The Daily Show: Ears Edition - John Phelan Fired as Navy Sec., Replaced with Witch-Hunter Hung Cao | Ben McKenzie

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Michael Kosta dives into America's naval blockade of Iranian ports to pressure Iran as the U.S. Navy quietly falls apart on the home front. After Pete Hegseth's firing of Navy Secretary John Phelan, Trump replaces the unqualified rich guy with the technically more qualified Hung Cao, who is famous for his hatred of witches and calls for more "alpha males and alpha females" in the military. Not even the war in Iran can distract Trump from his longstanding blood feud with wind energy, but what's behind the president's anti-wind vendetta? Desi Lydic chronicles how, for Donald Trump, wind turbines morphed from a simple eyesore near his Scottish golf course in 2012 to the source of all the problems on planet Earth, in this installment of The Art of the Altercation. Ben McKenzie, actor, author, and director of the new documentary “Everyone Is Lying to You for Money,” talks to Michael about the ugly truths of cryptocurrency. He explains why crypto is not real money, how celebrity advertisements and lack of transparency mislead people on the risk level of their investments, and how criminals permeate the crypto industry, starting with Jeffrey Epstein. They also discuss crypto’s targeting of young men and the changes McKenzie hopes to see in the crypto world, from stricter regulations to legal consequences. "I am not saying it should be outlawed, I am simply asking for it to be regulated properly. And I’m also asking, politely, for the criminals to go to jail." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You're listening to Comedy Central. Justed journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for... Got so much to talk about tonight. Pete Hegeseth rocks the boat. Donald Trump declares war on windmills, and the Navy is about to make sure that witches get stitches.

So, let's get into the latest on the war in Iraq. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. The allies are still on the Strait of Hormuz, which we can now all agree is the most important narrow, waterway in the world. Look, no offense to the Panama Canal, but if I were you, I'd

fucking kill myself. Anyway, as part of Trump's efforts to pressure Iran to open the straight, the U.S. Navy is blockading all Iranian ports along the coastline, which is a very complex, difficult task. But luckily, we've got the steady, stable leadership of U.S. Navy Secretary John Feelein to get the job done. U.S. Navy Secretary, John Feelein, ousted from his position, affected immediately. What?

You're in the middle of a major naval operation and you're firing the guy whose job is to be in charge of major naval operations? Just because what? He looks like a high school principal who's always asking the girls for hugs. How else you're going to say, congrats on sophomore year?

There must be a reason. Tensions between Phelan and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been mounting, according to multiple sources familiar with the relationship. The approach Phelan was taking when it came to shipbuilding appears to have been the main reason for the firing. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I can't tell you how many friends I've lost arguing about shipbuilding. It's actually kind of sad. Tim, Gary, Todd. I know we haven't spoken since our big fight about whether

a displacement hall is superior to a semi-displacement hall, but I still think that a semi-displacement offers better balance of range and speed, but I wish it hadn't torn our friendship apart, especially since none of us were actually building a ship. Also, sorry for banging your wives. In retrospect, that was childish and uncalled for. But this firing is a little concerning, especially because we're losing all of the military expertise that I'm sure John

had been bringing for the job for, I assume, years. Before taking the job just 13 months ago, Feeleyn was a Florida businessman and a major donor to President Trump's campaigns. He had never served in the military. Holy shit, that's it? They put a guy in charge of the U.S. Navy because he's good at being rich.

Secretary, six incoming torpedoes. Quick, throw some money at him. I mean... But still, Trump hangs out with lots of rich people. There must have been something more about John Feelein that he liked. John Phelan is named on a flight manifest, indicating that he flew on Jeffrey Epstein's private plane in March 2006.

God damn. That plane was like a LinkedIn for creeps. Someone on there must have been like, yeah, I diddle kids, but only for the networking. So maybe it's not so bad that Hague Seth isn't Fein'Feelein'n anymore, but who's taking the helm from him? Replacing him as acting head of the Navy will be under Secretary Hung Cow,

A combat veteran who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the House and Senate in Virginia. This is a great gentleman. I love his name, Hung Cow. I love that name. Okay, sure. I'm sure he loves that name now. But how long until Trump forgets hung cow's name and starts trying to get close? Hey, the carrier's under attack.

Where's a fat dong, huh? Hey, anyone seen Chubby Wang? By the way, Hung Cow was my nickname in high school. That's right, ladies. I was well-endowed, and my farts caused climate change. Now, to be clear, Cal does have some things that you want in a Navy secretary, like 20 years' experience in the Navy.

But in case you're worried that Trump accidentally hired someone normal, not so fast, for example, he seems very concerned about Christians being persecuted even when it's a bit of a stretch. There's a place in Monterey, California, called Lovers Point. Yeah. The original name was Lovers of Christ. point. But now it's become, they took out the

Christ, it's lover's point. Oh, okay, that's very interesting. So that's actually just like Orlando, originally was called Orlando, don't you love Jesus. Is changing it from lovers of Christ point to lover's point that big of a deal? I mean, if they change it to Rimjob lover's point, yeah.

Fine. That might send a signal. But they didn't, and that's why I have no interest in going. But sorry, I interrupted. You were talking. You were talking about how all the Christians were driven out of Monterey, California. So what happened next? And it's really Monterey is a very dark place now. Yeah. A lot of witchcraft and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, we can't let that happen in Virginia. Yeah. No, yeah, we can't let, we can't let, we can't let Virginia be

taken over by witches. Also, I have a, I have a follow-up question. What the f*** are you talking about? Why, I mean, why is everybody that? a point so fucking crazy. Can they just find a normal person with a normal head on his shoulders who believes normal things? What kind of sailors did this guy even want to recruit? When you're using a

drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that's not the people we want. What we need is alpha males and alpha females. Alpha females, right. So drag queens. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's right. Maybe we need Alpha Mayas

who will beat the shit out of our enemies. and alpha females who will mock their insecurities so precisely they'll never leave the house again. But what exactly will the alpha males and females do that others can't? What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds.

Those are young men and women that are going to win wars. You want alpha males and females who eat their own ripped out guts? Maybe I don't know what war is. I mean, I guess it might freak out the enemy if they see the alpha soldiers pulling out their own stomachs and eating them, but that's only going to work once. Also, not to be nitpicky, but if you eat your own guts,

where do they go? For more on Hongkow and his new leadership at the Navy. Let's go live to Jordan Klepper in Arlington, Virginia. Who could have filled the role that wasn't a Trump donor or insane extremist? Nope, back to you, Michael. But surely there was one person who was a little more qualified. Yeah, I've seen the entire list of candidates, Michael,

and Man Afraid of Witches was indeed their best option. You know, there were really only two types of candidates for this, donors or the loonies. I mean, all the more experienced candidates were hesitant about committing war crimes or holding Pete Hanks' ass hair back after happy hour at Ruby Tuesdays. Okay. Okay. Well, then who else were they considering? Well, for example, they look closely at this guy.

His name is John Trunk. Okay. And he served in the Navy? Well, not the Navy per se, but he was Patient Zero on that cruise ship where everyone got dysentery. Does he have any military experience? It depends. Would you consider funneling crypto to Baron Trump's offshore bank accounts to be military experience? No. No.

No, he does not have military experience. But if he doesn't float your boat, little maritime humor there, then the administration also considered Carson McDougal. Oh, okay. He looks like a sailor at least. Yes, he was the admiral of the January 6th Amphibious Fleet. They tried to storm the capital by sea, but failed to realize the reflecting pool is more of an inland pond.

Okay, no, no, no, no. Go back to the Trump donors. Who else do we have? Sure, Trump also considers. considered mega donor Steve Richmond. Uh, that's him right there in the, the middle. Yeah, I... Joe, I refuse to believe

there wasn't a single candidate who wasn't a Trump crony or a right-wing extremist. Well, I mean, there was one other in the mix. Uh, an expert at sea-based warfare, a strong negotiator with no ties to Donald Trump or Jeffrey Epstein. Well, where are you been hiding this guy? He sounds perfect.

Well, not a he, Michael. She. Her name is Ursula, and she's, She's promised to put Iran's naval fleet under Dasi. This is so stupid. I don't want Ursula the Sea Witch commanding the U.S. Navy. Oh, well, well, well, you don't like witches either. Huh? Well, sounds like somebody's ready to board the USS Hung Cow.

Fair point. Jordan Klepper, everyone. When we come back to find out how Trump defeated the wind, don't go away. The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accents.

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that's been whispering, kill me. But Donald Trump's relationship to the environment is a more complicated subject. For more, we turn to Desi Lidec in our ongoing segment the art of the altercation. Donald Trump has a long list of enemies. Iran, Democrats, the far-left radicals known as the Catholic Church. But there's only one opponent that Trump hates so much

that when he goes after them, he actually becomes. You know, the windmills, boom, bum, boom. Windmills, whee. Winda-do. It's a person from another country or an inanimate object, Trump will do the accent. And you might be saying, wait, Desi, aren't those wind turbines? Yes, they used to be, but Trump calls them windmills, so they're windmills now. You know, like how this is now the Gulf of America.

This is the Trump Kennedy Center, and these are healthy angles. or healthy ankles. And boy, oh boy, Trump has gone after these windmills with a vengeance. The president signed an executive order on his first day in office, this term, bringing federal wind projects to a halt. There are windmills all over the place, and they are losers. Pinwheels, f*** right off, okay? You're not even that whimsical, you glittery bitches.

But keep in mind, all of that took place before the war with Iran. obviously got more important things to worry about than some silly windmills. During a global energy crisis and has war in Iran, the Trump administration is paying a French energy company nearly $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to cancel its plans to build two offshore wind farms. How could you do that?

In the middle of an energy crisis, windmills should be our backup plan. It's like I always say, windmills are the morning after pills, of the Strait of Hormuz. I always say it. Always say that. Right before the person next to me on the subway changes seats.

And spending a billion of our tax dollars to stop a project is insane. If I want to pay a fortune to get nothing, I'll buy season tickets to the Mets. He's hated windmills forever. Ever since 2012, when they hurt the thing Trump loves the most. No, not that.

Not that either. I'm talking about his golf courses. The focus of his outrage, a proposed wind farm off the coast, and in eyesight of Trump's Aberdeen golf course. It's one of the most serious problems that Scotland will have or has had. They're horrible-looking structures. They make noise. Not sure that windmills make noise was a very effective argument to Scotland.

It's the bagpipe capital of the world. They love the Scottish version of the Headspace app. down without a fight, and he took it all the way to the courts. You're in litigation. Who are you suing? We're suing essentially Scotland. Nobody sues a country. We are. We're suing a country. We're doing very well. Oh, and because when Donald Trump goes to court, it always goes exactly the way he planned. In the unanimous judgment, the court rejects both challenges. The UK Supreme Court said, we think this is stupid, and we wear these things to work.

Obviously, Trump moved on from this defeat with his usual grace and humility, by which I mean he held on to this grudge like it was a Nobel Prize made of boobs. And windmills went from being a nuisance to, I guess, the source of all the problems on planet Earth? If you're in sight of a windmill, watch the value of your house go down by 65%.

They got these big, ugly suckers hanging down. They're all rusting in. and disgusting looking. They are so unattractive. They kill the birds. You want to see your berb graveyard? You just go. Take a look.

A bird graveyard. And they say the noise causes cancer. It drives the whales, freaking crazy. You know what it is? I want to be a whale psychiatrist. Triedress might be the one job Trump would be worse at than president. I mean, he wouldn't listen. He'd fat shame them.

And God knows what he tried to do to that blowhole. That's Trump's war on windmills. And right now, it feels like he's winning, which means that as the rest of the world embraces alternative forms of energy, America is falling behind. And if that makes you feel powerless and stressed out, remember, no matter what Trump is doing to the country,

you always have the power to take a beat and center yourself. You're joining on the show, don't- Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation, fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise.

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Please welcome. Ben McKenzie. You're a late night show right there. You are... You guys excited for this movie? He's excited. You excited for this movie? Cryptocurrency. Very exciting.

You're pumped about it. Thank you. I don't mean this to be insulting. I actually don't know you from the OC. Okay? And I know you from crypto. Wow. Isn't that crazy?

I can kiss you right now? Okay, great. Is that what we want? I mean, you know... I mean, look, people want to... O.C., fantastic Southland, which was a fairly good show for... Yep.

There's like, there's like, there's like, there's like two dudes in the audience, super happy about that. Gotham, you know, look, much like you, Michael, I contain multitudes. That's right. That's right. Why crypto? What struck a nerve for you on this? The movie's great. Your book is great.

You really know what the shit you're talking about. Yeah. Which I was like, whoa, this guy's not just an actor. This guy's got a brain on them. Why crypto? I have an undergraduate economics degree. It was the pandemic. I was bored as fuck.

Can I say, fuck. Yeah, do whatever you want. I was bored as fucking. And a buddy in mine came to me and said, I should buy crypto. A lot of people have had this experience. But my buddy has given me terrible financial advice before. And I was like, Dave, I'm not going to do this.

But what is it? And he was like, it's a cryptocurrency. What is that? It's, it's money, right? So you can buy stuff with it. Oh, not quite, not really. You know, and so I just got obsessed with it. I saw the...

Your obsession comes... And the movie... Man, your obsession comes through. Yeah, yeah, I bet. No, I mean that. And, like, I mean, you really dove in. I did, I did. And I was really frustrated originally

by the celebrities selling it because, of course, like, if there's one thing that I knew, it was that Matt Damon doesn't know about blockchain. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. No offense to Matt. Great actor.

Probably not going to get cast in one of his movies now. That's okay. We all suffer. Well, I actually really, really, really appreciate you speaking up because you have a public's, you are a public figure. And to just sit around passively when you know something is wrong is bullshit. And I'm sure it maybe has cost you. I don't know.

I mean, but you really believe that this is a scam. Yeah. And I mean, I think we all are, so many of us feel lack of agency. And we want to know what we can do. This is a weird thing for me to have done. But I do believe in it. quite a lot. Yeah. And what's wonderful is to get the response from not just you and not just the folks here, but like audiences, people are ready for this. Yeah. They're tired of being told

what's true and what's not true even their time. They're tired of being lied to for money, if you will. Right. Right. Yep. And, uh, and they can't control us. We get to determine what kind of country we want to live in. I love that. Um, you ready for, you ready for a tough question? Hit me. What is money? Ah. Love this question. You spell it out wonderfully in the book and in the documentary,

but I mean, isn't all of this a little bit bullshit? We're all just kind of agreeing on this paper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So money's made up. Right. It's all made up. It's all fake. It's all real.

So it's a social construct, just like government or religion. Right. And it's only as strong as the social consensus that underlies it. Right. And obviously at this moment in history in America are the social consensus is quite fragile, which has given crypto, you know, quite a lot of room and latitude to sort of infect the public, if you will, or a small segment of it. Yeah.

But at the end of the day, it's all made up. Now, the distinction here between crypto and our money, our dollar, is that if money is made up, what is it? It's trust. Right. You take a dollar from me, not because you trust me, but because you trust that you can use that dollar for what you want to use. Crypto says we can replace all of that.

pesky human interaction with computer code. All you have to do is trust the code. Well, that's a lie. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what money is and the social construct nature of it. To give you a specific example, Sam Bankman-Fried, now doing 25 years in jail. I mean, you sat down with him

in maybe one of the more awkward documentary interviews I've ever seen in my life. Wow. I appreciate that. That's a high phrase. Well, I mean, it was apparent that he thought, thought it was going to be an easy, chill interview, and all of a sudden, he's talking to someone that knows some shit. Boom. Yeah. Ryan Atwood, f*** that guy up.

Exactly. Yeah, he's now 25 years in a federal prison for fraud. So how did he run his scam? Yeah. He instructed one of his employees to change a single line of code, which allowed him to borrow his customer's assets. So I can't think of a more vivid illustration of the intellectual fallacy that you can trust code. Code does not fall from the sky. People write code. Right. And in this case, he changed the code and he stole the money.

So Bitcoin is full of lies. It's full of misinformation. It's full of lies. It's also full of criminals. Jeffrey Epstein funded Bitcoin development in 2015, secretly, via the MIT Media Lab. Right. He was a convicted sex offender. The guy who the New York Times thinks is Satoshi, Adam Back. His company Blockstream. Satoshi is kind of what started all this. Yeah, Satoshi is like the mystical cult-like figure. Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, the Wizard of Oz. Exactly, exactly. And so you think behind the curtain, and it's this guy, well, New York Times thinks it might be Adam Back. Adam Back's company Blockstream received funding from Jeffrey Epstein. Wow, okay. So Satoshi, potentially, getting funding from the world's most notorious pedophile. That's what we're talking about.

I sold my Bitcoin after watching your documentary. Good for me. Well done. But I made some money. Great. Made some money. And also, before I bought it, on Fidelity, I had to check all these boxes.

Right. This is a high risk. I may not really know what's going on here. Are you sure you want to do this? Exactly. I mean, there was a lot of boxes to check. Yeah. So to push back on you a little bit, I mean,

I was aware that this was a high risk venture. I made a little bit of money. Good. Hey. But what's to say, okay, there's criminals in this field, they're scammers, but people are going in knowingly. What's the big deal? They're not being treated properly under U.S. law.

The cryptocurrency industry does not want the cryptos to be treated as investments. My buddy Dave, who's putting money into it hoping to make money off of it through no work of own. That's literally the definition of an investment under America law. But the cryptocurrency industry doesn't want to be regulated like securities, like investments, because of course securities laws are predicated on disclosure. You need to know who you're giving your money to and what they're doing with the money. Cryptism doesn't want that. I think that's very, very telling.

So look, I am not arguing that people can't gamble on cryptocurrency. I am not saying it should be outlawed. I am simply asking for it to be regulated properly. And I'm also asking politely for the criminals to go to jail. Right. Well, yeah. Including, including perhaps our president, who has benefited, who has benefited he and his family

to the tune of billions of dollars in cryptocurrency. Right. Sorry, real money via cryptocurrency in a year and a half. Wow. And you know, you bring up the celebrities, what did they get paid in for these endorsements? You'll never, you'll never guess. They'll never guess. Yeah, no, we're paid in real dollars to convince you to take your real dollars and turn them into something else. What, why, why, you know, you brought up boredom and I think about boredom a little bit too with crypto and some of that stems from COVID possibly. We were sitting around. We were bored as hell, whether you're making sourdough bread or sewing machines, bicycles, you know, we all didn't know what to do, but this was also a time that crypto really took off. Absolutely. You got a lot

of young guys, so crypto is really a phenomenon amongst young guys. Why is that? Young guys are, so switching to gender now, but I, well, let's do it. I was once a young guy. Yeah, our prefrontal cortex are not developed. Right. No, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, okay. This is, this is, Yeah. It's science, you know? Yeah, right. And so young men have always had, let's say, a higher risk tolerance. Sure. Smoking more, drinking, more, drinking and driving, more, doing all sorts of stupid stuff. But right now, we're barraging them with ads, telling them not only should they, you know, they should engage in this, but if they don't, I mean, to paraphrase Matt Damon's ad, what are you? A pussy? Buy crypto. You know, so we're really like hammering them in a way that is exploitative. and young men and men in general are better marks than women

because they have a sense of sort of like shame and pride. They don't like to, we don't like to talk about our feelings as much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it was really telling. I mean, in the movie, I interviewed many victims of a scam called Celsius. And it was one of the more, you know, moving parts of the film because you literally, in such a kind way, talk to these men who just lost a shitload of.

money. And I asked them at the end of the movie, do you still believe in crypto? Yeah, that blew me away. And some of them, well, all of them said yes. Yeah. Yeah. So look, I say this with love. When people, so the industry, the crypto industry doesn't give a shit about its customers, right? They're perfectly willing, otherwise they would regulate it properly, right? So they're totally fine with these guys actually losing their money. They'll do a little performative like, like, whew, so sorry. D-Y-O-R, do your own research. It's your fault that you're lost the money. That's the, like, the neatest trick of crypto, the cruelest trick is to turn the blame back on the mark themselves. But I genuinely do care about these guys. And I genuinely want to

protect them. Yeah. And the industry is not protecting them. I really, really appreciate you. If more people who are public figures speak out, it just, it's helpful. And, you know, men are so shitty at connecting with other men. And when you get swindled for money, it's even a worse time. to connect with another man because you're embarrassed. Of course. So I just found that really powerful. What do you say to people who are still considering crypto or for the millions of Americans who are still in it?

Sure. There's a movie playing in theaters. I knew it. Besides see the movies. Besides see the movies. How should they approach this gamble, let's call it that? Only 5 to 6% of the population is really, really into crypto. If you look at the polling.

There's another about 10% that are sort of playing around with it. If you're part of the 84% of the country that has never f***ed with crypto, congratulations. Right. Well, even those numbers are helpful. Yeah, yeah. We are the majority, and it made the movie for you. Yeah.

To tell you that it's not you. Right. It's them. They're lying to you for money. Right. That's it. It's a perfect name for the film. Thank you.

Thank you for being here. Select theaters, Ben McKenzie. We'll get quick break right back after this. Thank you, man. We're a appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season?

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