The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Gaza Plan Damage Control, Trans Sports Ban, Garden of American Heroes | Ke Huy Quan

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Desi Lydic covers Trump's latest executive actions, including a combination walk back/double-down on his Gaza plan, and a ban on trans athletes that he probably didn't proofread. Ronny Chieng and Josh Johnson debate which Americans are statue-worthy in the "National Garden of American Heroes." Charlamagne Tha God begs Dems & Republicans to stand up against Elon Musk. “Love Hurts” actor Ke Huy Quan joins to discuss his upcoming action flick that’s like “‘Die Hard’ for hopeless romantics.” The Oscar-winning actor shares why his character represents a different type of action star, whether co-star Marshawn Lynch went full “beast mode” on him, and his tearful onscreen reunion with “Goonies” co-star Sean Astin. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, Desi Lamy Show. I'm Desi Lydic. We've got so much to talk about tonight. Trump's plan for Gaza is still under construction. An old man gets into gardening and Charlemagne the God kindly requests that Republicans stop being little bitches.

Let's get into it with another installment of the second coming of Donald J. Trump. I'm gonna come. Yesterday Donald Trump unveiled his big plan to relocate Gazans and turn their homeland into the world's holiest hard rock hotel and casino. And today, the reviews are in. The Arab world hates it, Democrats condemn it, Republicans have problems with it, and the Palestinians won't abide by it. Or as Trump says. We asked a lot of people talking about obviously.

Everybody loves it. I stand corrected, I guess everybody loves it. And even though the plan was totally perfect in every way his staff spent the entire next day walking back every single part of it. The president said his intention was to remove Palestinians from Gaza permanently. If we can get a beautiful area to resettle people permanently. But today the press secretary said it would be temporary.

The president has made it clear that they need to be temporarily relocated out of Gaza for the rebuilding of this effort. Trump's press secretary just had her first walk back. This is an important rite of passage for Trump's spokespeople. Their bull mitzvah, if you will. She was spending so much time walking back the plan that at one point she ran out of English words.

This is an unhabitable place for human beings. Yeah, so true. Remind me how it got unhabi-li-bit-able again. Even worse for Caroline, while she was scrambling to salvage Trump's plan, Trump was on Truth Social readjusting it on the fly, which left everybody even more confused. Breaking just a short time ago, President Trump seemed to backtrack, but also to double down on his plan to take over Gaza. A backtrack and a double down?

And now on the uneven bars, Donald Trump will attempt the rare combination backtrack double down. Let's see if he breaks every bone in his body. But while his team tries to fix his Gaza plan, Donald Trump has already moved on because he's basically the norovirus. Every day he spews executive orders all over the place and while we struggle to clean up all the puke, he comes out the other end with something even worse. He tried to buy out the entire workforce of the CIA.

His DOJ is going after anyone who's investigated him. And now he has defeated America's biggest threat. At the White House today, President Trump signing an executive order banning transgender women and girls from competing in women's sports. With this executive order, the war on women's sports is over. We're putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women's sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding. of Title IX and risk your federal funding. You don't notice how he paused right before invade your locker rooms?

Like maybe we won't make that illegal. Should have proofread this. It's bad enough that he's banned trans women from sports, but spare us the performance of pretending that this is a top issue for women in this country. Maybe start with, I don't know, reproductive rights or pay inequality. Or why it's 2025 and still none of my clothes have pockets. Now you might be wondering, is this really going to be the entire Trump presidency, just divisive executive orders every day for the next four years? Probably, but on the bright side, he did have one executive order today that felt relatively harmless. I have signed an executive order to resume the process of creating a new national park

full of statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived. It will be called the National Garden of American Heroes. And I hope that Congress will fully fund this wonderfully unifying project at the first possible opportunity. Excuse me, sir. Americans already have a national garden and it sells unlimited breadsticks. I never thought I'd say this,

but Elon, I got some government waste for you right here. Does anyone have the phone number of the Department of Government Efficiency? Actually they're all 12 year olds. Does anyone have the Roblox usernames of the Department of Government Efficiency? But the question is, in these divided times, will Trump's Garden of Heroes help to unify Americans? To debate this issue, let's go live to Ronnie Chang and Josh Johnson. Ronnie, let's start with you.

Do you see this garden as something that could actually raise morale around the country? No, no, this country is pretty f***ed. That being said, this is actually a good idea. I do like a garden of heroes. I mean, America is so divided, but if we can walk in a garden with statues of George Washington and Neil Armstrong and Paul Giamatti, maybe it'll bring us together. Okay, and Josh, what's your take? Yeah, yeah, it's great. Did you say Paul Giamatti?

The bald guy from Billions is in your top three? He's also the bald guy in Sideways and Big Mama's House. Also, I saw him eat a hot dog in Union Square, although that might have just been another bald guy, but either way, American hero. Giamatti's not statue status. At best, he can be a plaque or a name on a bench. A bench?

The thing people fart and smoke crack on? I don't think so, okay? Paul Giamatti gets a statue, maybe two. We're not putting Paul Giamatti next to Abraham Lincoln and John Adams. Paul Giamatti won an Emmy playing John Adams, okay? How many Emmys did John Adams win for being John Adams? Ronnie, what the are you talking about?

John Adams was the second president and he didn't have slaves. Early America, no slaves. Second president. Pretty cool. Oh yeah, you know who else didn't have slaves? Paul the Hardie with the body, Giamatti. I'm like, I'm really trying to be unified right now,

but Ryan, I'm truly gonna kill you. Okay, well why don't you come over here, I'll unify my fist with your face. Okay, guys, guys, guys, guys, fist fighting over Paul Giamatti is not what the Garden of Heroes is all about. Oh, I'm sorry that I don't wanna walk through a garden staring at Lincoln's penis.

What? Ronnie, what? Why would his penis be out? Because obviously the statues will be naked. Like they are in Europe. They all got little baby carrot dicks, okay? It's called culture. Bro, this is America, all right?

Our statues have clothes, wear funny ass hats, and ride horses. Okay, look, I'll give you the hats and horses, but they're nude or I watch. Excuse me, guys, before we get into their outfits, I just want to point out that neither of you have mentioned any women heroes. Oh!

Can we please not DI the f***ing garden? Oh, come on! Imagine walking through the park and seeing Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, and other inspiring women who would look great as gnomes. Gnomes? Gnomes?

Well, it's a garden. Obviously, all the heroes will be gnomes. You'll be walking around and be like, oh, look, it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg. OK. We are not making statues into gnomes. And if we did, wouldn't it be Ruth Bader Gnomesburg? I hate you and I hate your half of the country.

Guys, guys, this garden is tearing us apart. Please, let's compromise. OK, for the sake of all unity and all things dignified, we will give Ronnie a Paul Giamatti statue. Thank you. And to please Josh, Giamatti will be wearing a John Adams hat. Thank you, Desi.

And he'll be naked on a horse next to a proud Gnome Spader Ginsburg. Fine, fine. But she's nude and her boobs have to look like Paul Giamatti. No. I'm fine with that, as long as she's surrounded by, like, a lovely little field of begonias. No. Begonias, you stupid f**k.

It's Piccadilly so I burned this god into the ground. Okay, you know what? Forget it, forget the garden, unification canceled. Ronnie Chang and Josh Johnson, everyone. Charlamagne will give us his opinion. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back to The Daily Show. We all know I've got great opinions, but I'm not the only one. Studies show that other people also have opinions. So here with another installment of In My Opinion is our good friend Charlamagne the

God. -♪ Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, who But three weeks into Trump part two, I don't think he's going to destroy democracy anymore. I think he's already done it. The oligarchy is already here. I haven't seen CEOs this happy since they caught Luigi at that McDonald's. And now Trump has handed over the keys to the whole government, the Elon Musk. Yeah, that's right. Elon Musk, world's richest man child, the guy who innovated rockets and really innovated hand waving.

Yeah. And Musk is already doing so much to damage America that ISIS is getting FOMO. Elon Musk has essentially been a bull in the government's China shop, closing programs, locking out employees from their offices, shutting down websites, locking up email accounts. Doge has its paws in USAID, the Treasury Department,

NOAA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Labor Department, even the Transportation Department. Yeah, yeah. Elon is stripping the federal government like his Kanye's wife at the Grammys. Oh! If you think about it, Elon is the Kanye of the government, an egomaniac.

He's an egomaniac coasting off early success, who is way more into Hitler than you would have thought. Yeah. Somehow, Trump demanded we get rid of DEI, then gave the job of co-president to an unqualified, unelected African immigrant. This country isn't supposed to be run by incompetent foreigners. It's supposed to be run by incompetent Americans.

I can't believe I'm saying this during Black History Month, but, Elon, go back to Africa. Yeah. Yes. And take your little minions too. Longtime government employees this week were shocked to find that their new supervisors from Elon Musk's Doge department include recent college and high school graduates between 19 and 24 years old. One of the young men is apparently a former intern at Musk's Neuralink company who goes

by the online handle Big Balls. Big Balls. This is how I know Elon is running with a crew of virgins. I never met anyone who's really in the balls, okay? No one's like, send me a scrotum pick and get that dick out of the way. All right? I want to see what those balls do. I need a man hung like a beanbag chair. Pause. How are you going to put 19 to 24-year-olds in the driver's seat, all right? They're not even old enough to rent a car. Maybe it's just me, but I don't want

the people destroying the government to only know Andre 3000 is the flute guy. Yeah. So where's the dark times, people? I just hope the Democrats are organizing an effective opposition to all this. Show them what you're made of, Dems. Hey, there. Chris Murphy.

It's been a very long, long day today, full of a lot of bullshit. So, I poured myself a drink. It is pink. It's pink. It's vodka and grapefruit juice. You're unwinding with a pink drink in the middle of the game. Motherfucker, get some amphetamines

and get back on the field, okay? You got, come on man. You got Elon out here pumped up on Mars juice and ketamine and you're out here having a sea breeze? Get in this fight Dems. Your mascot is a donkey. Donkey punch these mother f**kers. Go hold a rally or something.

I am gonna stand with you in this fight and we will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win.

We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win.

We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win. We will win.

We will win. We will win. We will win simple. Oh, that Murphy. Mm. Mm. Yeah. This entire generation of them leadership has got to go, man. All right? One of those guys had a pimp cane, and he still didn't seem tough. You know how hard that is? He'd be the first pimp with his hoes slap him.

All right? Kick him out, vote him out, hide their life alert, make him walk down whatever stairs Mitch McConnell uses. I don't care. It just needs to change, all right? Please tell me there are some young Democrats who can speak clearly on this. What do we need?

Man-o-man! What do we need? What do we need? Some f***ing subtitles for starters. Did Joe Biden sneeze and give all of you dementia? You know what? Forget the Democrats. And let me talk to Republican politicians for a second.

I get you want to cut government spending down to the bone. But remember, Musk isn't just coming for poor kids that you don't care about. He's coming for your red states. He's coming for Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies. There is no community in America this won't impact. It's not a black thing, a white thing, a gay thing, a straight thing, a spit on that thing thing. White conservatives, I expect more from you, okay?

You're just gonna roll over and let an African colonize you? Apparently they are. On Capitol Hill Republicans applauding Musk's goals. Elon Musk is a genius. Elon Musk he can do whatever he wants to go look at all of this stuff and stop hand-wringing about what's going on. The Democrats need to get used to this so get ready for disruption get used to disruption. To my friends who are upset, I would say with respect, you know, call somebody who cares. You're supposed to care, okay?

Even if you don't care, that's right. That's right. Even if you don't care about we the people, don't you care about your own power? Congress is supposed to control spending and Trump is letting Musk do it while you watch. Elon is constitutionally cucking you, all right? I need you to give Musk the same energy

you give George Soros. You've been talking all that nonsense about evil billionaires with Jewish space lasers. Elon's got real space lasers, okay? And Elon's poll numbers with Republicans are already crashing. But don't forget, they can't vote him out of office, but they can vote you out of office. Yeah, that's right.

You think Elon cares about blowing up your political future? This man blows up his own rockets for fun. So Republicans, I know it's tough to stand up to Trump and Musk right now, but our democracy and your jobs depend on it. So if you don't want the mob turning on you, you need to act like a 19-year-old tech bro and grow some big balls.

But that's just my opinion. So, I'm Amanda Jai everybody. When we come back, Teehee Kwon will be joining me on the floor for a moment. Welcome back to The Daily Show. My guest tonight is an academy of artists. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you.

I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you.

I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. I'm so excited to be here with you. Welcome back to The Daily Show. My guest tonight is an Academy Award winning actor who stars in the new film, Love Hurts. Please welcome Ki Hui Hwan. Thank you. Wow, wow, thank you. Before we start, I want to say, I know Ronnie Chan is in the building.

I've been looking for him everywhere and I can't find him. So can you please do my favor? When you see him, remind him that he promised to buy out all the tickets in New York for my movie this weekend. So yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, I'm just joking. I'm just kidding. He's very generous that way.

I think what happened is he bolted when he found out that you were coming here because he doesn't like being, he doesn't appreciate him not being the most handsome Asian man in the room. Oh my god. He's got a little bit. He got threatened. Yeah, no, I know he's mad at me because we made a movie

with Asians and he's not in it. Can you believe it? Can't even believe it. Ronnie, do not unfollow me. Do not unfollow me. I have to tell you, my favorite thing about your movie is that Ronnie's not in it. Yeah.

It is. It is the best. No, this is such a fun movie, Love Hurts. It is a Valentine's Day action film. So would you describe it as like die hard for a hopeless romantics? Yeah, I mean, it's good. I always wanted my own action movie.

And over the years, you know, Valentine's Day is a very special day out of the year because I get to show my wife how much I love her. And there's always romantic comedies out there. So it's kind of cool that we get to have an action movie on Valentine's Day. It's so good, you're excellent in it.

And it's so much fun. One thing that I love about you is that you just have the most joyful, positive, infectious energy. And one thing that I noticed was your character in the opening of this film is this happy guy and he's grateful for his life and he keeps saying, I love this life. And then as it turns out, he's secretly an assassin.

So I'm wondering, are you secretly an assassin? Yes, yes, that's yes. I knew it. Be careful what you say here. I knew it. No, no, no, no. I mean, that's what I love about him is that, you know, that element of surprise. Over the years, you know, action heroes look a certain way, act a certain way. And that's why when I read the script Love Hurts,

I initially turned it down because I just couldn't see myself in it. But once when I found out that they were trying to create a new kind of action hero, someone who doesn't look lethal until he's pushed to the limits and then you realize, wow, he is freaking badass. And I really love that, yeah. It's very true.

You... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are...

You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are...

You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are...

You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... You are... Thank you. Yeah, I studied martial arts for a long time and got a black belt. And that's why when we were doing this movie, one thing that I know for sure was I wanted to do all the fights myself. I wasn't gonna let my stunt double have all the fun, but it was so hard and so challenging. I got so many bruises, aches and pains. I feel like every night I would go soak myself,

soak my body in salt bath. I feel like I should get an every night I would go soak myself, soak my body in salt bath. I feel like I should get an endorsement from Epson Salt. Do you hear that, Epson? Give him an endorsement deal. I used so many bags during the shooting of this movie. I can't even imagine. I mean, there was so much. Those scenes are so impressive.

And you're in the movie with ex- Ariana DeBose. Ariana DeBose. Michonne Lynch, Daniel Wu. We have an incredible cast. Now, did you tell him to go full beast mode, or did you say, please don't go full beast mode on me?

Go maybe calm mode, or... Actually, it was quite the opposite. You know, I didn't know how fast he was until there was one shot where the camera was about 20 feet away. I get a head start. I'm supposed to run towards camera, and he catches up to me and puts his arm on my shoulder and pulls me back. And I said, guys, he's not gonna catch up to me.

I'm gonna get to the camera way before he does. And he was off to the side and he's just like, Key, you just run for your life. And I'll- And sure enough, I mean, he speaks mode. And at the premiere after party, my family got to hang out with him, the big fans. I don't know whether he knows it or not, but he has this incredible ability to get everybody to say yes. He was doing shots with them and got them all drunk that night.

He did? Your entire family just wasted. My entire family got back and go, oh my gosh, that was cool. That's a good Hollywood night. That's a very good Hollywood night. No, I mean, anytime you get to hang out with Mashaun Lynch, that's a good night.

And I love him so much and he's so good in this movie. He really is. And of course, Ariana, Daniel, the entire cast, we had so much fun making this. And also Sean Astin, your Goonies. My Goony brother. Brother had a great cameo in it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very cool cameo. I'm curious, what was it like to get to work with him again and when the director yelled cut, you say no this is our time. That's great that see. I'm sorry I had to get one. He's right. Yeah, no when we were shooting that scene. Another going to come to visit

Jeff Cohen my Tony a K chunk and and you know in the crew was like freaking out you know there was like you know 3 unitsies, and we had a good time. And also to be able to share the screen with Sean again after so many years, it meant so much to me. It's really special. And those tears that you see in the movie, they're real because all of a sudden I was a kid again.

It made me go back to that incredible adventure that we all had. Oh. Yeah. You do that for the audience, too. and it made me go back to that incredible adventure that we all had. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. You do that for the audience too.

I heard that your next dream project would be to play an evil villain. Is this true? Yeah, I always want to play a villain. I think it's so fun. I think it's so fun, yeah. Well, I think you'd make a great evil villain. I think so too.

And in order to make that happen, we at The Daily Show wanted to be part of this. So I was wondering if you would consider reading a few villain lines into camera. We want to help you get this next movie. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's just... Would you come forward to doing that? Okay, to all the filmmakers out there, come on. Actually, I'm also, I'm going to out there, come on.

Actually, I'm also, I'm gonna do a horror movie next, but this will give me a nice practice. Just a little practice, just for rehearsal. If we could, could we get some villain lights? Yeah. Oh, this is good, yeah. I'm gonna take off my glasses, because this makes me look affable, so let's see.

Do you need a villain prop? Yeah. Oh. What an evil kitten. Okay, and right into the camera, we prepared these for you. Okay. Okay.

Oh, fuck. Prepare to die, Mr. Bean. Oh. Okay, this one. This one, one, this one I like. Oh, this one I like, let me see. If you ever want to see your family again, you'll hand me that artifact. Are we okie dokie, Dr. Jones?

Spooky. Oh, this is great, okay. This one, let me see. Let me see. How should I do this? Ah, alright. Okay. Turn to camera. Okay. It's a very, very dead cat you got there. Sorry not that. You, you go to your closet and you select that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care what to care about what you put on your back. What you don't know is that that sweater is not blue. It's not turquoise.

It's not lapis. It's actually... cerulean. That one... You have the job. You have the job. That lapis was from Double Wear's Prada. Well, I cannot wait to see you play a villain.

I also love seeing you in literally everything you do. So congratulations on everything. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. I'm sure we'll be in theater nationwide on February 7th. Teehee, John. We're gonna take a quick break, so we'll be right back after this.

Come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on. We'll be right back after this. Oh my gosh. Music Music Music Music Music Music That's our show for tonight. Now here it is.

Your moment of bed. Some animals are making predictions as they often do for the Super Bowl. Willie, at the Montana Zoo picked the eagles to win. And now Strawberry the Camel also picked the eagles. A black vulture named Muerto and Vasa the Parrot. Velma didn't flounder picking Kansas City as the winner and I predict that Kansas City paid her off.

I bet. Just like the refs. 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.

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