The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Here's What Will Happen if Trump Declares a State of Emergency | Marc Mauer

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

A self-driving car runs over a robotic pedestrian, President Trump considers declaring a national emergency at the border, and Marc Mauer discusses "The Meaning of Life."  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. 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 podcast. January 8, 2019. From Comedy Central's World News Headquarters in New York, this is the Dailyateshorester everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Thank you for coming out on Show Noah. Our guest tonight, Mark Mauer is here. Mark Mauer is going to be joining us and he's the executive director of the Sentencing Project and a co-author of a fascinating new book about abolishing life sentences. So we're going to be chatting to him about that. But before that, let's catch up on today's headlines. Allergies, they affect the lives of many bitch-ass Americans. But according to a new study, the most common affliction is hypochondria. Surprising results from a new scientific survey of more than 40,000 Americans.

The study finds that while nearly one in five people said they had a food allergy, only about 10% of Americans actually have symptoms, actually have symptoms that suggest a real allergy. The data suggests that while 50 million think they have food allergies, only about 26 million actually do. I knew it! Half of Americans who think they have allergies aren't allergic to anything. Yeah, the only thing you gluten-free motherf-haw's allergic to alergic to their times.

That's all it is. I'm allergic to gleece. I'm allergic to allergies. And don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming Americans. I'm blaming the doctors who overdiagnose them. Yeah, I was told I'm allergic to bees, and I know it's not true because I eat bees every day and I'm fine. But seriously, in Africa, like food allergies aren't a thing. And I know you're thinking, oh, that's because in Africa you don't have food?

No, we have Ebola. Moving on, here's some more health news. A new federal rule requires every hospital across the nation to post standard charges online for every item and every service they provide. In the past, some hospitals have posted only small lists, or they've asked patients to contact their health care provider for pricing, but you can see here, look at this long list. Now a requirement for every hospital, and they'll have to update the list at least once a year.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And yes, finally, American hospitals now have to tell you their prices in advance, which is a huge improvement. Hospitals are the only places that can surprise you with prices. You go in, you get the surgery, then three weeks later you get the bill for a price of your car. Like, imagine if you ordered Chipotle and the next month you get a bill for $80,000. You'd be like, what? If I'd known that, I wouldn't have gotten extra guacamole. What the hell? Like, I'm serious. I really hope this is the first step to getting America's health care costs under control. Because when I first I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I the the the the the the the the the th I th I th the th th th. thi thi thu thu. thu. thu. thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thirty thus. thirty thirty thirty, thirty, the the the the the the the the th. thirty, thirty, thirty, thirty, thirty, thia. thirty, th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. th. thed thed the. the. the. the. thea thea' thea' thean thean thean. I thean thean thean thean the the thean theann' then after I saw the bill that came, I was like, you guys should have let me die. Like at that price, I could have sent myself to medical school

and then learned how to take out my own appendix, charged myself $80,000 and I'd be rich. This is a step forward. Moving on, this week is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. CES, it's where tech companies showcase the latest and futuristic nightmares. And this year hasn't disappointed. While the Consumer Electronics Show is set to take Las Vegas by storm this morning, one computerized companion won't be there.

Take a look at the moment, a self-driving Tesla Model S mows down a robot in the street. This promo bots damage will prevent him from appearing in this year's show. Oh wow, a self-driving car mowed down a robot pedestrian. And you know what's funny about this? Is that as humans, we're so narcissistic. We always assume that when the robot apocalypse comes, the robots will be coming off to us.

We've never once considered that robots probably hate each other just as much as we do. Yeah, that car probably saw the robot and was like, hey Wally, kill yourself. Your mama was a rumba. Ha ha ha ha. Also, is it just me, or does that robot look like it was trying to get hit by the car? Because what is the robot doing in the middle of the road? It's probably got some insurance scam going, you know?

Like the robot was just like, oh, ow, got me. I'm going to show up to courts in a neckbrake, like I've been unable to work and support my wife and three toastars. All right, let's move on Trump gave a nationally televised primetime speech tonight about the government's shutdown. But we are taping the show before Trump's speech airs. So as I'm speaking right now, I don't know anything about the speech. You see, I am from the past. And from the past, I'm going to make a prediction about Trump's speech.

I predict he's going to say that America needs the wall because there are Guatemalan drug-dealing Mexican Muslim terrorists trying to sneak into America to dance on rooftops with Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez. Not good, folks. Not good. I would also like to predict the color of spray tan that the president will choose to wear for the occasion. You see, because it's winter, because it's winter, these are not penises, these are noses. There are no, this is a nose. Everyone is like, is that peena? I'm not carrying a chart of penises.

You see, because it's winter, he doesn't want to go too dark, right? Over here, but because it's a formal event, he'll need something with color, so I don't think he'll go with something this pale. So I'm going to go with old traffic cone. I think that's where he's going to go with on this occasion. So if you dig into the President's speech and the Democrats' response tomorrow, unless something funny happens. But right now, with the shutdown stuck in a stalemate, the phrase that everyone has been talking about is, national emergency. The President has warned he might declare a national emergency going around Congress to get his border wall built. President Trump is prepared to do what's necessary. We have a national crisis.

We can call a national emergency because of the security of our country, absolutely. No, we can do it. I haven't done it. I may do it. I may do it. Isn't it comforting to have a president who always sounds like a guy on a ledge? I'll do it, man. don't come any closer. I'll do it. All I wanted was a wall, man. Nobody listened, man. I'll do it. But that's right. Trump has claimed that as president, he can declare illegal immigration as a national emergency. And then he wouldn't need congressional approval to build the wall. He could just do it himself, right?

Well, not himself, himself. I mean, he's never done manual labor in his life. I mean, I bet if he, Mr. President? I'm like, do I eat it? Mr. President, didn't you work in construction your whole life? Be like, I only talked to the guys with the weird hats and they made the buildings go, hi-hi! Like, Trump doesn't do anything for himself. He doesn't, though. He's probably never even jacked himself off. Yeah, he just calls in the bu but the bu. He's. He's. He's. He's. He's. He's. He's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's the bu. He's the bu. He's the bu. He's the bu. He's just, he's just, he's just, he's just, he's just, he's the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the th. He's just, th. He's just, th. the thean thean thean thean thean thean thean the the the the the thi thi. the the the like, shall we begin with the lotion, sir? No, Jeeves. I think we'll go dry today. Very good, sir. Shall I fantasize for you as well, sir? Yes, Chiefs. Let's

go with two girls kissing. Very hot, sir, very hot. And look, it's not like other presidents haven't declared national emergencies before, all right? They've done it for lots of things. For instance, President Carter declared a national emergency during the Iranian hostage crisis in order to put sanctions on Iran. President Obama declared an emergency during swine flu to help hospitals respond more effectively. And President Bush declared an emergency when friends went off the air. He was like, America needs to know if Joey finds love. Sir, they're making a Joey spin-off. Oh, thank God, emergency over.

So presidents declare national emergencies all the time. What they don't do is decline emergency just to win a policy fight with Congress. So the question we need to answer is, is Trump even allowed to do this? Can President Trump declare a national emergency to build the border wall with Mexico? In a word, yes. What is actually considered a national emergency?

That's where the legal language gets stickier. In 1934, the U.S. Supreme Court said basically the situation should be urgent and infrequent, really big, like on the scale of a natural disaster, and not reasonably expected or anticipated. Yeah, so for something to be considered a national emergency, the Supreme Court ruled a situation must be urgent, infrequent, and unexpected. Basically, America should have a urinary tract infection. And if you think about it, none of these things apply to illegal immigration,

which has been more of like a steady constant drip, okay? Still needs to be checked out, but it's not an emergency. The problem is, the Supreme Court doesn't get to weigh in immediately, right? Trump can declare national emergency, and then the moment he does, there are all sorts of things that he can do. Many of these powers are really quite narrow, quite reasonable, but some of them seem like the stuff of authoritarian regimes. So there are powers that would allow the president to shut down communications facilities and to freeze Americans' bank accounts or to deploy the military domestically. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's one thing to freeze our bank accounts or send troops to our houses, but shutting down to to to to the the the the their their their communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications communications thom communications thom communications thom communications thom communications thue thue thue their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their, thoom, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their. their. their. their. their. theirthing to freeze our bank accounts or send troops to our houses, but shutting down communications. That means Trump could turn off the internet, like Instagram? How am I supposed to get sponsorships now, huh? I think I'm just gonna walk down the street yelling at people about my juice clans? Just gonna be like, hey, hey, you wanna poop like me? I sound like a crazy person. Come on, Trump.

You're serious powers, people. And when you listen to it, it sounds really undemocratic. Because when you think about America, right, you don't think of an autocratic ruler. You think of pickup trucks and restaurants named off the boobs. Freedom, baby. Yeah. But if Congress was going to give a president these powers, you would think that they would be very specific about how the president could use them. And if you thought that, you would be thinking wrong.

Congress chose consciously not to include a definition of national emergency. The idea behind emergency is pretty simple. It's the idea that the laws that ordinarily apply just might not be sufficient in the case of an emergency. And if you have a true crisis that's unfolding so quickly that Congress doesn't have time to react to it, then you might need to have some standby authorities that give the president more flexibility. Ah, that actually makes sense. Congress can't say what every emergency situation might be in the future, so they leave it

vague. Because what counts is an emergency is different for different people, right? For some people, an emergency is a throwne, right? For other people, waiting for those three dots in a text message is an emergency. Are you up or not? So Congress left it open to interpretation because they assumed the president would be somebody responsible and trustworthy and party trained. They didn't think that'd be a president Trump, which is why they left such a big loophole. Which goes back to what we've been saying about Trump for a very long time.

He's basically the black light on American democracy, right? You realize there were all these flaws in America that nobody ever noticed before he showed up, and then all of a sudden it was like, oh, bam! Oh, wow, what is that? Oh, the president doesn't have to show his tax returns. Oh, and the president doesn't have to divest from his businesses, and holy shit, he might be able to pardon himself. That's crazy and oh what is that down there? What is what is that? Oh that's just a mustard stain from when Thomas Jefferson signed the, oh yeah he just signed the most important document with his lunch. Okay, that was weird.

That's not Trump's fault. So now thanks to Trump, we've learned that during a national emergency, a president can do way more than than th... right? Shut down your internet, send the troops in. You can just control the country. So if I'm the Democrats, I would give Trump the wall before he finds out what he can really do. I know it sounds crazy, but think about it. Right now, he's like the baby from the Incredibles, right? He only knows that he can shoot lasers out of his eyes. We'll be right back. 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 John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is the executive director of the Sentencing Project, one of the United States' leading criminal justice reform organizations and co-author of the new book, The Meaning of Life, The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences. Please welcome, Mark Mauer. You are considered by many to be the leading expert on sentencing policy and the criminal

justice system in America. Welcome to the show. Thanks, great to be here. You are considered by many to be the leading expert on sentencing policy and the criminal justice system in America. This book, The Meaning of Life, specifically tackles abolishing life sentences. Big question is why? Well, two reasons mainly.

As we have a movement to end mass incarceration now, which is very encouraging, in far too many cases, I think people believe if we just had some more drug treatment programs, that would take care of the problem. The problem is much deeper than that. In terms of sentencing, one of every seven people in American prisons today is serving a life sentence, 26,000 people. So we can't end mass incarceration

unless we do something about excessive sentences. It's also a public safety problem. And life sentences actually are counterproductive for public safety. The one thing we know about involvement in crime is that people age out of crime. Mid-teen years, late teens, early 20s, thii's, thees, thees, thii's times. That's a high risk time.

Crime rates go up in that age group, but they rapidly come down. So by the late 20s, 30s, 40s, certainlys, and 60s, their their their their th, and 60s, and 60s, their, and 60s, their, their, and 60s, their, their, their, their, their, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, th, is is is is is is is is is th, th, th, s, certainly 50s and 60s, the risk of involvement for criminal activities is much diminished. So if we have people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, we're not preventing very much crime while they're in prison, but we're spending enormous resources to do so. But now, some people... ... ... ...

I agree with you on this book, but I mean there's obviously people who disagree and say to you, but shouldn't somebody spend life in jail if they have taken somebody else's life, for instance. What would your argument be to counter that? People have to be accountable for their crimes, whether it's taking a life, whether choplifting anything in between that? But the scale of what should take place is very different in their crimes, whether it's taking the life, whether choplip thing, anything in between that. But the scale of what should take place is very different in the United States. We are far more punitive than comparable nations. If you look in Western Europe, it's very unusual

for any bite to spend more than 20 years in prison, either by law or in practice. And they say, for the most serious crimes, it may be 10, thi a thiiiiiiiiii. th. th. th. th. th. th. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. th say for the most serious crimes, you'll get 20 years, for less serious crimes, it may be 10 or 15 and so on. But we have a very different scale, with the death penalty at top of the scale, life without parole at the top of the scale. So it exerts pressure on crimes across the board. That's part of the reason we have mass incarceration. If you steal a car in the ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and ta, and tha, and t, and t ttha, and too, and tha, and th too, and too, and too, and too, and the, and the, and the, and the, and too, and too, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the tt t tt ttttt tt today, t t thea, thea, thea. thea. thea. thea. thea, thea, thea, thea, the United States, you're going to spend more time in prison

than if you do that in England or Italy or many other countries. Right, but when you're trying to convince people of this idea, a lot of the time it seems like the arguments are framed in a way that benefits someone who's committed a crime. You know, someone will say, I understand this mark, but why should we reward somebody for a their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their. their. their. theck. thiiuiuiole. to be to be thiolomea. to be to be to be to be to be to be. to bea. to bea. to bea. to bea. to bea, to bea, to bea, thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. their. thin. thin. thin. te. te. te. tea. tea. tea. tea. I. I. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm toea. I'm te. I'm this mark, but why should we reward somebody for committing a crime? Should they not be punished as much as possible? How would you frame a benefit to a citizen who has not committed a crime? Why would it benefit them to not have people spend as much time in prison? Well, you know, if we care about public safety, we have finite resources, we have a certain

budget at the federal, state, and local level. How do we want to spend that budget? Now normally it costs about $30,000 a year to keep someone in prison. When people are aging, it can be $60,000 more than that. So we have to think, do we want to spend money on aging people in prison? Sometimes they're in wheelchairs, incapacitated. When we have a group of 14, 15, 16 year olds coming up every year. If we could do something in preventing them from getting into high-risk activities, we'd have a much better impact on crime.

So we have to think about what the balance is. The balance we've developed in the last 40 years is all about incarceration, forgetting about prevention and treatment. We recently saw a story that has gone a lot of attention, the case of Santoya Brown, and she was granted clemency by the governor who's outgoing, and this was a story of a young girl who was picked up by a man as basically a sex slave and you know she fought for her life and says in her defense she

killed the man and now this became the big story and people said she had to spend the rest of her life in prison as a child. And after she was granted clemency, the question then became, is this something that America needs to do for everybody? Do you think America is moving in the right direction? Slowly but surely we're moving in that direction. You know, we saw in Congress passing legislation the first step back just a few weeks ago. It's not going to end mass incarceration,

but it reduces the use of mandatory sentencing for drug crimes. It'll have some modest effect on reducing the number of people in prison overall. So it's a beginning, it's a first step, as it's called. We need a second, third, and fourth step step if we really want to have an impact. But after four decades of rising prison populations, we're beginning to see some reduction, a little more rational development of policy now. And then what do you think the U.S. does for those people who are let out and then repeats a crime? Well, we have to look at what we're doing to help people refrain from getting involved in crime. You know, the movement for reentry, people coming home from prison,

liberals and conservatives alike have embraced this idea, that people coming out of prison should have the skills, should have the resources, the support they need, so they don't have to go back in prison. But the resources we're putting into it is just a fraction of what's needed. You have to remember when people go to prison at the age of 30, far too many cases. It's been a very dysfunctional lifestyle they've had family, community problems and the like.

That doesn't change overnight. So we have to be much more serious about reducing time people spend in prison and focusing on that re-entry back to the community. Your book is amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much. Pleasure having you. The Meaning of Life. A really fantastic weeknight is available now. Mark Now, everybody.

Thank you so. Thank you so. The Daily Show with Cover Noa, 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.com. 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. Hey, everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tel you about my new podcast. This has been a Comedy Central Podcast. 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 John Stewart, wherever you get your podcast.