The Daily Show: Ears Edition - From the Archives: Alex Gibney - January 29, 2018

Episode Date: October 26, 2018

Filmmaker Alex Gibney talks about pulling the curtain back on corporate crime (including Volkswagen's animal testing and HSBC's money laundering scandal) in "Dirty Money." Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. Streaming soon on Paramount Plus. This is Dr. Frazier Crane. I'm listening. He's back again. Hey dad, I got a question about punctuation. Ooh! No, stay on task. And he's more Frazier than ever. How do I look? Rich.

Just what I was going for. Oh my God, they traded your baby for wine. Do you really think we would trade John for white Zinfandel? Or any wine? Frazier, new season streaming September 19th on Paramount Plus. Please welcome Alex Gibney. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. I have such a strange relationship with your work because I'm a huge fan of what you do,

but it always makes me feel like the world is not worth living in. You created the documentary Going Clear, which I know a lot of people loved about Scientology. You've worked on this new series, Dirty Money, what is it all about? Dirty Money is all about corporate crime. And at a moment when our president says it's, it'd be good to deregulate everything having to do with a corporate activity. This shows you what might happen if that were to come to pass. And indeed, these are real stories.

Right, you look at some of the stories. I mean, we can kick it off with the first episode, which you not only created, but also directed. It's a story of VW, the emissions scandal, right? Everyone has now learned of VW coming out and figuring out a way to trick the emissions test. But you broke the story that they were using monkeys to experiments on. I didn't even know that car manufacturers had monkeys, first of all. And what were they actually doing with these experiments? Well, what they were doing, and it was VW and actually Mercedes and BMW, they set

up a kind of a fake nonprofit to try to prove that diesel exhaust was good for you, or it wasn't bad for you. And so they set up a scientific test in New Mexico and originally as you saw from the clip they were going to test it on human beings and then they thought somebody at VW America thought well you know this was a company that was jump started by Hitler maybe that the optics of that aren't so good that were gasping people. Yeah. So I like to say that was just one person who said that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. th. th. the th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. the. th. th. th. th. the same. Yeah. So... I like to say it was just one person who said that. Should I speak up? Just me?

But interestingly, it didn't stop there. Instead of saying, right, forget it going back to the drawing board, they said, ah, we've got an idea. Okay, humans, maybe that's no good. How about NHPs? And somebody said, well, what are anPs, non-human primates. And so what they did was they got monkeys, and they put them in plastic, clear plastic, boxes. They made them watch cartoons, and they piped diesel exhaust into those boxes.

And then they tested them. They scraped their lungs afterwards to see what had happened to them. It's horrifying. And they were doing it in order to be able to prove the the their their their their their to prove to prove their to prove to happened to them. It's horrifying. And they were doing it in order to be able to prove that diesel exhaust was good for you. It's like the cigarette company's trying to prove that cigarette smoke is good for you. So now, we find out this story.

It becomes big news. I mean, now the New York Times is reporting on the story as well. I'm watching this documentary of yours. What happens though? Because it feels like the company pays a fine. I think VW's was $26 billion. And then it all seems to go away. Now I would say in VW's case, some executives are going to jail. One guy's going to jail for 10 years. There's another guy I believe is going to jail for seven years. But what hasn't happened yet is they haven't gone up the chain. And in a company like VW, there's just no question that the people at the top know it was happening. Not only with the monkeys,

but also with this cheating scandal, because the cheating is not just cheating. These emissions, you know, they were, the cars were disgorging 50 times the allowable limit of nitrogen oxide and that stuff is terrible. My daughter has asthma and it was, I saw a th of me on a soccer field because she couldn't get enough oxygen We think that she got that condition in part by living in Southern California breathing in Right, Knox fumes so when you're discouraging 50 times the amount of allowable pollution. It's really concerning and in fact we discovered in the course of doing this film that as a result of nitrogen oxide Pollution there are over 10,000 premature deaths a year in Europe So this these have life and death consequences you talk about the people at the top not facing the consequences

You talk about some people maybe going to jail, but there's another part of the series where you examine the banks, HSBC specifically, who were found to be helping Mexican drug cartels launder their money. Now what's particularly infuriating about this is not only do they find them guilty. HBSBC seems like they don't really care about it, they're really arrogant in the way they handle it and then they want to pay the fine and move on and now the Department of Justice is dropping the charges? Indeed, they're moving on and nobody at H.SBC has been prosecuted for that. It's appalling and it's really frustrating in the film which is a terribly well-directed by a woman named Christie

Jacombs and you see prosecutors and all thii the you've got them red-handed, you know, prosecute them. And then clearly the people at the Department of Justice decided they were too big to jail. That's the appalling thing in terms of white-collar crime, you know, we'll put somebody into jail for 10 years for stealing the TV set. Right. But steal 500 million and you get a new private jet. So what you're saying is people need to steal more things to not go to jail. Correct. Now you're catching on. Okay, okay.

How does the administration respond to this? Because let's say somebody like Donald Trump, and he's come in with a very tough no on crime and we're going to stop the drugs and we're going to, but you could argue that without these banks, many of these drug cartels don't have the power that they have right now. Because if they don't, if they can't transport their money, if they can't buy weapons, if they can't move things around, then they just don't have the same ability. You would think that the are big businessmen who provide campaign contributions. And as Lindsay Graham reminded us recently, you know, it's all about those campaign contributors.

That's who they're doing this for. You know, it's interesting in the Trump administration just announced its new budget for the Consumer Protection Bureau. Right. You know what the budget is? I'm going to say less than it should be? Zero is less than it should be? Zero. Zero is less than it should be.

Yeah, zero is not very much for consumer protection. Which means they don't care about it. Correct. And so we live in a world now where the bankers now wait for the next group of people that they can do the same thing with. Indeed. And this is why I thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi is thi, thi, tho is not tho is not tho is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not is not tho is not tho is not tho is not tho is not thi thi thi thi thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi, thi the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th me hate life. Oh, but there's got to be some good news. I'm sure there is. Well, the good news is you make the shows that expose the people

and then hopefully because of that, people are shamed into doing something about it. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Pleasuredia. Dirty money is available now on Netflix. everybody. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Ears Edition. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central and the Comedy Central app. Watch full episodes and videos at the Daily Show.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to the Daily Show on YouTube for exclusive content and more. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. Streaming soon on Paramount Plus. This is Dr. Frazier Crane. I'm listening. He's back again. Hey, Dad, I got a question about punctuation. Oh, no, stay on task. And he's more Frazier than ever. How do I look? Rich. Just what I was going before. Oh my God, they they traded th.. they're th th they're th they're th th th th th th th th th th th th th th that that that thask. And he's more Frazier than ever. How do I look?

Rich. Just when I was going for. Oh my God, they traded your baby for wine! Do you really think we would trade John for white Zinfandel? Or any wine? Frazier. New season streaming September 19th on Paramount Plus.