The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Indecision 2024 - VP Debate Showdown and Latino Voter Shifts

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

Michael Kosta hosts a lively post-debate recap following the highly anticipated vice-presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. Kosta breaks down the biggest moments and missteps from the debate, while Josh Johnson, Troy Iwata, and Grace Kuhlenschmidt hit the streets to gauge voter enthusiasm for this pivotal event. Special guest Paola Ramos joins to discuss her new book, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America, delving into the shifting political leanings of Latino voters and how Vance’s controversial comments on immigration resonate in this context.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. It's gonna be coming out every Thursday so exciting you'll you'll be saying yourself TGI D Thank God. It's Thursday We're gonna be talking about all the things that hopefully obsess you in the same way that they obsess me the election economics earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio

on sandwiches. And I know that I listed that fourth, but in importance, it's probably second. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I mean, talk about innovative. 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, an actually live special report.

The Daily Show presents Indecision 2024, the vice presidential debate, the battle to be America's number one, number two, with your host, Michael Kosta. Thank you. Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm Michael Kosta. We are coming to you live right now.

We're live. Oh, shit. The Vice President's debate has just wrapped up. It was right here in New York City and just outside the venue. Each candidate's supporters were embodying our forefathers' passion for elevated political discourse. We're not going back! We're not going back! Suck my ****!

Suck my ****! We're not going back. Suck my dick. The campaign in a nutshell. Now, before we get into the actual debate, it's important to remember how high the stakes were tonight. They weren't that high. Because as I previously mentioned, it was a vice presidential debate. One of

these men will lose and we'll never hear from him again. And the other one will become VP and we'll never hear from him again. So tonight probably won't matter much to the voters, but to the news media, it was a historic opportunity to get people to watch TV. One of the biggest moments of the campaign the most important vice presidential debate in history what could be the most important vice presidential debate in modern American political history.

If you're using your TV outlet for your grandma's life support, it's time to pull the plug on that bitch. That's how big this debate. I mean, are you for real? The most crucial VP debate in history? The only other VP debate anyone remembers is the time that fly got stuck on Mike Pence's head. The bar is low. Now, for those of you just tuning in

to the presidential race, which, by the way, congratulations, that must be nice. Just tuning in? Let me break down who these two men are. There's Tim Walz, Minnesota governor and the neighbor from Home Improvement, and JD Vance, Ohio senator and guy with the social skills of chat GPT.

On paper, they have a lot in common. They're both Midwestern dads. They both have military backgrounds. They both hate Donald Trump. They both watch Shawshank every time it's on TV, even though they have it on DVD. But as much as these guys have in common, they've been going pretty hard on each other over this campaign.

Walz has repeatedly called Vance weird. He made a joke about him banging a couch. And worst of all, he implied that he's a fancy boy. Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, JD studied at Yale. He's Yale law guy. I'm a public school teacher. We don't need a Yale-educated philosophy major. I had 24 kids in my high school class,

and none of them went to Yale. Oh, shit. Check out this bitch and his quality education. I get what Tim Walz is doing, but ease up a little. I mean, the only person who talks more about going to Yale than Tim Walls is everyone who went to Yale. But Vance's attacks on Walls have been just as personal. He's accused Walls of stolen valor.

He's claimed he's a compulsive liar. And he even suggested that Walls doesn't actually love his wife. Talk about weird with Tim Walls. I don't know if you guys saw the rally yesterday, but afterwards love his wife? Talk about weird with Tim Walls. I don't know if you guys saw the rally yesterday, but afterwards his wife comes up to him and Tim Walls does what any normal Midwestern guy would do, seeing his beautiful wife on stage after a speech.

He gives her a firm handshake. Right? That's pretty weird. Yeah, come on, Tim. Finger blast your wife, dude. It's a rally, not a funeral. A real man greets his wife doggy style. What are you doing? Also, to be fair to Tim Walls, in Minnesota, a firm handshake is considered third base.

But even though it's been personal between these two, both Vance and Walls are professionals, and that means engaging in the traditional pre-debate game of lowering expectations It's a careful strategy where you hype up your opponent's debating skills while downplaying yours So that even a mediocre performance seems like a win. Let's see how Tim Walls handled his attempt to lower expectations Sources now tell CNN that Tim Walls is fighting off a case of the nerves ahead of his debate with Senator JD Vance.

He is said to be nervous that he might let Kamala Harris down. And we know he did warn Harris during the vetting process that he's a bad debater. OK, that might be lowering expectations too much. Tim, you want to be more like, my opponent is a slick talker, not me talk bad, disappoint pretty lady. You want, I'm new to all this, not I'm so stupid a dog used peanut butter to trick me

into licking his balls. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Donald Trump took a swing at lowering expectations for JD Vance. Now, remember, Mr. Trump, the goal is to subtly suggest that JD Vance might have a hard time at the debate because he's going up against a skilled debater. Show us. He's going up against a moron, a total moron.

Crushed it. Crushed it. But it wasn't just the candidates preparing for the debate. The debate moderators were also trying to find ways to keep them honest. Now the last debate between Kamala and Trump ABC got heat for live fact checking the whole dogs and cats thing so tonight CBS took a different approach.

CBS says there will be no live fact checking by the moderators but the broadcast will feature a qr code on the screen which will link to a real-time fact check being done by CBS journalists. Yes, a QR code. Perfect journalism. When a candidate tells a lie, why correct it for the 50 million people watching live?

Just have a link for the 12 nerds who bother scanning it. Am I supposed to be impressed that they have a QR code? Every asshole has a QR code. We even have one right here. Yeah, it's just a menu for a Mexican restaurant I went to during the pandemic, but still. You can scan this if you want. There it is, right there.

After all that preparation, the debate finally began at 9 o'clock. And right off the bat, there was a big difference between these guys and Trump's debate with Kamala, or Trump's debate with anyone. These guys seem to actually get along? You're going to hear a lot from Tim Walsh this evening, and you just heard it in the answer. A lot of what Kamala Harris proposed us to do,

and some of it, I'll be honest with you, it even sounds pretty good. So the rhetoric is good. Much of what the senator said right there, I'll be honest with you, it even sounds pretty good. So the rhetoric is good. Much of what the senator said right there, I'm in agreement with him on this. Governor Walz and I actually probably agree that we need to do better on this. I believe Senator Vance wants to solve this.

I agree with you. I think you want to solve this problem. I agree with a lot of what Senator Vance said. I actually agree with Tim Walz. Wow. Maybe you two should run together. Yeah. Maybe a date.

It seems like you have a lot in common. Hello, CBS, it's Tim. We're going to share an Uber home. But seriously, to see two candidates being civil with each other, even though they disagree, was surprising and personally boring as shit. I mean talk about something interesting like who's gonna eat the cats nobody's gonna turn any of these sound bites into a tick-tock that's not to say the whole

thing was cordial there was one moment where things got so heated the moderators have to take matters into their own hands well thank you senator we have so much to get to Margaret I think it's important because we're gonna turn out of the economy thank you Margaret thank you senator. We have so much to get to I think it's important We're gonna turn out of the economy. Thank you Margaret. Thank you senator. That is the facilitation of a legal immigration Margaret by our own leadership Thank you senator for describing the legal process We have so much to get to senator The CBP one app has not been on the books It's something that color horse created Margaret

Gentlemen the audience can't hear you because your mics are cut Okay now The audience can't hear you because your mics are cut. Okay, now, that's within the rules, but it did seem like they kind of enjoyed it. No. Uh, no one can hear you because we cut the mics. Speaking as a voter who's been watching this campaign for, like, the last 200 years, this might have been my favorite moment.

If Nora and Margaret could offer everybody in America a button that mutes politicians, we would elect that ticket. Now, for a lot of America, this debate was the first introduction to the VP candidates, and we learned a lot about their positions, like Waltz had this droopy dog position. And JD Vance had this position.

But they both surprised me a bit. For example, when talking about immigration, Walls quoted a book I didn't think Democrats had ever read. I guess it's called the Bibble? I don't talk about my faith a lot, but Matthew 25-40 talks about, to the least amongst us us you do unto me. Wow Tim walls has really stolen every Republican schtick you know he's he's folksy he's in the cars hunts quotes the

Bible, you know what's next is going to find out he's the web master of nude Africa dot com. And we learned a surprising thing about Vance as well he does support diversity in certain circumstances. Let the individual states make their abortion policy. And I think that's what makes the most sense in a very big, a very diverse and divided country. We can be a big and diverse country

where we respect people's freedom of conscience. Donald Trump has been very clear that on the abortion policy specifically, that we have a big country and it's diverse. Yeah, OK, you see America? Republicans do support diversity. Some states believe women should have rights and some don't. It's the beautiful tapestry of America. Now, if you remember, Tim did tell Kamala

he was a bad debater. And there was one moment in this debate when I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, he is fact check true. You said you were in Hong Kong during the deadly Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989. But Minnesota Public Radio and other media outlets are reporting that you actually didn't travel to Asia until August of that year. Can you explain that discrepancy? All I said on this was, is I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So I will just, that's what I've said.

So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protest, went in. And from that, I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance. Damn. I learned a lot of what needed to be in governance. -"Damn. You know you're blowing the Tiananmen Square question when you look more nervous than the dude staring down the tank. ["I'm a man"] ["I'm a man"] If you didn't like that joke, here's a QR code you can scan

to get a refund for this portion of the show. Thank you. You don't know how much time we spent on those QR codes. Now, Vance, on the other hand, to his credit, did a great job in the debate. He was smooth, he was confident, he was prepared. The only problem he may have had was his memory. Donald Trump's economic policies did deliver the highest take-home pay

in a generation in this country, 1.5% inflation, and to boot, peace and security all over the world. Peace around the world. There wasn't even peace in this country. The only time there was peace was when we were all locked in our house cleaning our vegetables with Clorox wipes. Wipes I stole from my neighbor and sold them on eBay, which did increase my take-home pay, so thank you, Donald Trump.

Now... So, what did we learn about tonight? Well, first, let's be honest. 99% of voters will not care about the VP debate. That's a fact. If you want to check it, you can scan this QR code. We had to do one more, which will open up your internet browser and you can Google it yourself.

I'm busy. I'm hosting a live TV show. Okay? But aside from that, the thing I took away from this debate was that both of these men, they made the Midwest proud. All right? This debate was an oasis of Midwestern nice. And just like Midwestern nice. It was a mask

covering deep seeded hatred and resentment don't let 90 minutes of them in a room together fool you these men represent 2 movements that are at each other's throats and their visions for America are radically different so tonight might have been all I agree and my friend has a point but tomorrow morning we're all going to be back to this. We're not going back! We're not going back!

Sub my ****! Sub my ****! When we come back, we find out what voters think about the DP choices. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hey everybody, John Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show. It's going to be coming out every Thursday. So exciting.

You'll be saying to yourself, TGID. Thank God it's Thursday. So exciting. You'll be saying to yourself, TGID. Thank God it's Thursday. We're gonna be talking about all the things that hopefully obsess you in the same way that they obsess me. The election, economics, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls?

We're gonna be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. And I know that I listed that fourth, but in importance, it's probably second. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I mean, talk about innovative. Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Daily Show. New York City had the honor of hosting tonight's vice presidential debate. So our news team hit the streets to find out

how excited New Yorkers were about getting to see history up close. The vice presidential debate is happening right here in New York City, and people are excited. I'm outside the venue on 57th Street right now to gauge the temperature of New York's VP debate fever. And I'm on the other side of 57th Street

because there are New Yorkers pumped about this debate literally everywhere. And I'm on the corner of 57th Street because there just happens to be New Yorkers here as well. So on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you that the vice presidential debate is in New York City? I'm gonna say negative two.

Okay. Didn't even know there was a debate going on. So you're not excited? Not particularly, no. I personally don't care. Is that happening? No idea what's happening. What?

You're living under a rock? A 30 rock? It's a New York joke. Do you think that this vice presidential debate is gonna sway you in any way? One way or the other? Oh, okay. I don't really expect much.

So they almost don't need to do it. Yeah. Were we the only pumped up beep stands in New York City? Does anyone want my tickets to the sweat tour? I'm going to the vice presidential debate tonight! Or did people just not remember how awesome vice presidents are? Who is your favorite vice president and why? So Joe Biden was my favorite. Are you gonna ask who my favorite is? I mean I might as well. It's Dan Quayle. And I'm wearing my favorite Dan Quayle t-shirt today. Every morning I wake up and I choose which Dan Quayle t-shirt I'm going to wear. I don't know who that is.

Now, do you have any, any at all, favorite VP moments in history? No. No? Okay. No is also a very correct answer. I'm going to give you the name of a person, and you have to tell me if they're a former vice president or something else. Okay. So Richard Mentor Johnson, former VP or serial killer? Sounds like a serial killer. Yeah, he's a former vice president. I'm gonna go NFL. He's another former vice president.

Hobart. That's right. So George Clinton, former VP or founding member of parliament, Funkadelic? That's definitely Funkadelic. That's a trick question. It's actually both answers are correct. Can you tell me what a vice president actually does? I've never really known what a VP does.

To be honest, I don't know. That is a question that I would love to get answered. A lot of ribbon cuttings. A lot of hand holding. Like an ornament, very special Christmas ornament that just kind of hangs around, you know? I think they're like a just-in-case thing. Okay. The CEO of just-in-case.

The official job of the vice president would be to stand behind the president. Just physically be there. Yes. After hours of searching, something incredible happened. I finally found a group of people who are exhibiting the appropriate amount of excitement for this debate. There's like four people back there. How exciting. How excited are you for the debate tonight?

I'm extremely excited. Me too. Yeah. JD Vance is going to wipe the floor with Tim Walz tonight. Do you get nervous that JD Vance might forget his role and accidentally call Donald Trump Hitler again? No, absolutely not. You don't think he's gonna do it? Because he's done it before.

And I just, I get a little nervous. Vance heads aside, maybe we would all respect the vice president more if we could walk a mile in their shoes. So what would you do as vice president, if you were vice president more if we could walk a mile in their shoes. So what would you do as vice president, if you were vice president? First, I would try to make health care all around the board for everybody. Now, as VP, you wouldn't really have the power to do that.

I know, I wouldn't have the power to do that. So what other things would you do as vice president? I would try to do like wellness of the elderly. So more protections for seniors. Yes. As VP, you wouldn't really have the power to do that. I know I wouldn't. I know I wouldn't. As VP, your powers would be to break ties in the Senate and to certify the election.

That's kind kinda it. I mean, I would try to do that then. Okay. Now there's a winning slogan, I would try to do that then. When we come back, Paola Ramos will be joining you on the show, don't go away. 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 Stewart whatever you get your podcast. An author whose new book is called defectors the rise of the Latino far right and what it means for America, please welcome Paula Ramos. -♪ -♪ -♪ -♪ -♪

We're live. We're live. We're live. We're live. We're live. This is your book. It's great. Man, I learned a lot. Scary live. This is your book. It's great. Man, I learned a lot. Scary subject. It is a scary subject. The rise of the Latino far right and what it means for America.

What does it mean for America? Well, it means that after you see the debate today, knowing you have someone like JD Vance that's talking about mass deportations, still not apologizing about the way that he referred to Haitian migrants, which are legal, by the way. Right. And that even when some Latinos see that, they still feel sort of reflected in that Trumpism, right? And so if we consider the fact that today,

that very same man, Donald Trump, that is promising mass deportations, he's polling at around 40% with Latino voters. Yeah. So I think it's important to question why, precisely because Democrats have always sort of believed that it would be Latino voters that would take them to that future.

Yeah. Man, when I read this, I would, you know, why would, with Trump rhetoric of the southern border of migrants, why would the Latino population support him in such a way? Well, think about it like this. Maybe you and I, I always identify as a Latina. And when I do that, I always think about the fact that my parents are Cuban exiles and Mexican immigrants.

But there is a sector of Latinos that don't want to see themselves in that way. And they do not want to see themselves lumped with other immigrants. So even if we think about how the Latino community has changed in the last 20, 30 years. We're talking about a community now that is a lot more Americanized and assimilated. Most of the Latino voting block is under the age of 50, U.S. born. Hablamos en Inglés, no en Espanol.

I understood that. I was testing you. I was testing you. Yeah. But all this to say that... I don't know how to respond, but I understood. Quieres seguir en español, hablamos? Yo hablo muy malo espanol. Okay.

Anyways, long story short, I think what Trumpism does really well is when they think about that Latino voting block, they're betting on this one idea. And that is the fact that there are some Latinos that are so Americanized and assimilated now that they too will sort of buy into the nativism. That they too will really look at, hear the words, send them back, and not at all see themselves reflected in that them. And that accesses, you know, it feels like, and you just explained this in the book, that this has more to do with the history of people who came over.

And that's what's so interesting to me was understanding these are traumatic stories. How does Trumpism, how do they tap into that history? You talked about it a little bit. Yeah. So I think when you think about sort of the Latino, MAGA Trump supporters, we try to explain that phenomenon through Trumpism or the MAGA effect. I think the harder part is really thinking about our story, the sort of cultural forces that are among us.

And I'm talking about understanding the racial baggage that we carry from Latin America. And I think as Latinos, it's hard to talk about race and colorism. I'm talking about the weight of colonialism. Like, how does that sort of brutal history really shape our sort of moral compass? And then I'm talking about the political trauma,

know what it means to sort of flee from these countries. And then when you think of all those factors together, then you start to understand why Donald Trump feels so comfortable going to the Bronx. And then talking to some black Latinos about racism,as about racism, criminalizing black folks to them. Then you start to understand why he feels so comfortable talking to Mexican Americans about the border and the wall, because he taps into that grievance.

What did you see tonight in the debate that maybe I didn't notice or wasn't paying attention to? Was there... You seemed bored. I wasn't bored. But, you know, I was ignorant to so many things in this book, and that's why it's such a great read. And, man, there's some really personal stories

that are fascinating. What happened tonight in the debate? Was there some calling out to the Latino population that I didn't notice or did notice? Well, I think to me what was interesting is, I think for the first 20 minutes, you see a JD Advanced that, I think the bar was so low. He seemed very decent.

He was doing your job. You almost forgot to your point that he had called Donald Trump an idiot once. You forget all these things. I complimented him on the show. And the whole audience was like, what the f*** with you? But it's true. He was believable until he got to this section of immigration.

And in that moment, in a very slick way, that's when you start to see the way that he has this ability. And Trumpism has this very brilliant ability to dehumanize the others, no? And that's when he started to really reveal himself, no? He starts the lies. He starts to dehumanize people. And then he can't answer a fundamental question, no,

which is, will you separate families? Will you separate the children, the US-born children of immigrant parents? He wasn't able to answer that question because the answer is yes. And that yes entails separating not just undocumented immigrants, but he can't even tell us with a straight face,

when he talks about immigrants, can he tell us that legal immigrants would also be deported? I mean, US-born children, will they be deported? I mean, U.S. foreign children, will they be deported? I mean, so I think those blurring of the lines, it's very dangerous. What, lastly, quickly, what can Kamala, what can the Democrats do to reach out more to the Latino population?

I think sort of ground people in the urgency. This is someone, and this is a team, that is literally talking about mass deportations. And that entails deputizing local police forces going around people's homes. And there's over 10 million U.S. citizens in this country that live in mixed-status families. So this isn't an immigrant story.

This isn't a Latino story. This is truly, like, an American issue. So ground people in that urgency. It's a great book. I learned so much. Every American should read it. Thank you for coming and talking with us. Defectors is available now. Paola Ramos, we'll take a quick break.

We'll be right back after this. That's our show for tonight. Thank you. Now here it is, your moment of Zen. Historically, the VP debate really hasn't had much impact on election day. Less exciting, less consequential. I don't think the stakes between those two are particularly high. It's not going to change much in the presidential race. It usually doesn't count for much. This is a debate that really doesn't matter. Doug High was on before and quoted from the famous movie Meatballs.

You know, it just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. What do we think about tonight? 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. and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. Paramount Podcasts.