The Daily Show: Ears Edition - John Leguizamo Explains What the SAVE Act Really Means | Behind the Show

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

John Leguizamo and Daily Show writer Kat Radley share the process of writing his latest In My Opinion piece on Trump’s obsession with immigrants and the GOP’s efforts to suppress the Latino vote. John also discusses his upcoming PBS series, “American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos,” and the importance of remembering the often overlooked contributions Latinos have made to America’s history and prosperity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Pod Save America, the context you need for next week's news when you won't be burdened by what has been. Listen and subscribe to Pod Save America on your favorite podcast platform now. You're listening to Comedy Central. Hello and welcome to the Daily Show Ears Edition. This is Kat Radley. I'm a writer for the Daily Show and we are back with the amazing John Leguizamo. Welcome John.

Thank you Kat. Thank you for having me. I loved being here last time. It's been a while. I missed you. I know. I was like, oh, John's back. Sure.

I'll do the podcast again. Yeah. Lucky me. You're about to do your piece for the show, In My Opinion. So, we're going to talk quickly about the process behind that. Is that what they call it now? Yeah, In My Opinion.

What was it called before? Segment. It didn't really, yeah, it was just like a random segment. Nameless. Yeah. But now you're back and, surprise, surprise, Trump's up to some great fear-mongering again. So this piece we wanted to focus on the SAVE Act and all that Trump and the Republicans are doing

in fear-mongering around immigration and illegal voting that isn't actually happening. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE Act, would require registered voters to provide proof of citizenship and force states to remove non-citizens from their list of eligible voters. We want U.S. citizens to vote, but we don't want illegal votes.

Block illegal aliens from voting in our elections. Just so everyone's up to speed, what this bill does is require everyone to register with a documentation proving citizenship, like a passport or a birth certificate, and maybe you're thinking, well, you know, if there's a big problem of non-citizens voting illegally, why not try to stop it? Well, because there isn't a big problem. There isn't even a small problem.

There isn't a problem at all. Do you need to hear it in Spanish? No hay at all. Do you need to hear it in Spanish? No hay problemo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Data shows that non-citizen immigrants almost never vote. And why would they? Who would risk going to prison or getting deported just for an I voted sticker? Do you want to talk a little bit just about the piece and what made you want to talk about this?

Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. It's like, why can't the Republicans try to win just fairly? Why can't you just try to win? Why do you have to rig the game and then talk about rigging the game when you're the one rigging the game but you're just projecting? Yeah, it's so crazy. I mean, this new act, which is trying to make sure that naturalized citizens, young people, and people of color just feel more afraid to go because who has their birth certificate? Who even has a social security card? I mean, passports. I mean,

these things are so crazy because it's going fuck up Republicans voting too because I bet you more Latinos have their passports Than than old white Republicans. That is something we talked about like the fact that this act would require people to provide documentation To show citizenship and yes that does disproportionately hurt, you know people of color and young people But that's like where a lot of the jokes came from is, who the fuck knows where these documents are? I was birth certificate. That's given to you at your birth to your mom and dad.

And then who passes it on? You have to know where it is forever. Like 50 years after the fact. Yeah. I mean, who has any of that documentation? I just had my first, I had twins last year. And... Oh, congrats, congrats. You look great. Thank you, thank you. Fishing for compliments always, Kat.

Yeah, you know me. But that was one thing, they give you like the Social Security card birth certificate and I remember thinking like, I need to know where these are for the rest of their lives. That's so much pressure. And yeah, it would hinder a lot of people from voting. Absolutely. But it's meant to do that. But it's gonna disproportionately hit people of color, but it will also hurt Republicans, which I'm glad. Because every time, they try to scare us about mailing ballots and stuff,

and then they hurt themselves in Florida, because most older people in Florida mail their ballots. Yeah, it's always nice when their own stuff bites me in the ass. Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. Like they're telling you, don't vote because it's not worthwhile. And all of a sudden, they're making themselves not vote. Yeah.

But it is sad, like you were saying, that they would rather put all this effort into suppressing vote rather than just earning the votes of these people. Right. Just convince us that we should vote for you. Give us reasons to vote for you instead of fear mongering, hate mongering, being divisive, name-calling

and endangering people. Because when they start saying that immigrants, which they mean Latinos, let's call it what it is, it's not even a euphemism because euphemism is supposed to make things sound great. But we're talking about Latinos who are supposedly flooding through the southern border and committing crimes which are not. I mean, they've proven that non-citizens commit way less crimes, so that's bogus. Yeah. And to bring up that point, like last time you were here, we were talking about how Trump and Biden were appealing or trying to appeal to Latino voters.

Right. And now who would have thought the next time you came, there'd be a whole new Democratic candidate. And so I'm curious as to what your thoughts on art for Kamala being the new Democratic candidate in terms of her appeal to the Latino voters. Do you notice on the ground or like anecdotally the Latino community seems to be more behind her versus Biden?

Cause it looks like polls are showing that there has been a bit of a swing. Yeah, yeah, I think so. But you know, it's interesting, Kat, because we talked about this last time also, about how Biden would have to be, might have to be tough on the border just to get the vote, just to, because he's,

they made it such a huge issue that it's become an issue when it's really, should be a non-issue. But so that Biden, and so Kamala is coming in tough with immigration as well. So she's coming in for immigrants. Yeah, and it's interesting. I mean, I think she killed it in the debate and she got the Latinos.

I think she's talking to Latino consultants, which she should do and Latino experts because she said the things that we care about and that's jobs and homes and housing. So for her to say that she's gonna help for startup businesses, I mean, that's huge for us. Latinos are all about startup businesses, so that's incredible, because she knew she was targeting.

That's all we really care about. We're not monolithic, and some of us are incredibly religious, so you're not gonnaolithic and some of us are incredibly religious, so you're not going to get them because abortion and LGTBQ plus is not for them. So forget those. So the economy gets most of us. That's interesting. The appeals she was making to all voters about the middle class, the working class, how she's

going to help them. That is really what you think is the Latinos are responding to. Yeah. That's all to help them. That is really what you think is like the Latinos are responding to. Yeah, I mean, that's all we care about. I mean, when I talk to everybody, that's what they care about the most is jobs, job security, a start of businesses, small businesses and housing. So you think Kamala did great in the debate. Now, Trump, we know that he was really harping on immigration. One thing we say in the piece is how he was talking about immigration even when he wasn't

being asked about immigration. Why do you think he was, I mean, that it came out his obsession with immigration, that it was kind of something he came back to over and over again in the debate? First of all, let's track it back. One of Trump's biggest peeves is he hates Puerto Ricans. Because he had that low income housing, so he hates Latinos. So that's one of his problems.

And secondly, because he thinks it's- Just normal racism. Yeah, but no specific. He's got to fetish. And then secondly, because he's made it an issue and he thinks it's his driving issue, and the MAGA hate others and feel like others are coming to take their jobs and they're not. I mean, no immigrant is coming to take anybody's job that they have. The only people who are worried about immigrants taking the job are other immigrants,

because nobody wants to pick grapes, pick strawberries. That's the wildest thing. Even the whole crazy story about immigrants eating cats and dogs in Ohio, the immigrants community they're talking about even, they were like specifically recruited to be there, to do the jobs that were vacant. Right, right. So it's like, what do you say? But they do that all the time.

They sucker us to come to North Carolina or South Carolina, Raleigh, and then once we do the job, they kick us out. Katrina, we were Latinos, especially Hondurans, came in droves to rebuild Katrina in Louisiana, in Orleans, to rebuild it. They came here by the droves to rebuild Katrina in Louisiana, New Orleans, to rebuild it. They came here by the droves. Then after they did all the work, they wouldn't pay them. They called ICE on them, and that was the thanks they got for it. And it's just a playbook that's been used on us forever.

I mean, during the Bracero program in the early 1900s, the same thing. They came up with the Repatriation Act and deported tons of people after they came here to work on the lands, clean homes, service all the, do all the horrible service stuff all over the Southwest. That's something we talked about when we were writing the piece,

this voter suppression going on, we were saying how it was reminiscent of like harkening back to the Jim Crow era. And you said something really interesting about how that among the Latino community you guys refer to it as Juan Crow. It was called Juan Crow in the South, in the Southwest and the West. We were, you know, we were segregated. The first case against segregation was us in 1914 in Colorado. And then the second most important one was Sylvie Menace

that paved the way for Brown versus Board of Ed. You know, with Juan Crowe laws, you know, black people were worse treated than us, but we're the second worst treated people, after I guess indigenous people were the worst. That's a fun competition you can be in. Yes. Yes.

Who has the most horrible life? after I guess indigenous people were the worst. That's a fun competition you get to be in. Yes. Who has the most horrible life? Oh yeah, I mean, okay, we're second to third because I guess indigenous had the worst and then black people in us. But 6,000. Women, they're like eighth or ninth. Well, you're in all those groups. So yeah, you can't help but be a big number there.

But you know, 6,000 of us were lynched, burned alive, and shot in America from 1830 to 1930. Black people, of course, much worse. So it was all like, we were all over that place, you know? And yeah. I love talking to you because you are just this like walking history book that most Americans are never taught or even exposed to. And I'd love to talk about the PBS series you have coming up.

What a great segue. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the PBS series coming up? Yes. I'm so excited by this. This is my passion project. I think it's the most important thing I've done in my life. I think it's a cultural corrective for us Latinos in America because John Hopkins University Did a study and found that 87% of our Latino contributions to the making of the US are not in history textbooks. So I'm putting those 87% in my show starting September 27th on PBS. It's a three-part series. First episode is our empires,

because we were here before the conquest, and some of the biggest empires in the world. And then the second episode is from the conquest, 1492, to the 1900s, and the last episode is 1900s to 60s and civil rights. I think I told you this briefly last year, I used to be a high school English teacher before I was a writer at The Daily Show.

And it was amazing, like everything was like whitewashed, like our history and our literature, like there would be like two Latino authors that we would like have to choose from in the textbook. And I would have loved to have access to something like this. I mean, teachers should be showing this in the classroom. Because it's American history. Latino history is American history.

Black history is American history. It's important to know. We want to know about what everybody contributed to. It doesn't change your DNA. It doesn't make you other. It helps you understand how this country was built, how it was made, because if you don't have the real facts and you're reading a fiction, you're reading a fairy tale, that's not truth. And you're not going to be better for it if you don't know the truth.

Yeah. Just, I mean, the amount of just basic empathy, I think it would give everybody. Absolutely. With respect. I mean, the thing that I want more than empathy is respect. Yeah. And I think it would give Latinos the respect that we deserve because we helped build this country alongside white people and black people. You know, after our Asian brothers and sisters were kicked out in the 1800s, we finished all the railroads, all the way to the West, and we did all the infrastructure in the West and Southwest.

You know, cowboy culture, that's ours. We invented that. All the language and words are Spanish words, ranch, from rancho, corral, bronco, chaps, lasso, buccaru comes from English bastardization of baquero, which means cowboy. Yeah, so it's like, you know, we just, when you get colonized and conquested, you don't get credit. You don't get credit for nothing.

John Wayne gets the credit. John Wayne, he's not, they're gonna take away some of his credit now. He's either, it might take away his name off the airport in California. I'm so glad, because he was in a mad race. Yeah, yeah. And he's the one that's like, propped up

in like, the cowboy culture, is like the- race. Yeah, yeah. And he's the ones that's propped up in the cowboy culture. Oh my god, yeah. Took our culture like, OK, buckaroo. I'm going to tell you that I hate old people. And they shouldn't only. He was really terrible. I didn't realize how terrible he was. They used to love him.

Most old white men from history you realize later, oh no, they were terrible, terrible people. Yeah, you try to give them some slack and go, oh, they didn't know better, but they knew better. Come on, come on. I mean, I don't blame anybody today. I mean, I don't hold grudges to nobody today. It's just, back then, I hold grudges.

Today, you should be, you have access to the information. You should be like educating yourself to, there's no excuse for it. I meet so many allies, white, black, Asian, LGTBQ plus that and it warms my heart man It makes you feel so great that you feel you feel like you said empathy you feel seen you feel respected and and And we understand that we're all in this together like Kamala said we're better together It's we just a more beautiful country a more prosperous country because you know country, because countries that block their immigration fail. Japan blocked its immigration for 30 years.

They've had a stagnant economy, and now they realize it, now they're welcoming it. Come all, you immigrants, come now. Yeah, it's a long plane ride. Yeah, it is, but I'll go. You don't go anywhere. Anybody where that many people want me. I want to do one quick fun thing.

Sure, this wasn't fun? Yeah, well something that's not going to be totally depressing, but hopefully motivational. I like depressing shit, I really love it. Nothing makes me have more fun than depressing shit. Well, one fun thing about our writing process, so we write this piece together. Yes, we do.

One thing that I love about this job, being a comedian, is the really serious conversations you have about like wording and what works for jokes. And today, one of the big things we had to discuss was using dick versus penis versus cock for a joke. And I think we ended up going with dick. Because we were gonna be censored. Right.

Cock. Well, because we were using the Spanish version. And so we outed ourselves, and so they spotted it. So we had to change to Dick, and then we got past them. Though there is something funny about these Republican cabronas trying to write anti-voting signs in Spanish because I doubt they have any Spanish-speaking friends. They're just going to their cleaning ladies like,

hey, Consuelo, ¿cómo se dice you cannot vote? And you know, Consuelo will come back like, uh, oh, I got you, papi. It's tengo una berga pequeña. Yeah. Berga, we like better because it was funnier than Penny. Penny is penis. Sometimes penis is just not funny. John, it's always a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you so much for taking some time to talk with us. American Historia, the untold history of Latinos, premieres on PBS on September 27th. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Much love. 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.

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