The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Jon Stewart Slams CNN’s “Bombshell” Biden Book Promo Amidst Cancer Diagnosis | Patrick McGee

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Jon Stewart critiques the media spin on Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, from CNN's shameless promotion of Jake Tapper’s book to Fox News’s "but"-tainted sympathies. Award-winning journalist Patrick McGee joins Jon to discuss how Apple built China in his new book "Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company." They talk about Apple “sleepwalking” into this crisis, building a competitive market in Xi Jinping's authoritarian state, the vocational training that boosted rivals, how Trump’s attempted Apple boycott backfired, and whether investments may be facilitating the annexation of Taiwan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, John Stewart. Welcome to the Daily Show. Man, my name is John Stewart. What a program we have designed for you tonight, a bespoke artisanal effort that I think you are going to truly love. And Patrick McGee is going to be here.

He is discussi... CHEERING Look at that. They call him McGee heads. That's the fandom, the Patrick McGee fandom. Here to discuss his new book about how Apple's actions in China shifted the entire global economy. The book is phenomenal.

For a book about Apple, it's banana. That's a little... it's a fruit pun. I don't know about you folks, but me, I'm on the pins and needles. I'm very anxious right now. I'm very nervous, very anticipatory. And it's not about whether Russia and Ukraine will be settled. It's not whether somebody can stop Netanyahu. Somebody, please.

It's not whether Taylor's unfriended Blake. I don't know. No, like most people in America, I am most looking forward to reading a book. But when. We're back with breaking news in our politics lead in a brand new excerpt from my upcoming book with Axios is Alex Thompson, it's called original sin, much of you've heard of

it. It's on Biden's decline, it's called original sin, I'm sure you've heard on May 20th that's Tuesday original sin that's coming out in 3 weeks on May 20th that's that's just 19 days away. In one week and one day. Coming out in just a few days. Comes out Tuesday, you will not believe what we found out. Don't news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out? Isn't that the difference between news and a secret? You won't believe what we found out. No, that's why I'm watching. Breaking news!

In a week. Now, I don't know how the rest of the country is feeling about this book coming out, but I know New York is hyped. height. New York City baby! The city that never stops reading. That's our motto. Our motto is... I'm kidding, of course. That is footage from the reopening of the Frick Museum. By the way, it is New York, so you know the real name of the museum is the Frick Collection. You just put it up there like, hey, the Frickin' Collection, what are we doing here?

So what is this bombshell book about? A new book is outlining new claims about former President Biden's physical and mental health. The book, Original Sin, claims Biden's health had become so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair. He allegedly was napping during debate preparations. Another bombshell, former President Biden

apparently forgot the name of his longtime aide, Jake Sullivan, and called him Steve. My God! ["The White House is a Bum Shell"] ["The White House is a Bum Shell"] ["The White House is a Bum Shell"] ["The White House is a Bum Shell"] To be fair,

when you forget a white guy's name... ["The White House is a Bum Shell"] to be fair... and I say this with respect to the bombshell, Steve is not a bad guess. I think even Jake Sullivan at some point was like, is my name Steve. Because when I look in the mirror. Scott maybe. The point is the American news media were hungry for more.

And new Biden bombshell dropping bombshell allegations a steady drip of new revelations damning claims damaging new details my goodness are dripping with details a massive tsunami the drip drip on Joe Biden's decline. I got Fox News built an entire Biden sucks border wall. To hold back the raging drips of details in bombshells. Nothing could slow down this coming feeding news frenzy about Biden's cognitive health, other than maybe a report

on his actual physical health, which was not good. But now we got ourselves a little problem. You've prepared an entire smorgasbord. Smorgasbord? Charcuterie board? You know what I'm talking about. I'm eating cheese. You know what I'm talking about.

Entire smorgasbord, based on what you thought, would be a relatively uncomplicated story about mental decline. News has the countdown clock. They got the book graphics. They got the CNN happy meal tie-in toys. But now, doing the story seems almost disrespectful. Can CNN thread the needle?

How do you pivot from excitedly promoting your anchor's book to somberly and respectfully promoting your anchor's book? Friday's health was very much in the news even before the cancer diagnosis was announced on Sunday. That's because of a new book by CNN's Jake Tapper. This was already going to be a tough week and this makes it much harder and that is a reference to the fact that our colleague Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have a book that's set to publish on Tuesday.

This very tough news, this very challenging news and at the same time the backdrop of our colleague Jake Tapper's book with Alex Thompson coming out this week. It's so hard. It's such a difficult time, so unfathomable in terms of the pain his family must be feeling. And yet, if you act now... and... you use the code backslash... tap that book, you will... Obviously, this 20% off offer is not available for some reason in Tennessee, but the point

is forgetting about the fact how f***ing weird it is that the news is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago for free. It's just fun to watch them not only continue to push the book in light of this difficult news, but to actually frame this difficult news as perhaps even more of a reason to buy this book. The timing of former President Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis is certainly dramatic, coming on the eve of a blockbuster new book about his health and his time in the White House.

Go on. I'm sure some observers will say that the reporting in the book is even more important now. Yet nobody's saying that. No observers will say it's more important now. Some observers might think, do these CNN people work on commission?

Like, why are they hawking these f***ing things? Is this a Girl Scout cookie situation? Whoever sells the most Tappa books gets a Schwinn. Now, that is not necessarily the model they will get. I don't want to disincentivize people from working hard, obviously. I don't go through all the graphics before the show. While CNN had to shift from somber and caring to always

be closing, Fox and the rest of the right-wing media had a very different problem. How to shift from, let's go, Brandon, to, get well, Brandon. And then as quickly as possible, back to, let's go, Brandon. Watch them work their magic

and see how much weight the word but carries. It's a terrible thing for him and his family so I hope he beats it. But look. I hope he beats it. Not too fast. You want to enjoy this? But what?

-"But, look, I don't believe that they just found out Friday, but because they're not credible on anything they've done." -"So f***ing true." Yeah. I'll bet he didn't find out Friday. I bet he found out, like, Wednesday. And then they were all like, oh my god, this is terrible. Should we tell this guy?

And then they're like, I don't know, why don't we tell the family first? And then they're like, yeah, but what if this guy really wants to know? I got to tell you, I think this all really highlights an opening in the greeting card market. We don't have enough cards that swing wildly from sympathy to accusation. Praying you get well soon, but there are some holes in your timeline. They're all, I don't know, Friday, Wednesday. Anyone else want to do this butt pivot, the tush push? Obviously hope for a speedy recovery.

I will say it does raise serious questions. You hate to see something like this happen, but it just raised all these questions. We're all, of course, praying for President Biden's full recovery. But the reality is, you know, I hope he gets gets over this. But number one, a very sorry for his diagnosis and wish him the best. Number two. I am trying to make a very serious point here. And I find it very difficult to do that when you throw in a totally weird-looking dude right in the middle of it. That is not fair.

That is not fair to do. That is, I don't know if that was like a green screen thing, but whatever's happening here, I imagine if I had a nodule on my prostate, this is what it might look like. I believe... It's a little bit... Why would you get the worst possible haircut for your head shape? Why would you do that? My head is long and thin.

Amplify that. Looks like I have a kosher hot dog asked for a Hitler Youth haircut. Respectfully. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. was from the commander in chief himself. President Trump posted, Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.

That's it? That's it. No exclamation points, no off caps, no insults. Whole thing spelled correctly. It's really got all the telltale signs of a post definitely written by Donald Trump. I'm really, I'm really getting close. I swear to God, on True Social, I wonder when they saw this post, True Social sent them a security alert. They sent them a quick message,

we noticed some suspicious humanity on your account. If this was in fact you, President Trump, please reply, Nancy Pelosi's husband is gay. Just reply. But the fact that Trump responded to Biden's diagnosis with the most pro forma bare minimum chat GPT statement was so astonishing.

Even the corrupt, lame stream media gave Trump his props. This is a very traditional comment in this moment from President Trump to former President Biden. I mean, it's a very human, very traditional response from President Trump. I was very, very pleased to see President Trump putting forward such a kind statement. I will note, as an ardent Democrat, it's really important that I speak up and thank President Trump for his gracious statement.

A couple of things. It is not important that you speak up at all as a Democrat as anything. It is not important. What we did was not noteworthy and important. Has any president has any person ever had a lower bar to clear than I have to salute the president. I have to salute the president. I certainly disagree with him on many things, but I have to salute the president. I have to salute the president. I certainly disagree with him on many things,

but I have to applaud that after hearing this devastating news about Joe Biden, that Donald did not take cancer's side. Yeah. I'm f***ing swinging tonight. So important as we as Americans. By the way, Trump maintained that level of gravitas for almost an entire day. Do you want to respond to President Biden being diagnosed with cancer?

I'm surprised that it wasn't, you know, the public wasn't notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, we should have found out about that. I don't even know that. And he's the one that's fine, right? There's no book coming out on him. He's fucking fine. He's, ah, that'll be the next, stage nine canches.

That's the kind that grows up like an ivy into a building. But you know what? Maybe it is another cover-up. I don't fucking know. If they came out and said, yeah, Biden knew about it five years ago, I wouldn't be shocked. If they came out and said Biden found out on Friday, I wouldn't be shocked.

And I understand the excitement over an insidious Democratic cover-up about Joe Biden's mental decline. The thing is, though, it was a terrible cover-up because we all f**king knew. All of us knew. There was no cover-up. Poll after poll showed vast majorities of the public thought Biden was too old and too out of it to run again. Dean Phillips mounted an entire primary campaign because of it. I really don't know if that's Dean Phillips. Is that Dean Phillips? My point is this.

There is a very real person in this shop probably named Dean Phillips or Steve. And he might be in the shot, but he, along with most of the public, knew that it was a bad idea for Biden to run. We knew it. And that's what's so hilarious about politicians. The cover-up doesn't work when everyone knows you're lying. And everyone knows you're lying the tell is when you're so

over the top about what you don't want to tell the truth about. Joe Biden is incredibly competent and he's incredibly effective this is a man who is sharp who is on top of his game he has more energy than I do. He works us all under the table. I can't even keep up with him. Three hours on photo lines on three events a day,

then giving speeches. Are you kidding? I mean, come on! That's insane! Three hours on photo lines, three events a day, that's nine f***ing hours of photo lines! And then giving speeches, and then at night, fighting crime? I have said too much!

Come on! I gotta f***ing steroid test these dudes. Look, they used to say, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. But it's starting to feel like politics is all cover-up. Crime or not, in an attempt to hold on to power, political actors do anything they can to project a reality distortion field when all known evidence is to the obvious contrary and the media tasked with covering them

has somehow ended up inside the bubble with them. So for those of you watching at home who might like to know what the reality of what they're hiding about our current president would be, look not to the Democrats, look not to the media, look to the president's political allies, because their hyperbole is the indictment. Trump is one of the most transparent presidents of all time. The bravest, toughest man in the world. Enormous compassion. the indictment. moral leaders we've had. His pure honesty. The most ethical American I know. Oh! Tapper's 2031 book, it's gonna be lit!

When we come back, Patrick McGee will join us, don't go away. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. is an award-winning journalist whose groundbreaking new book is called Apple in China the capture of the world's greatest company please welcome to the program Patrick McGee Thank you for joining us. The book is called Apple in China, the capture of the world's greatest company. I've got to tell you something. You know, I'm not much of a reader. I was going to wait for the movie to come out. But honestly, like, this is jaw-dropping. This book is jaw-dropping and so well-researched.

It's not a polemic. It's not hyperbole. It's the story of how China basically was built as a country by Apple. Is that... Yeah, like, I say that sometimes, and it sounds totally unhinged, and I get that. Yes. And yet, like like what happened is like a camera across internal documents after speaking with 200 people and I figured out that Apple was investing by 2015 55 billion

dollars a year into China. So this is mostly like they spend loads of money billions of dollars on machinery that they put on Apple's on production lines that are sort of orchestrated by Apple but owned by them so they're in there and that they're building the machinery, yeah, but they're outsourcing that they're they're hiring companies to build like they like outsourcing is the word and yet there's something so they own the way to production with the

own is that I compare it to like the way uber is the largest tax he provided in the world without owning any cars. It's the same thing for manufacturing. So none of the factories are owned by Apple, and yet they have like maniacal control over the machinery within those factories. And so they're and then they're doing like I quote someone saying we treat the workers like our arms and legs, like you do this and you do that. And the number of people they've trained like that is 28 million.

So larger than the labor force of California since 2008. And the number of billions of dollars they spend on machinery is, you know, $14 billion, I think, is the peak year. So some of that's public and other of this material is not public. The numbers seem fantastical. Of course. And well, they do and they don't, right? So $55 billion is per year. That's the investment. A lot of that is training costs for the employees in China.

And the number of employees, like per Tim Cook's public estimate, is 3 million people are assembling iPhones and other Mac products in China. But these aren't just low-level, like, oh, it's a million people doing school. Lots of unskilled jobs, the ones that Howard Lutnick wants to bring back to America. Yes. And lots of PhDs at wants to bring back to America. Yes.

Yep. And lots of PhDs at Foxconn. Right. Really sophisticated. Right. But my point is like lots of times people think there's great vocational training in China. The vocational school in China is Apple. They've trained all these workers.

Yes. They've done a huge job. So let me just put the 55 billion in context. Please. I could not find any corporate equivalent for how much someone is investing in another country. So I had to go to government efforts. So you look at something like the CHIPS Act, right?

Biden's flagship plan. Let's bring CHIP fabrication back to America. That's 53 billion over four years, right? Another way of saying that Apple is investing quadruple what the Commerce Secretary called a once-in-a a generation investment in America. So that's nuts. And then you go back to the Marshall Plan,

and you're thinking, okay, so maybe it's like half of the Marshall Plan, something like that. Like, that's gonna be crazy. People are gonna relate to that. So I take the Marshall Plan spending from 1948 to 1952, right, this is sort of like America saving Europe after the World War II. And you convert it to $2,015, and it's

half the annual spending of what Apple's investing in China. And this is $130 billion in 16 countries. 16 countries versus one. Versus one country. Yeah, and it's not one, right? It's like the modern equivalent of the Soviet Union. It's our biggest adversary. And so I sort of end the book, not to sort of get

so ahead of myself here. -"No spoilers!" -"Yeah, yeah, yeah." -"Oh, my God, does Apple die?" -"Well, huh. Paperback version." -"I don't want to tell people." So I say that as China, you know, as their GDP eventually overtakes America, and especially because they're doing so good

in the advanced electronics sector, more people are gonna ask, how did they do it? Like, how did they go from such poverty 50 years ago into the world's greatest maker of like military weaponry and advanced electronics? And a big portion of the disquieting answer is, year in, year out, Apple taught them. They do this, by the way, this is China,

and this is not to single out. This was a decision that Apple made not with this intention. No not at all. It was you know it began I guess. Well it began with shareholder capitalism I guess in the 80s. Yeah. Yeah. I mean

not to walk back to it. That's very much in the book. Yeah absolutely. Right. I mean it's that ethos of you do what's best for the shareholder. So you're it's you're searching of you do what's best for the shareholder so you're so it's you're searching out the cheapest labor, the lowest product but it really it seemed like she's in pain.

In was it 2013. Is what made this so fraught would that be correct to say well, yes, because I would say so my thesis really that they sleepwalked into this crisis, I mean I cannot blame Apple for moving into China in the early 2000's for starters, the American consensus with that was that we're going to inculcate the next. I mean there was broad political support to do that. The problem was when Xi Jinping really turns China in an

authoritarian and belligerent direction right, it's not like Apple was on the sidelines not noticing they were attacked within 36 hours of she ascending to the presidency. Tell them about Consumer Day. Consumer Day is something that happens March 15th every year in China. And basically it goes back to 1991. There's someone in the audience like, I know Consumer Day.

Yeah, I have read this book. Beware the eyes of Consumer Day. Okay, so companies are called out for like not living up to the socialist ethos, okay? And it's increasingly Western companies in the mid-2000s and in McDonald's is 2012 and the book opens with 2013 Apple is attacked on consumer day and it's for warranty differences of all things. It turns out to be not actually true, right? Well, it's okay. So a little...

How much time do we have? It's the most fascinating part of the narrative. Comedy Central has no other program. It literally has no other program. It's the best. It's the best chickens. They have nothing. I'm going to give you the 30-second version, but this is four chapters in the book, OK?

Demand for iPhone in China after 2010 is wild, OK? There are four stores for 1.4 billion people, OK? So one store per 350 million people. And the iPhone becomes the most conspicuous status symbol imaginable in the country. And so what happens is these gangsters called yellow cows notice this imbalance. And they begin paying migrants by the busload

to come over to the store and snake around the store, 6,000, 7,000 people at times, to buy as many iPhones as possible. And then they go to a city like Chongqing, population 32 7,000 people at times, to buy as many iPhones as possible. And then they go to a city like Chongqing, population 32 million, number of Apple stores zero, and they find ways, legal and illegal, to sell iPhones at more money. They're making more money than Apple per iPhone. Right. So it's absolutely wild.

What happens is Apple eventually catches onto this a little bit because they're doing nefarious things. They're buying phones in the U.S. They're using fake ID. They're buying phones for less than $100 so that they can make even more fat margins on them and stuff. And so they begin actually burning out the CPU of the phone, deliberately breaking it in the process, but rendering it.

You can no longer see where it's come from. So they're masking the retail origin. So what happens is Apple catches wind of this, and they begin refurbishing these deliberately broken units rather than replacing them. By refurbishing it they're doing something that they're not doing in other countries. Right so they're actually take that as an insult to China yet exactly so without probably knowing the full story cctv

that's like the state sponsors be at CNN of China attacks Apple for treating the Chinese in a way that's inferior to the rest of the world that was 12 years ago reported by every media outlet and like they never figured out what the story was with the yellow cows and how it came to be that's why it's so significant that's what's the pro and so at that moment shares of Apple then start to go down it becomes less popular in China, yes, it's so I don't remember if shares really fall

down to be honest the media's like eyeballs were not on China at all during this time I'm in China, But sales in China. Sales in China. Yeah they first they sort of freeze and then they actually sink. That's right. Yeah. So Apple's response to that is what? Plagate local officials, hire a team of people that call themselves the gang of eight. These are the first senior people living in China. What an unfortunate title. And yes these are sort of eyes and ears of Cupertino living in China. First time they've had senior people there. And they basically strategize, like, what's

our message to Beijing? Like, why are we in the country? And how do we demonstrate to them, we're not this exploitative power. Look at how much we're doing for you. They're the ones who come up with, we're investing like a nation-building effort in China.

Like, get off our back. You have no idea how much we're helping you. And the fruit really is in the pudding. Fruit and pudding, whatever. Proof is in. And the fruit really is in the pudding. Fruit and pudding, whatever. Proof is in the pudding. Proof is in the pudding. The top smartphone makers in the world these days are all Chinese, right?

So Oppo, Vivo, Huawei, Xiaomi, they have 55% global market share. And my sort of comment on this is, we think iPhone killed Nokia. iPhone never had more than 20% global market share. They're not big enough to have killed Nokia. Who killed Nokia? The Chinese competition.

Why did the Chinese competition do so well? Because Apple trained all their suppliers. So they trained their competitors to build a product that would be commensurate with their product, but would be a Chinese-owned company. And those companies start to gain market share on Apple. Yeah, so the early years of making the iPhone, Apple was really proprietary about all its processes.

It would not want those suppliers to market their opportunities, their technical capabilities to everybody else. But what happens is when they obviate the need for a new design, like Johnny Ive taking a corner and getting rid of aluminum or something like that. And that's the whole deal for Apple, like beautiful, the shit's beautiful.

Yeah, but if you sort of remove some aspect of the or something like that. And that's the whole deal for Apple. Beautiful. The shit's beautiful. Yeah, but if you sort of remove some aspect of the phone and you no longer need that supplier and they're so dependent on you, well, what happens? They go bankrupt. So instead, Apple begins to say, that's a problem for us. So we deliberately say to our suppliers, however fast you're growing with us, with Apple, grow that fast with somebody else because otherwise can be too dependent because they don't want to get blamed for exactly but I'm

being building a component for an iPhone what is the skill set I have and what can I do with it of course I'm going to supply Huawei and Oppo and Vivo that's the only logical thing to do. So they now have a real problem on their hands they have trained their competitors and made it part of their business model that their competitors get healthy and do that. And they're about to face a real struggle and someone saves them. Who is it that saves them? Patrick.

Patrick, I read your book. My thesis is that they're stuck. Somebody declared something about Huawei that puts Apple back on. Somebody declared something about Huawei. This one not. The Trump administration said that Huawei was a security threat.

Oh, yes. OK, right. OK. Of course. That's the record. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in 2019. Don't you's national champion, outsells the iPhone globally. Apple is panicking about this. And I've got all these internal emails that have never been reported on, where Tim Cook and others basically understand for weeks ahead of an earnings call right that is the reason why their phone isn't selling

well and they deliberately obfuscate this from that's one of my favorite parts of the book I mean the chapters called five alarm fire because of VP at Apple that's what he describes the situation like how do we get sales to be better and Tim Cook tells deputies quote quote, this is a disaster. We need all hands on deck now. And then when he speaks to investors a week or two later, all is fine. Internally, China sales forecast is actually shrinking. It's not growing slowly.

It's shrinking. And they don't tell investors any of this. So that's a crazy thing. Now Trump comes into office basically saying he's going to get his users his Consumers as his citizens. What am I trying to say his fans his fans to boycott Apple? Yes He's really harsh on apple. That's right wants everything to be built in america. That's right Wants them to come back. He's laying the wood on instead. He totally saves them Because at when huawei's at its peak he goes after after Huawei, deprives them of using Google,

which of course makes Android. Declares them a security threat. Declares them a security threat and deprives them of using, you know, wonky things like Qualcomm 5G chips. Huawei's business nearly collapses. They lose $30 billion of revenue in a year and their market share really tanks.

They have to like hive off assets and stuff. Great for a while. I mean, the only company that really benefits from that is Apple. So their market share in China like doubles from 9% to 17%. So they do really well. But now, and Trump did point out, Huawei's had all this time to really work hard. And so now they're sort of back with a vengeance. So now in the global smartphone world, there's iOS, there's Android, and there's Harmony OS. This is my guess. Harmony OS will become

the de facto standard for all operating system phones in China. Wow. That's a guess. Right. I think an educated one. And then the question is, do they then market that overseas and you sort of have like a Chinese firewall iPhone becoming, you know, this is what I find so interesting about. So we think about step out now in a macro view.

We think about these companies as kind of monoliths, as monopolies and all this sort of thing. And the American viewpoint is always trust busting. We got to go in and break up these companies. This is a somewhat of a monopolistic operation and but they are going to break themselves up by training competitors to compete with them. They're actually creating a far more competitive market than ever would have given our standard business practices. So the irony is they create a more competitive market in an authoritarian state. Yes. It's so much worse than that.

Come on! Come on! Talk to me. So much worse than that. Really? Okay, the reason it's worse than that... Yes. ...because they're not just creating phones. What else can you do if you've got, like, world-leading electronic skills? Oh. First of all, what's an EV?

It's a smartphone on wheels. So the reason why EVs in China are so damn good is that Apple taught all their suppliers, and the suppliers of phones, like Huawei and Xiaomi... Oh, God. And Tesla did the same with their factories....became EVs, and the suppliers of phones like Huawei and Xiaomi became EVs. And I have a fascinating section on Tesla who specifically hires Apple people in China to run the same playbook.

Wait, like, so, okay. Yeah. And sorry, the reason why I said it was worse, I haven't got to that point. Oh, God! All right. What else can you build? Drones? Military weaponry. Right?

So you're sort of facilitating the potential annexation of Taiwan by giving out these skill sets for the last quarter century. You know, you could have said that in the book. I didn't see that. It's fascinating. But here's the other part that I think is that's when you realize this whole idea of

reshoring and industrialization, that the idea that tariffs, this weirdly simplistic cudgel that we're going to do there is so woefully short as far as this. This is the result of years of intense state-run industrial planning that was intentional, it was purposeful. It is, I mean, it's literally called Project 2025 in China. It's China's Project 2025. So when you think now and Apple says, oh, we're going to spend 500 billion back in the United States, where and how?

So I'm so glad you mentioned this. It's such ludicrous nonsense, okay? It has to be. The press release that says that we're going to spend $500 billion in the U.S. literally says, and we'll create 20,000 jobs. Like, how bad would a government program be if it spent $500 billion and all it got was 20,000 jobs?

Right. Right. So the money... It makes no sense. If it were true... Nice. Right. Right. So the money... It makes no sense. Right. If it were true... Nice. If it were true, then you would have factories springing up in every state you could think of with jobs for engineers here, there, and everywhere.

This is only my educated guess, but I can't think of how the math adds up anywhere else. They are counting in the $500 billion share buybacks and dividends. Because Apple spends more than $100 billion a year on share buybacks. 70% of their investors are in America. Ipso facto, that's kind of an investment in America. Right? So that's the only way that the math works for me. And because we are now living through

an announcement presidency, because that really is what we are living through. This presidency is the mission accomplished presidency it's just a dude on a destroyer with a giant banner behind him this is mission accomplished even though it has no faces in reality and and that's how we get things done and so this idea of like 15 trillion dollars in investment coming back to market like

where yeah, but what's so despicable about the entire thing is we could have done all this year. China has things will never compete with like density of population, yeah, and the way that the rural population sort of is actually not allowed to raise their children in places like Shenzhen So they have to be floating around we can do that So like I'm a big fan of Friendshoring rather than reshoring right we should be doing what we did in China

But with allied nations like India like Mexico, but it's probably not gonna happen in with allied nations like India like Mexico, but it's probably not going to happen in. Our by allowing us we really did hollow ourselves out. Oh, I'm convinced the only thing I would say is that that really happened in the 80's and 90's yes, Apple was the last holdout that did not do that. By the way to be so hyper critical of this is the

example, but this is merely yes yes one of myriad examples of how our industrial policy got the way it got so completely I sort of refer to the book sometimes as a Trojan horse where what I'm trying to sell you on is the sex appeal of the world's greatest company but what you're actually going to learn about is some Chinese history the importance of the US-China tech battle and things like supply chains but said, John, can you have me on this job? I've got a great book about supply chains. You'd be like, no thanks. Yeah. I'm sorry. You were saying something about something, but I don't remember what that was. The book is phenomenal. Truly, jaw-dropping and generally true.

and and like generally true. Thank you so much for being here. Apple in China available now. Patrick McHee. We're gonna check in with your host for the rest of the week Ronnie Chang. Ronnie what's happening my man? Thanks John. I'm hosting a Daily Show this week and I have no idea what the hell Jordan Klepper is doing here. Well I don't want to interrupt your week, but my new special is airing tonight,

right after the Daily Show. So... Oh, my God. Oh, my God. New special. Oh, let me guess. It's called something like the MAGA, the next generation. Yeah, that's exactly what it's called. Oh. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. And I bet you're talking to, like to young Trump's voters about the future of

America or whatever, again. That's spot on, that's what it is. Yeah, and I bet it airs on Comedy Central and then it streams on Paramount Plus and then it goes up on YouTube at midnight. Yeah, all of that, all of that is true. Yes. Why are you using that voice? Because I love and respect your work.

I just use sarcasm to shield my real emotions. Duh! You know, actually, some of us, we're gonna go out and watch it together. You're welcome to come. Oh, sounds like a nightmare. Thank you so much for your friendship. I'll see you there. That was really beautiful, guys. That was really nice.

Ronnie Chang and Jordan Clupper, everybody. Ronnie Chang and Clupper. Check out Jordan's special, airing tonight. Here it is. Your moment is here. I really. Austin's first experience with the New York Knicks. This is the greatest day of my life. Oh, Nick. 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. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.