struggled from that, but weren't able really to even share it with each other.

And if you don't mind, would you mind telling the story of, you know, your platoon, unfortunately, didn't come back intact. For 20 years, we've all, I think it's fair to say, we've avoided the conversation with each other. One of the things that I think is abundantly clear in the film is that we all struggle with survivor's guilt. Like our corpsman blames himself that he couldn't save Bradley Fairclough.

I blame myself. I was down the street and it's completely irrational for me to believe that I should have shot a rocket into that house. But I feel that way. My lieutenant, he was in charge of our entire platoon. He feels like he feels like he has a burden of responsibility for why Bradley didn't make it home. So it was a healing series of conversations that we were able to have back in August. And I'm just incredibly proud of,

I mean, our corpsmen and the Marines that I serve with were willing to just put their heart on display for the American public in the hopes that they would listen to our sacrifices. Like, we are just a dozen Marines from a battle that included well over a thousand of us. And that doesn't include the Iraqis and the Brits and the other people that participated with us. And whether you were a mortuary affairs marine, an infantryman, a pilot, or admin processing the casualty reports back at the base, every single person who was in Iraq at that point

felt the impact of Fallujah, and it's continued to shape how we fought our wars and how we deploy our troops up to today. And the fact that you're able to tell the story, you know, we spoke about this a few times, about the moral injury, about war being a failure on all levels of human civilization. And the fact that you guys signed up for something knowing the price you could pay and maybe even some of the things that had to be done.

But that leaving things on your soul. It's easy to look at an army infantryman or a marine infantryman and say like, oh, yes, they signed up to go see combat or to go off to war. But the one thing, there's one thing that I think the average American just doesn't understand is that everybody who enlists or is commissioned in the military, regardless of whether you're admin or you work in a hospital or you fix trucks and turn wrenches or your special forces are a grunt, like everybody is willing to make that same sacrifice.

So it's, I think that we just really need to start paying attention more to what we're asking service members and their families to endure on behalf of us as a country. It's a vital part of the conversation that's just missing and it's even less present in the journalism ecosystem. Less than 5% of all journalism focuses on the military and national security, whereas as you've talked about before, it's our number one budget item in this country. So the disparity of the conversation that we're having and the conversation that needs to be had,

it pales in it. There's no contest. And I'm always struck also by the kind of almost schizophrenic cultural way that we relate to the military. You know, I watched football all day yesterday and it was a celebration, justifiably so, of people's sacrifice, but it was so steeped in kind of a numbing patriotism that didn't really explore, as you're saying, and then I watched what you had filmed,

and the disparity between what the soldiers are experiencing and what their families are experiencing and the kind of rah rah it's veterans day, come to Denny's for 10% off. It's really jarring. It hurts as a veteran. I mean it really does. I think I can speak for a lot of us when I say the performative thank you for your services

where somebody just continues walking and continues their day. Me personally, I'd rather not get that. What I really want from the American public on Veterans Day and every other day is for them to actually care. Like care about the policies that are put into place that are going to affect veterans and military families and active duty service members. you know, care about the use of force and when we send people off to combat. Don't wait till the 10th or 20th anniversary of a battle to reconnect with the service members who fought it. Like be proactive in this conversation because like if it ever comes to the point where we get to a draft or where we, you know, need to we get to a draft or where we need to send people off to war. Like it's gonna be your son, it's gonna be your daughter, it's gonna be our nation's children

who are answering that call. And like when that happens, it's too late to actually care. And we need to understand what the true cost of that is, not just as a budget line on them. I want to play something from the documentary. You know, there's something in

it. You talked about you were there with the Navy corpsman and you talked a little bit about the responsibility, not just that your whole platoon felt, but that the Navy corpsman in particular, that they sort of

suffer in a strange silence. And this is, it's a little bit from, it's, I believe it's Faircloth's mother speaking about the death of her son and the Army corpsman as well. So can we run that real quick? I guess knowing Bradley wasn't alone when he died was the most comforting. And then seeing how much each one of you cared about him was sort of amazing to me.

I don't think I really saw too much of your pain at that memorial service. I was kind of in a state of shock, but I really felt like they were being strong, so I'd be strong. My relationship with Kathleen means a lot. She treats me as if I was one of her own. I can feel that she loves me just as much as a mother could love one of their kids, and that means a lot.

She's constantly telling me it's not my fault. I need to stop blaming myself. What did that moment mean to him? So that's Ronaldo Aponte. He is our corpsman. Um, corpsman are why Marines run into fire. Um, they are why we stare down machine guns. They are why we are willing to kick in doors.

Um, it's because we know that they might not save us, but they are going to do everything that they can. As a Marine, I cannot understate how much Corman mean to us. The pain that I have seen Ronaldo carry for losing Faircloth and has been tremendous over the last 20 years and watching him just... We were sitting inside of the Fallujah exhibit at the National Museum of the Marine Corps and what a lot of people don't realize is that Doc was kicked out for smoking weed after we got back from Iraq and the Marine Corps publicly shamed him and told them that he lost his honor and that he shouldn't be proud of his service and I feel like this film, Let Art Baton, it helped Doc feel pride in his service again. It helped Doc feel like he tried his best. It helped all of us see Doc take a legitimate step forward

in his healing. And like I said to the Marine Corps, when I thanked him for letting us film there, was like Doc and our entire platoon left that exhibit with our packs much lighter. Listening to Kathleen read her son's final letter in there, listening to Doc claim what the Marine Corps did to him and how it's left a mark on his life.

It may sound selfish, but it made the Marines in the platoon feel like we had his back the same way that he had our back under fire. And I just, I hope more than anything as I continue moving forward and as this film continues to build up steam and is that Doc continues his journey to healing because if there's anybody in our platoon that deserves it, it's him. Well, Thomas. I can't tell you how incredible the work is. It's not selfish at all. It is everything that I think the Marine Corps stands for,

which is we don't leave anybody behind no matter what happens. You do amazing work. Love you. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thomas Bannon, Shadows of Fallujah, Warhorts.org. We're gonna take a quick break. about the election earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're gonna be talking about ingredient to bread ratio

on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts. and the Jordan, what we got coming up for the rest of the week? Well, John, I'm choosing not to dwell on our grim future. There's lots to be happy about. In fact, I spent the weekend enjoying all this beautiful

summer weather. Yeah, that was unseasonably warm. It's fall. Yes. Well, that would explain the cozy smell of campfires. That was actually wildfires, Jordan. New Jersey, Brooklyn, from the drought, everything was pretty much a flame.

Okay, okay. I'm trying to be optimistic, John. Just this morning, I saw a horse and carriage ride by. Actually, there was no carriage, and technically there were four horses. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You saw four horsemen? I mean, they were hooded and floating, so it's hard to tell. Keep smiling smiling Jordan everybody

Now that good he discussed and his view could be unraveled right by a second Trump administration Okay, we can't hear Kayla. Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. Paramount Podcasts. John Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news.

My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election economics, ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. Listen to The Weekly Show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts.