The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Replay | Hunter Biden's Laptop | Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

It’s been a Fox News obsession for almost two years now: Hunter Biden’s laptop. But now that Republicans have retaken the House, Rep. James Comer and the House Oversight Committee are prepared to launch a full investigation into the laptop…except no one seems to know where the laptop is. In this episode, Jordan sits down with Deputy Director of Rapid Response from Media Matters For America, Andrew Lawrence, who breaks down the beginnings of this conspiracy theory. Jordan is later joined by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) from the House Oversight Committee who discusses his approach to the upcoming investigation. Later, journalist, author, and former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross offers her ideas on how the media should be fairly and accurately covering this case.  Originally aired 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You ever get a job that you weren't totally qualified for? I know I have. Turns out not everyone's cut out to be a thoracic surgeon. But maybe things would have turned out differently for me if I had a famous dad, like if my dad was the president of the United States. This is the focal point of the Republican conspiracy theory around Hunter Biden, that he used his connection to his dad, Joe Biden, to make money and overseas deals.

And yes, obviously, this is coming from the people who supported Donald Trump and his family as they milked every government connection they could for four years, like an Ocean's Eleven movie if it took place during a Nickelodeon shopping spree. Now, if that reference is too far removed for you, then apologies in advance, because the Hunter Biden story has so many references to things that seem fake, Cafe Milano, Sino Hawk, the Secret Willard Hotel Breakfast, that we probably should have made a Hunter Wiki ahead of time just to help you through it. This Jordan Klepper figures the conspiracy.

We got a packed episode today. We're going to walk through the conspiracy theory known as Hunter Biden's laptop with a Fox News expert, then Democratic Congressman Jerry Connolly will discuss the House's strategy responding to an investigation, and then Tiffany Cross will talk the media's responsibility. Before we even start, you should know that it's not even proven there is a laptop. There is a hard drive, copied from what a Trump supporter who owns a computer repair shop in Delaware says was a laptop that he handed over to the FBI, but nobody's seen a person. picture of it and what the hell, let's just take his word for it. The Hunter Biden Laptop saga

is a fantastical right-wing reverie concocted during the 2020 campaign by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and of course, Fox News, which means it's inevitable that I heard the words Hunter Biden laptop constantly at Trump rallies, even if the people there didn't exactly know what it is. You can see on Fox and One American News about the laptop, the Hunter Biden's laptop, And then all the corruption taking money from the different countries, you know, from Russia and China. Then Joe Biden would do whatever these countries needed. Well, what did he do? Well, either what he did or did not do.

What did it do? Well, it's yet to be determined exactly what he did. I saw pedophilia in China, something like that. Do you believe it? I don't know. We see it about like the Hunter Biden scandal. What exactly happened with that? I think they found a laptop that had, you know, emails.

Who was it? The FBI. They found a laptop with, like, emails and pictures of, you know, Biden talking with, like, Ukraine and China about business deals and stuff like that. Which Biden? Hunter Biden. Did it something happen? I mean, conspiracy theorists would say that it's Joe Biden and Hunter Biden communicating with, you know, outside countries on business deals and stuff like that. Are you calling him a conspiracy theorist?

That's just what he said. Right. Okay. Let's help these private investigators out a little bit. Joining me today is Andrew Lawrence, the deputy director of, the Deputy Director of Rapid Response at Media Matters for America. Basically, that means he watches Fox News all day. Andrew, thanks for being here to talk about the laptop from hell.

Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to finger this conspiracy with you. Oh, it sounds sexy when you say it does. So Hunter Biden is sexy. It's a sexy topic. He is a sexy man. He's all over.

If you're into pin up dudes and Fox News, he's your guy. I want to jump into it because House Republicans are about to become the majority, and they've announced that they're going to investigate Hunter Biden. So let's start with just establishing who Hunter Biden is, because some of the things Hunter Biden has done are probably not very becoming of a son of a public official, like using the Biden family name to make foreign business deals. Is that a good place to start? Yeah. I mean, I think it's fair to say that Hunter Biden is, you know, he's essentially a fail son, I think. He's had a lot of tough things happen to him in his life. You know, I think that

it's fairly well-known Joe Biden's history of tragedy with, I believe it was his wife dying in a car accident. I know Hunter was involved in that. And, you know, that's something that's going to affect you. And then his brother, Bo Biden, as well, passing from cancer not all that long ago. And that's sort of when, according to what I've seen, his tailspin really began. But, you know, I think, like, you're right. Like, it is fair to say that there is, there's some questionable things there, that Republicans in right-wing media are trying to glom on to this as some sort of giant scandal that's going to bring down Joe Biden and the Democratic Party is a little bit ridiculous. And, I mean, there's so much to get into the weeds here. You know,

You got into it a little bit with that nobody's really even seen this laptop yet. And here we are with months and months. What's it been like two years now since this first came up? I mean, I think it is fascinating. Part of the reasons we wanted to cover it, one, I'm running into people on the road, and it's always a go-to, Hunter Biden. And more often than not, the stuff that I run into with people on the road, what is the Dodge?

What is the quickest thing you can grab a hold on to? It's easy to say Hunter Biden laptop. It's harder to say what Hunter Biden's laptop contains. But I think it's fascinating because I also think on the left, the left is trying as hard as they can not to address what is potentially on this laptop and some of the allegations, which are some dire allegations. Now, I need a download on what I need to know about this,

where the reality is, where we should be suspicious, and what is the bullshit people are slinging at the board to try to distract you from something else. So you're helping me, out here with Hunter Biden. I do think it is important to point out. It is true. He's gone through a lot of tragedy in his life. We've seen images. He's dealt with drug addiction publicly. He's written about that in a book. A lot of these things are things that he verifies and talks openly about. He himself is an attorney and he's been a foreign lobbyist. Is that correct? Yes.

And that's where some of this drama starts to. And he's currently under investigation in Delaware as well for, I believe it's tax fraud. I'm not 100% sure on that, but it's something like that. And I think that's an important thing, too. When they talk about Hunter Biden being under investigation, it's, I don't want to belittle tax fraud. God bless, investigate that tax fraud. Not for me, though. And all of my tax fraud comes from imbecility. I really don't know the difference between W9, W4, so don't come at me. That's just, that's my naivete. But so Hunter Biden is under investigation, but not exactly for the stuff that Republicans are arguing. So we got nepotism. We got corruption. We got hardware repair. We got Ukrainian gas

companies. What does that say about the nature of this conspiracy theory? Well, I think, you know, we can take this. The Hunter Biden laptop is like the latest thing, right? And so you had in this every election, it seems, the Republican Party and conservative media are looking for something to grab hold of. And you said it yourself earlier that people are fired up about this, but they don't really know why, right? They know Hunter Biden's laptop is something that they should be upset about and that there's something nefarious there. But you can take a look back at, you know, her emails. Same thing.

You know, nobody really knew what was wrong with that, but they knew that there was something wrong with it. It proved her untrustworthiness. Same thing with you can go back to. It also proves how little people know about technology. The fact that you can say emails and laptop, it's as if America is just a bunch of 74. four-year-old grandparents who lost remote and are like, I don't know. It's crazy. It's the witches and devils, right? That's who controls. The magnets. It's the magnets. Who could ever figure these things out? But you just described the Republican base right there, right? For the

most part. I mean, that's, and so they hear Hunter Biden, they hear laptop, and it just sounds, it just sounds nefarious. And then, all right, and then you throw into, this was uncovered by a laptop repairman who contacted the FBI and talked to the FBI. And, you know, it all all the deep states involved in this now, and it's all of these little buzzwords that they've spent years, you know, making these into buzzwords, making these into things that Republican voters just have a reaction to, a visceral reaction just hearing these words. You know, at this point, and I know we're going to get into the investigations and stuff like that, but if you remember back with Benghazi, I believe it was Kevin McCarthy, he was bragging about how there would not

have been her emails without the Benghazi investigations. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not thought. And that's really the point of this. They want to investigate this laptop just so they can find something to go after Joe Biden and, by extension, the Democratic Party with. Fun, exciting. So let's figure out what they're going to find. So let's break this down. 2019, there's three water damage laptops that allegedly Hunter Biden brings to a Delaware computer repair shop.

And the shop owner who's a Trump supporter sees the receipt. It's from Hunter Biden. Allegedly, he starts going through some of these files, notices some pictures. He's also legally blind, too. The shopkeeper is. Right. And he can't confirm that it was actually Hunter that dropped it off. You know, but there is a receipt with what looks to be Hunter's signature, so, you know, give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, okay, yes, there's a receipt. And supposedly Hunter doesn't pay for the repair and therefore this is where things get legal. Now, there's a moral question here, too, but the laptop, multiple laptops are left there for past 90 days. So they become the owner of the repair shop. It's now his laptop. Yes, it's his property bylaw. So he starts going through this stuff and he starts finding. He starts finding pictures.

He starts finding emails. Like, what happens next after he sort of connects the dots of whose laptop this supposedly is and what he might have on it? Okay. So this guy's name is John Mack Isaac. And like you said, he's a conservative Trump supporter. This is all, like you said, you know, 2019, it's important to sort of set the time frame as well.

This is a month, I think, maybe three weeks before the election, something like that. So he's deep into this world of, of. right-wing politics, conservative media. He's very worried about the deep state, but he talks to his dad about it, who I believe was formally in the Army, I believe. I might be wrong about that. But his dad recommends that he contacts the local FBI field office. So he does that.

The FBI comes by, and apparently they seize the laptop. And that's it. That's the last time that the laptop was ever actually seen. Mr. Isaac made copies of the laptop and put it onto a hard drive. And then at that point, you know, it's just him handing it off trying to contact Giuliani. I know Steve Bannon ended up with with a copy of it. And then you end up with Bannon contacting the New York Post. And that's sort of how this became a thing.

What does he think he has to begin with? He's got a laptop. It's Hunter Biden. But what does he think on the laptop that's worthy of getting it to Steve Bannon? Now, according to him, he pretty much ignored the salacious. pictures the salacious details things like that he they say they say that this thing's got a ton of that right that all years and years of of pictures of hunter with in sexually compromising positions doing using drugs using drugs things

of that nature like that that's on there so he claims he's not interested in that he's not interested in that he says what he's interested in more is the emails particularly about foreign policy type stuff, Hunter's dealings with agents of, say, China. And there was Burisma was the one thing that he was really focused on, according to Isaac, according to the repairman. And Burisma was an energy company where Hunter received, I mean, it's basically a no-show job, a million dollars a year, you know, a no-show job, which again, which is, you know, look, that sucks. And I mean, not for him. You know, for him, it's great. But that's like, I mean,

welcome to America, right? Like, I mean, yeah, like the sons of politicians get a million dollar a year no show jobs. And so it's not really that big of a scandal, but that's what they're trying to turn it into, you know. And I'm not too much into like, what about, what about. But I mean, we're talking about a few months after Ivanka gets those trademarks in China for whatever it was, $20 million, you know, things like that. So at that point, it's, it becomes Burisma. And honestly, before this interview, before I started researching this stuff again, I totally forgot about Burisma, but this was like a huge thing. Burisma was, that was the big talking point that they were trying to get stick before,

to stick before that. And I think it is, it's a good point. It shows just how broken this system is. And I think it is true. I think folks on the left need to, to look at this. And there's some shady stuff that happens. But it, it didn't look like there was a connection between Joe Biden having influence and the money that was paid to his son, correct? Is that sort of where it stood? Yes, yeah. And it doesn't show that. But so now what they're doing is they need a thing, right?

Conservatives just need a thing that they can repeat and what they can say. And, you know, I don't know if you remember. I think there was only one presidential debate. But in that debate, Donald Trump kept yelling, asking Biden, who was the big guy? Who is the big guy? And that's because there was an email where Hunter said, I'm going to set up a meeting with the big guy. And conservatives are just like, all right, that proves that's Joe Biden. Joe Biden is meeting with his business partners.

Joe Biden is taking money. You know, they say that's what all of this proves. And like, it doesn't, you know? I mean, all it proves is that Hunter Biden, like, was connected and got a bunch of money. And like there's a scandal there, but it's not like we're impeaching Joe Biden over this stuff, you know? Yet. Yeah. We're probably going to be impeaching Joe Biden over all of this stuff.

Eventually, yeah. Yeah. So at that point, is that the smoking gun when people are talking about what is there? Are they pointing to this email that says, and maybe, am I correct that there's maybe a couple emails that reference, one, the big guy, a meeting with the big guy that perhaps Hunter could have, was that with, because there's, there's Burisma, which is Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukrainian gas company. Yes.

But then we also had, there's a Chinese, there's Chinese money in there. There's Chinese, there was a Chinese company as well. Yeah, that was in there as well. So the Chinese company, they're paying money to Hunter and also Joe's brother. Is that correct? And, yeah, I mean, the whole family is kind of mixed up. I mean, this is shitty. This is, what are we doing?

Where are a good, we're a good, clean politician? So Joe's brothers may be getting money from China. Hunters may be getting money from China. I think the timeline is important here, too, because they're maybe getting money after Joe's out of power. When he wasn't in office, right. So technically, even if Joe's getting money, at that point not illegal but not ideal no not illegal and certainly not ideal i mean i think that's that's definitely fair but you know i mean we're talking about this it's like all right

if you want to make make that type of stuff illegal like make it illegal but it's just it's it's not right now um and so that's like that's the world we live in you know and it sucks like it sucks but that's where we're at right now talk to me how the uh how fox and sort of the meiko uh the media echo chamber started to elevate this story yeah so you know there was when this four story first broke this had been shopped around a lot um by i believe i'm pretty sure it was juliani i guess at that point shopping this around wall street journal turned it down so they turned it they went with the new york post who ended up running this and so why are they turning it down this this because you can't even i mean at that point you can't verify that uh that it's even actually the laptop right and again like we

We gotta remember what we're coming off from in 2016 with just the flood of misinformation and nonsense. And I've worked on some pretty big political campaigns. And in the last few weeks of the election, the press isn't gonna just take something like out of the blue that hasn't been vetted or verified, or at least most of the press isn't, you know? Well, the press at this point was spooked

because of what happened with Hillary and Trump just weeks before, correct? Exactly, yeah, yeah. And this type of thing, there's just no way I mean, you need time to verify that this is true, that there's actually a scandal here, and, you know, we're three weeks in. So I'm pretty sure that's why Wall Street Journal didn't run. So the major media outlets are not running with this.

They're scared to run with it. But now, here we are a couple of years later looking back at this. Even this week, CBS News has verified parts of information that's on the hard drive. They still don't have a laptop, correct? right yes it seems as if there is some verification of what was potentially there and there's already criticism of at the time facebook uh was limiting the uh amounts of of stories that were showing up around hundred binders nobody could share it i think i don't think anybody could share right i think and that was Zuckerberg at the at that point had been told by the fbi uh careful because

russian misinformation is all over the campaign or there's a potential for it so be on the lookout for Like, in hindsight, was there more there there than the media gave credit to? All right. Maybe there was more there there, but what, like, just looking back at 2016, the firestorm that would have come out, there was no controversy known at that time other than like just Hunter Biden has a laptop, right? And the way that conservative media and right-wing media works in unison, it would have drowned out everything out, you know, but it's about that, that Steve Bannon,

the zone with shit strategy you know you just keep throwing stuff out there and i mean you've got to give conservative media credit for the way that they all reply in unison and they can make a thing out of nothing yeah i mean yeah the the the the flood the zone with the shit banning strategy this feels like this was this had so much shit you could put into that zone yeah yeah and and that's you know that's something that he actually admitted he said um hunter biden's laptop you put your own obsessions into it, you know. So for, for Bannon, it was China. You know, he went, he went after the China thing. For other people, it was the drugs and, and the women, you know, and for other, and you just put whatever it is that you, that is your obsession, you, you channel that

into like, oh, that Hunter, Hunter Biden's laptop proves that that's real. I love it. It's a Maga Rorschach test. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just stare into it, see, see your peccadillo staring right back at you. Yeah. I think that was fascinating. When Bannon has talked about it, Correct me if I'm wrong, he had some moral issues with the idea of putting out some of these pictures of Hunter. I mean, this is a man's privacy. It's his personal pictures. For all the pictures of him with illicit drug use, there's pictures of like his brother's gravesite. There's all these personal emotional moments that this person put on their laptop and then now somebody else has.

They have their search histories. They have all these types of things. And I believe Bannon encountered that with. but we're at war. Yes. So you do it. And I think that's what's so fascinating and where we're so fucked right now because there are legitimate things to be curious about with this information.

And we should be critical of people who have close connections to powerful people. But when it's approached by operatives who treat this not as an investigation towards justice, but as war, then what you have is people acting with warlike tendencies who will stop at nothing to only win that benefits their side. And that doesn't benefit justice. It benefits the person who is fighting that general. At that point, that's somebody like Steve Bannon, who's trying to rip people off for building a new wall on the Mexico border at the same time. Right. Well, and you have to understand, like they're not just demanding that the press cover Hunter Biden's laptop. They're demanding that they cover it right now the way that I want you to, you know? And like these outlets, they do have

a responsibility to vet this stuff and make sure that it's true before putting it out there, especially, you know, and I don't want to repeat myself, but especially when this is something that would be used in an attempt to sway the election. Fast forward, a couple months from now, investigations into the laptop. Is that a good idea? For Republicans, I mean, yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you?

That's just like targeting this one guy who is just taking advantage of the system that, like, we have created, right? But that guy, but that guy is the president's son? Yes. There is, there are connections there. And we should know there's no corruption, right? We absolutely should. At the same time, this is the system that we've got. And like, if you don't want nepotism babies or the children of wealthy and powerful politicians to get wealthy and powerful jobs, then like we need to change

the way that we do things overall. And it's not just him. And it's not just, you know, it's not just the Trump kids either. I mean, look at the way, look at the way that people, the Democrats buy stocks, you know and and then pass legislation like this is it it's everywhere and and so that's why like I feel just going after this one guy is it's so disingenuous you know and but yes we should know if there's corruption yeah we should know and and if he did anything you will we should be in jail of course if if america is going to look into the rorschach test that is hunter Biden's laptop what do you think America begins to see and begins to pull out it's going to be it's going to be It is, I mean, what we're going to see, there might be something there, but what I think

is that we're just going to see bullshit from Republicans. They're going to look for meetings that Hunter tried to set up with his dad, you know, and then do those companies, well, do they have connections to Zelensky or do they have connections to Fauci or, you know, I mean, you had, the guy who found the laptop, Isaac, he thinks that it shows, it might show proof, that Hunter Biden is responsible for. the COVID pandemic, that he was involved in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that it, that he was, he was responsible for creating COVID and unleashing it. Like, this is fun. Now we're talking.

Now we're getting similar. This is, yeah, can we tie him to COVID? It's going to become a fun parlor game. Pretty soon we're going to be playing this at Christmas where it's like, can you connect Hunter Biden to COVID? Okay, can you connect to the Nets having a subpar season this year? I'm sure there will be caravan. There's there will be immigration connections, you know, that they'll, it's 10 degrees of separation. All they need is to find something that maybe connects to George Soros, you know, and then all of a sudden, like, oh, Hunter Biden is involved in the great replacement theory. You know, it's, it's things like that.

So, like, I don't really know where it's going to go, but I can tell you it's going to be a lot of bullshit, you know. I like what it's done to the Trump family, specifically the kids. I mean, it's amazing to watch Don Jr. criticize Hunter Biden for saying, like, how he wishes his name was Hunter Biden so he could make money off his father's name, which is a beautiful thing for somebody like Don Jr. to yearn for as if that wasn't already the game plan from day one. Make a ton of money and do absolutely nothing except, hey, you can meet my dad.

That's a disgusting trait, right? To just use your father's name to make money off him. that? Absolutely. Nepotism needs to be looked into big time. Yes. What do you think about Ivanka? Oh, she's so gracious. Yeah, yeah, totally amazing. I mean, it's just, the hypocrisy is amazing, but like that's never bothered them before, you know, and we're seeing reports of the foreign government spending $150,000 at Trump Hotel, you know, and things like that. And it's like, that's why I have an issue with just like going after this one person, this, you know, Hunter, you know, just targeting him because he's the president's son, essentially.

And like, I mean, that's, that it shouldn't happen, but like, we need to be consistent here as well, I guess. How should the media responsibly cover this as we move forward? Essentially, what this is and what they need is you said, you know, when you go to a Trump rally, people are upset about Hunter Biden's laptop and they're not sure why. That's all they need. They need people to be upset about this, you know? And that's really all it's about.

And the investigations, you ask what they're going to uncover. I mean, Lord only knows where this is going to go. But where it's really going to go is just keeping that drumbeat going to keep those buzzwords, Hunter Biden's laptop, to get that reaction from the base, you know, that you're seeing at rallies right now. Fox News has been pushing this story for a couple of years now and recently did a mock trial of Hunter Biden. What the hell was that all about? At what point did you decide, sir, to contact the federal bureau of investigation about this matter? When the laptop became my property in late July, I proceeded to kind of research what was on it to make sure that what I had seen was what I perceived as criminal activity.

God, I forgot about that. Oh, my God. It was so funny. It was so funny. Yeah, and they had like a whole jury and everything. and Judge Joe Brown was the judge. Well, tell me, before we let you go, walk me through a little bit as somebody who watches this, for folks who aren't watching Hannity cover this and amplify this story,

how has Hannity taken to this in the last few years? It is, I mean, it's just the nonstop drumbeat, you know? And I think what you have to understand about Sean Hannity is his show is just like a stream of right-wing consciousness. It is just these buzzwords. It's Nellior, it's the FBI Lovebirds. It's, I mean, he still talks about Hillary Clinton's emails, you know. And so he is, he really is, more so than anybody else on that network, I think.

He is the king of these, these bullshit conservative buzzwords, you know, and throwing it out there. What are the ones he's creating for the Hunter Biden story? Well, it was Burisma, you know, a couple, a couple years ago was Burisma. Now he just calls him Zero Experience Hunter. Burisma, oil and gas company, and Zero Experience Hunter is 50-year-old son. it Burisma zero experience hunter got millions and that's not all the report even found evidence linking zero experience hunter to allege human trafficking quid pro quo Joe zero experience hunter Burisma now if you're not if you're not in that bubble in that conservative bubble what that

refers to is he got the Burisma deal you know a million dollar a year no show all the other boards that he said on you know but zero zero experience hunter that Sean Hannity's thing you know He just keeps saying it over and over again. And then he uses this as an example of the FBI being out of control, the DOJ targeting conservatives and not going after Democrats, how there's no such thing as equal justice under the law in America. I mean, I could do an entire Sean Hannity monologue right now, like just based off a Hunter's laptop because it's the same thing every single night. But what Hannity understands is that it's that repetition. It's that repetition that leads to the people outside the Trump rallies being upset about Hunter Biden's laptop. You know, you say this stuff over and over and over and over again.

It just becomes accepted as truth. Same thing that, you know, crime and inflation are going to be the top issues in the election. You know, it's just they keep saying that stuff and it becomes the reality. And yeah, yeah, Zero Experience Hunter would definitely be Hannity's favorite buzzword, though, on this. And, you know, I deal with this as well. It's that balance between like, this is hilarious. is so funny versus like this is dangerous and like actually scary that so many people believe it and and it's you know it's about the conservative movement taking advantage of those people

I think more than anything else yeah how much is that an element in the hunter Biden story because again what does get glossed over is this is a man's private cache of his his communications his search histories and his his relationship with his family and his loved ones, it is something to just dump out everything that was on your phone or on your laptop for the world to see. It feels like we don't even grapple with the idea of whether or not we should, we just jump right to whether or not we could. Right. Yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, as far as I know, like you said, this laptop, if it is his laptop, it seems to be acquired legally, you know, but it's, it's horrifying. And we saw this,

We've seen them do this quite a bit, actually. If you remember Peter Strach and it was at Lisa Page, I think. They're, like, their sexting, like, became public and was thrown up on Fox News every single night, you know. They will do this. If they have an opportunity, I think there was also, and I don't know if you were aware of this, but Biden's daughter's diary was stolen. And that never came out because there's serious legal implications into that right now. But Tucker Carlson has seen it, and he sits there and he regurgitates parts of it and stuff like that. This is, I think she was pretty young, maybe late teens, early teens, when she was writing

this. And, you know, if you watch Tucker, he'll throw in every single once in a while, he'll throw in that Hunter used to, or Joe used to shower with his daughter, because apparently there's a passage in there about that when she was younger, which, you know, but it's, yeah, it's that type of stuff. It's that type, they don't care. They don't have morals. And that's why it's so silly for, you know, when, when Steve Bannon said, like, yeah, it kind of feels gross but like we're at war like no that's just your justification for doing it like I don't think it feels gross to banon you know he's a gross disgusting guy made of you know spores and loose skin I don't know I you know the the Bannons and the tuckers and the Hannity's you know they really

speak towards family values and bringing back the morality to America and civility and how are you going to smash the pedophiles if you don't go through the diary of a teenager thank God that they're all very normal people Well, Andrew, thank you for talking to us. Yeah, of course, Jordan. This was so much fun, man. I really appreciate it. After the break, I'll be joined by Congressman Jerry Connolly.

We'll be talking about his role on the House Oversight Committee and how he plans to approach the investigation on Hunter Biden's laptop. Welcome back to Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy. We're talking about Hunter Biden's laptop because Republicans won the House, and apparently that's the issue that they think Americans care. about the most. To be clear, Joe Biden is the big guy. This evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national security

risk and about whether he is compromised by foreign government. That was James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, announcing the upcoming investigation into Hunter Biden and the laptop. For those of you who think government committee hearings are dry and sterile, I have a one word for you. Benghazi. You can bet all your crypto that House Republicans will use the Hunter Biden hearings to make it seem like an explosive scandal worthy of impeachment. So we're going to talk to a Democrat who sits on that committee right now to see what that's going to be like. How fun. Congressman Jerry Connolly and Virginia, thanks for joining the podcast.

My pleasure, Jordan. So Congressman, it's a guarantee that these hearings are going to get coverage in the mainstream media, which means there's going to be a lot of baseless allegations. coming from Republicans that will be aired on news channels. And there's only so much fact-checking that journalists can do. Do you see your role on this committee as part fact-checker? Oh, yeah. We've been through this before. And I think it's really important,

joy, to put it in context, right? So when the Republicans were in the majority last time, and we had a Democrat in the White House, President Obama, for six years, they breathlessly presented, and the media, unfortunately, was complicit in giving them exactly what they wanted, headlines, endless, breathless stories. Hillary Clinton's emails, you mentioned Benghazi, Lois Learner and the IRS, Fast and Furious, Obamacare, you know, funding solar energy and the great scandal of the waste of all of that.

not one of those so-called investigations led to anything anything not an indictment not a trial i mean it was all uh you know sound and fury all done for one purpose to undermine two political figures president obama and hillary clinton and unfortunately the mainstream media as you point out doesn't spend much time doing fact-checking itself. And, you know, they'll ask people like me, well, you know, well, Congressman, you know, they assert, they allege. And I'm thinking, well, even framing a question that way gives it credence when there may be none. The supposition behind that question is completely false based on either fabrication, distortion, insinuation, or no facts whatsoever. and that doesn't seem to matter.

And so it kind of puts us a sudden disadvantage. When we even get asked those questions, it's not unfair to ask them, but it sure would be nice that the media took a little responsibility now and then instead of absolving itself and allowing the insinuation that there's something to this.

So, I mean, you know what's coming. What is your strategy? Are you going to attempt to discredit the very nature of this investigation itself? Do you call attention to the Fox News fever dream that this whole thing is? Or do you admit that there are some elements of Hunter Biden's activity that is of itself worth investigating? I'm certainly not in advance going to concede anything they're asserting is worth investigating. And I am going to spend a lot of time talking about what should be investigated

that they don't want to talk about. For example, In the same press conference where you cited, you know, James Comer said, well, why don't we just stick with Hunter Biden? That's what I want to. That's really what I want to focus on. If we can keep it about Hunter Biden, this is kind of a big deal. We think if we can keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great. He admitted he didn't want to focus on the fact that illegally,

President Trump has kept classified documents in Moro Lago against the law and lied about it. it and is being investigated as we speak for criminal behavior with respect to that well uh i thought you wanted genuine oversight that's a genuine oversight issue now of course the world is replete with similar genuine oversight issues when it comes to trump and his acolytes and his administration not one of which not one of which republicans want to look at they never supported a single subpoena when they were in the majority and trump was in the white head House for anything having to do with oversight of the Trump administration, not one. Well, we may need to elect an entire House of Representatives to deal with the issues and

investigate all of those Trump-era issues. But I guess I'm curious, like, it's always easy for us to, for both sides, to point out what the other side should be looking into. And I think this is, it's pretty clear in a situation like this. However, there are details within this Hunter Biden story that do rub people the wrong way. People on both sides of the eye, are skeptical of somebody who is this close to the president of the United States being close to foreign governments at a time where the details are sketchy

although we know it's going to be weaponized and you know the show that is going to be put on what do you say to those people who are like I'm still nervous about this situation and do think we should investigate that do you say yes we should but this is not the place where they will get a fair investigation or do you just discredit that idea on its surface?

Well, anyone who thinks that this would be a fair investigation, you know, balanced fair, let the truth come out, is smoking something because that is not the modus operandi. It is very clear the Republicans have already, and been saying this for several years, right? Don't forget, it was Donald Trump who committed a criminal act. We felt, and he was impeached for it with respect to Hunter Biden. because he was extorting a foreign leader with our military assistance, which now we know

was badly needed in the Ukraine, in order to get political dirt on Hunter Biden. So the whole so-called investigation is tainted going back to that, what Trump called, perfect phone call. And so I'm not going to provide any legitimacy to that line of inquiry. unless something has presented to me that would qualify for, yeah, all right, that's traveling. We ought to look at it. So I'm not going to concede that at all in advance. And I am going to point out that, you know, what little fact checking has been done in the press about this, and I cite Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post, is sort of their official fact

checker. You know, they're looking at one email out of something like $122,000 that is subject to interpretation. They're looking at some great scandal about keys to an office in Spain that Hunter Biden in fact never picked up, but somehow that's a big conspiracy. I would say there's really thin gruel here so far. And the idea that we're going to put the entire weight of the oversight committee of the United States Congress behind such anemic evidence and thin gruel worries me greatly, but it's part of the pattern of my friends on the other side of the aisle going back to Dan Burton and Clinton. I mean, maybe this shows that it is a dying fire and these are the embers if we've gone from but her emails to but his email singular. Maybe that's

showing progress in some way. Right. You bring up something interesting. You've been on this committee for years. Some of these Republicans, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Andrew Clyde, they love a good conspiracy. They've denied the 2020 election was real, spread January 6th conspiracy theories. How can you use your platform on the committee to help a viewer who maybe doesn't know their context? How do you let them understand the full context

of where they're coming from? The good news about our process is when we have a markup of legislation or when we have a hearing, we Democrats get equal time. And, you know, that's why the leadership of our committee is going to really matter. Can we cohere and forge our voice as one to push back, get the facts out, tell the truth, and puncture their false narratives

in an effective way? That is critical when you're in the minority and you're defending a Democratic White House. And if you don't do that, you know, they control the narrative. So fighting for control the narrative and making sure that you repeat, rinse, and repeat when it comes to facts, do not assume that having said it once it's in everybody's head. That's not how human beings work. And in our media market today, given the multiplicity of sources of news, accurate and falls, and everything in between, you've got to really spend time making sure that the truth penetrates consciousness and public opinion. What does that look like?

What are some of the tactics there? I think about the January 6 hearings, which many people would say have been effectively communicated. Perhaps the lesson there is, just don't invite the other side of the table. It's really easier to get your point across. Perhaps it's the use of video. Perhaps it's just the repetition of baseline facts. Like, are there elements that you could draw from those hearings that you'd like to

bring to the forefront here. I think we talk about Benghazi, we talk about those things like you know you know the machine that is going to be behind this narrative. So how do you get out ahead of it? How do you change what Democrats did six years ago to be more effective in the upcoming year? I don't think there's any one tactic, but there are a lot of tools in the kit bag. And one of them is humor. I can remember once they were, you know, you guys, the Democrats are going to rely on humor? Oh, my God. What are we doing? Congressman, I'll give you an example. Stick to your sweet spot. I'm sorry. I'm Irish and I know how to use humor. So I'll give you an example. We had a career, a civil servant from IRS and the Republicans hauled her before our committee. They were in the

majority. And her job was to enforce the provision in the Affordable Care Act that you would be fine if you didn't have health insurance. By the way, a provision that was a Republican. idea that was enshrined in Romney care in Massachusetts that we took on. But at any rate, they just excoriated her. And, you know, I was getting agitated, waiting my turn. And I thought, you know, this is another bit of which I'm not going to say that. And then I thought, you know, that's not the effective way of making the point. And they're looking for a headline tomorrow that's going to say Republicans accuse IRS

official of, you know, subverting American freedom or something. And so I, I, when it came time of my turn, I said to her, so you're under oath. She went, yes. I said, I want to remind you, you're under oath. She went, okay. I said, have you been consorting with the devil? Not to my knowledge, sir. Are reports that you can fly accurate?

Greatly exaggerated, sir. Have you been involved in any way in trying to pervert our youth in Salem or? or anywhere else i certainly hope not sir you're sure yes sir the looks on their faces like what is oh my god because people were now laughing well the next day the headline instead of the one the republicans wanted was irs officials does not denies consorting with devil people were howling with laughter it completely punctured their narrative so sometimes Humor can be a tool, too. But a lot of this is too serious, frankly,

I mean, honestly, what's so interesting, because I hear you on that, and I do think it's almost, in an example like that, we've been talking a little bit about the Steve Bannon, flood the narrative with bullshit, get it out there.

Like, how much of it is that? Are we using humor in that sense to be like, we know what people are going to click on, we know what people are going to talk about, and if we can be outlandish in our approach from a satirical point of view, that can trump somebody else being outlandish from perhaps a more politically advantageous point of view?

Absolutely. There was another time they had an FBI official who had privately expressed support for, I'm sorry, had privately expressed criticism of Donald Trump. This was early in Trump's tenure. And they were just, again, excoriating him. So when it came down to my turn, started reading criticisms of Trump without identifying who said it. And I said, so that was you,

right? And before the witness could answer, I went, oh, no, I'm sorry. That was Marco Rubio, Republican Senator Fla. And then I just went to, you know, and of course, by the time I was finished, people, again, were, you know, snidly chuckling, but it completely exposed the hypocrisy of the Republicans for attacking this guy for criticizing Trump when at the same time they were doing it too. Congressman, I got to say using hypocrisy as a stand-in for humor, that's my lane. So back off. You're going to use Rubio's words against him and the whole GOP? What else do we have out there? It's dangerous business. But you know, it goes to the old line, a friend of mine, a humorous Jim Bourne, once used to say, if you're going to be a phony, at least be sincere about it. It feels like a lot of the Republican strategy is to work the refs,

bully the mainstream media into covering it as a legitimate, massive scandal. Do you think that's working? I think it works all too well, all too often. And that's why we have to be much better at our game. And that's why we have to be disciplined and coordinated. I mean, you can't, this can't be one-off. This can't be one rogue member who maybe is effective, but everybody else is doing their thing.

And that's why, you know, in the minority, especially, our committee is going to have to be organized, strategic, and as I said, discipline, both in messaging, and in the attack of their narrative. You know, what's the best way to do that to get the truth to the American people and through the media? Have you thought about starting an improv group? If you're going to utilize both humor and team,

with a coherent message, perhaps some sort of yes and exercise, some trust falls. I know a lot of out-of-work people in Chicago right now who could come get out of plane and teach you guys some basics of improv to save democracy. I have enjoyed improv in Chicago myself for many years, and it can be very useful. But it's not a substitute, though, for discipline narrative, discipline lines of questioning and taking the fight to the other side when they are propounding, fabricated narratives when they are distorting facts, peddling conspiracy theories that are without foundation, and sometimes just flat out making it up. They don't have a compunction about that. We do, which is sometimes to our

disadvantage, although I'd rather be where we are than they are, but that means we've got to be doubly more effective in puncturing what they're doing. Well, Congressman, you sound like my parents, improv, although valid is no substitute for real hard work and fact checking. I get it. I should be a doctor or an architect. I think we can both agree if the fate of our democracy lies on improv, we might be at a bad place. I'm curious, do you think House Republicans are planning on using this investigation as a basis to impeach President Biden? I mean, there's a crowd of them that's already decided that's what they want to do. I think they would have trouble right now selling that to enough people in their own caucus

to have the votes, frankly. There is a dwindling group of more common sense Republicans and moderate Republicans who are very uneasy about the hard ideological tilt of the freedom caucus and their accolades and would like to find a way to reassert themselves and what they believe is what's going to be necessary if the Republicans are really ever going to be successful again in American political life in terms of a real serious working majority. I think that there are some built-in breaks on that. And what I predict is that the Republicans in our committee will do what they always do, which is overreach, right? And when they do that, they lose public support and they lose credibility. And in this particular case, they're likely

to alienate some of those more moderate members of their caucus, albeit in dwindling numbers, they need to get to 218. Do you think that? You really think they will alienate? It feels like there's there's rarely any pushback or political repercussions for for appearing hawkish and overstepping yes but you asked about impeachment impeachment is a different matter uh and you do think that is a line for most americans you think they will see that just as a craven partisan overreach yeah i i i don't think anybody in america well let me with i i i simply don't think that's a majority opinion at all not even close that there's something unseemly about Joe Biden

that desperately needs to be investigated. And we just had a midterm election. They tried out that theme. It didn't work. You know, Americans did not vote to have, you know, hard-line accountability for Joe Biden because he's getting away with stuff. And that's why we need a Republican majority.

They barely got a majority. And they didn't get one in the U.S. Senate. They lost governor seats net. They lost legislative seats net. And they barely won the House. So I hardly think that's a mandate to go at it. And that says something about, I'm not saying that Americans don't want accountability. They're not persuaded that Joe Biden has done anything that merits that kind of, you know,

witch hunt. Congressman, are you optimistic going into this next year that the American public will be able to sift through and see through the BS? We live in a world with so much in front of us, right? You know, we don't live anymore in a world where, you know, I get my news in the evening broadcast for 30 minutes on one of three choices. Those days are long gone, right? So there's this fog of news and data being presented to me and opinion.

And I'm somehow expected to separate the truth from the non-truth or the half-truth and the facts. from the fiction. So that's why it's so important we do our jobs and do them well, that we help the American listener, viewer, voter, separate what's true from what is not true. And that's, as I said, why I think our committee is going to be on the front line of this struggle. And it's a struggle as much for the truth as it is for political advantage or partisan gain. Well, Congressman Jerry Connolly, thank you so much for joining the podcast. And my pleasure. Let me know if you need any

punch-ups on jokes. I work for cheap, and I'd like to help this democracy. I'll come back to you on improv. Thank you. After the break, we're going to be joined by author and journalist Tiffany Cross. We're going to dive even more into media coverage behind Hunter Biden's laptop. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy. We're talking about Hunter Biden's laptop.

Basically, the right-wing fever dream that a MacBook pro that was left at a computer repair shop in Delaware proves that the Biden family was doing corruption in Ukraine. And that was before it was cool to know about stuff in Ukraine. And also, China's involved, obviously. If you watch Fox News or Newsmax or Max News News or Max News or Reefs, real American truth or any other right-wing media that sounds like it was created by a Steve Bannon word generator, you're probably extremely familiar with the weird details of the Hunter Biden saga. But if you get your news from real places, you might only know some of it. And that

creates a minor dilemma. House Republicans are about to start investigating Hunter Biden. And that means it's probably going to get a lot of coverage on mainstream outlets. So if the role of the news media is to cover what's happening, but also to stop the spread of misinformation, what are journalists supposed to do here? To help us answer that question, we're going to talk to Tiffany Cross, an author, journalist, cable news veteran, and until recently, she was the host of the Cross Connection on MSNBC. Tiffany, thanks so much for talking to us here today. Thanks for having me, Jordan. It's great to be connected today. Yes. So this Hunter Biden laptop story poses an interesting problem for the news.

media. On one hand, it's an obsession, fan by right-wing trolls who most of the time can be ignored. But on the other hand, Republicans are taking over the House of Representatives and they're going to launch congressional investigations into it, hoping for media coverage that makes the investigation look like a legitimate process. So I guess the big question is, can you have a legitimate investigation into something run by the people who think January 6th was Antifa? Right. I would say no, and I wish that more people in the news media would be so direct and honest about that. You know, when we talk about corruption and this whole incident with the Hunter Biden campaign or the Hunter Biden laptop rather in Ukraine, I think it's really important to remember what the Ukraine story is. And that is that Donald Trump was trying to hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in support for Ukraine because he wanted President Zelensky to investigate his political rivals.

That is the story. The counterpoint to that story was Republicans trying to institute this laptop storyline. And so when you have people who employ the logic of bad actors like Lauren Burburt or Marjorie Taylor Green, who will have committee assignments, you know, the Republicans have taken over the House now. We don't know what leadership looks like. We don't know who the Speaker of the House will be. Kevin McCarthy is quite embroiled in his own battles. I think it is very dangerous to pretend that these are intellectual people, that these are people acting in good faith, or that these are people who give a dance. about democracy because they don't. To your point, they said January 6th was Intifa. We have seen quite blatantly these folks lie. They have said that, you know, they were like tourists walking through the Capitol, even though we saw

Republican members of Congress themselves hoping to barricade a door. And so it seems to be yet again a lesson that the news media has not learned and they make such great overtures to this right-wing extremist Republican Party. And they have not yet accepted what we as all Americans have witnessed. And that is there are no right-wing extremist and a separate group of Republicans. These two factions have merged. And so if you're going to turn over political investigations to right-wing extremists, then you're going to essentially wave the white flag on democracy and say goodbye. This feels like the series finale of the great American experiment. And as you can see, it ain't going so well.

tune in everybody i guess it brings an interesting question though you're right they may they may not believe in the tenets of democracy but is their point of view in and of itself news which should be covered because people look at this hunter biden laptop story and it is in many ways used as a distraction but there is news to be made in there there is perhaps an investigation that could happen around this whether or not it's a legitimate one who knows but you bring up people like Lauren Bobert, a lot of times the news doesn't have to report on all of the wilder things that perhaps somebody like a Bobert will say. But then you'll have people like Kevin McCarthy who very well could be, the leader of the house, who will repeat those talking points. So what do you say

to a journalist who says if Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House and he says something, that means that it is news that must be reported? I think it's fine to report that through the proper context. I think what we have seen is the news media goes out of its way to present something that is factual or something that is at least based in some level of intellect and then they will take something asinine and present both of these things as though they are equal in thought. So if I say, hey, Jordan, it's raining outside and it's in fact raining outside and you say, well, there are purple unicorns falling from the sky outside. The answer to that is not, well, some say it's raining outside and some say there

are purple unicorns, you know, falling from the sky. We'll let you decide. We're fair and balance. bullshit and we ought to be honest about that. And I think, you know, I think why you have so much of that is because, again, one of my big passions through my career has been newsroom diversity. And so when you have people in these newsrooms who make these overtures to Trump fanatics, you know, to these cult members who are believers of the MAGA doctrine that you've so brilliantly highlighted in your comedic reporting for The Daily Show, you've done better reporting the most journalists out there and just let these people talk and say what they believe. Take no mistake. We have the guns and we are now in the streets.

Can I ask why you're carrying a pitchfork? Well, a pitchfork is a, it's just an iconic representation of how, of what people over time have done in this country. It feels more like a weapon, to be quite honest. No, it's not. It's farm equipment and it's legal in this in this city. Yeah, are you farming today? It's an icon, it's a representation. We're not asking for violence right now. I gotta tell you, from the movies I've seen, the hordes of people with pitchforks are usually the bad guy.

And when you have people who say, well, you know, all these people aren't so bad because my grandmother is a Trump supporter, and she's my nana and she's so sweet. Or my dad supports Trump. I tried to talk him out of it, but he still believes that, but they're not bad people. Me, on the other side, I'm saying,

I'm sorry to tell you, but they actually are pieces of shit. You know, these are horrible people who are supporting a horrible man who says horrible, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic things. And if you can't call your family out on that, then that is a problem because now you're penetrating the atmosphere where it's supposed to be truthful information and not a, you know, a sympathy fest for people who would see folks who look like me, oppressed.

And that has created such a chasm in media, Jordan. It is, it is to people have now tuned out media. I mean, you look at cable news and it's really a melting ice cube at this point. And when people do not trust that there is. no reputable outlet where they can get this kind of information. They find their news and information from other sources. And those sources are not always reputable. And we saw what happened with that in 2016. A lot of people felt like their lived experience was reflected in an internet meme. What we later learned, that was the internet Russia agency who also

did not care about American democracy. And when they looked at this country and said, how can we mess with American democracy? It took them all of two months to say, oh, white supremacy. That's it. That's their greatest weakness. And we will tap into that. And this is really an extension of that philosophy. I can't wait for the Tiffany Cross how to do Thanksgiving with relatives book. Call the pieces of shit out and move on. Please. I'll tell you, at my Thanksgiving, we don't have that problem.

But a lot of people's tables, they do. And I think that is the, you know, with allies and people who, you know, want to get in this fight. It's like, yes, start in your own home. Challenge your own family. Because it is not my job to convince the, you know, willfully ignorant people to not believe in a man who's lying to them. And it is not my job to extend empathy or sympathy to people who feel that way. I don't know how to meet a bigot in the middle. So if that is how people feel, it's start there. Start there at your own table. That brings up an interesting question because I do think that's a question I get on the road

a bunch. Are you ever able to change somebody's mind or what have you? And that's not the intention of the pieces that we go out to do. I think more often than not, it's to confront people with logical fallacies that we see back home and see what the reality is in the field. But I do think it's interesting. As somebody, a member of the media, there is this chasm here. There's a chasm also of bad information that people are getting. And I do think you want to have empathy for those people who have been given such misinformation. How do you balance the deliverance of real news with the idea of showing a certain amount of empathy and

and outrage towards perhaps voices and people who aren't willing to meet in the middle. Well, I would challenge the first part of empathy. I think if you do have empathy, Jordan, for some of the folks you have spoken with, that's not such a bad thing. You know, perhaps I can understand that. As long as you're not asking me to have empathy, I do not have empathy for people who have bought into a lie or a myth or a system, that means my oppression. I don't have any empathy for such people at all. I actually think the country would be better off without those people having

an influence on what this democracy looks like or how this government works. But that is not the way American democracy was designed. I think when it comes to reporting these things in the media landscape, you run the risk of having a large number of the population, I would call the rising majority, tune you out when your perspective, when the starting point is we have empathy for these people who feel this way. Because you do not hear people saying, well, look, the Nazis were fed a bunch of bad information. We have to have empathy for them. Get the fuck out of here. Like, we would never say that. We would never believe that, you know? And so why am I being asked to have empathy

for the people who would see me staying in a dilapidated community, sending my children to dilapidated schools, living in rundown neighborhoods, and say, well, that's just how it goes, because they can't win, because if they win, that means I'm losing. I have no empathy. Timothy, I got to say, if you don't think people are showing empathy towards Nazis, you're just not on Twitter anymore. You're right. On Elon, my Twitter, it is the land of empathy for Nazis. I would say, it's a surprisingly popular opinion that's really somehow coming back in vogue. I guess I have a question, who makes those decisions about what gets covered and what doesn't

get covered at a network level. Is it anchors? Is it producers, news executives? Is there a conversation that happens in the newsroom? Well, it's a variety of things. And I think it all depends on the newsroom. You know, broadcast has a different set of rules than print. When I was in cable news, I made the decisions about what I covered on my show,

but I did not do so without a fight. You know, there are assignment desk, assignment editors, and there are people who oversee and people who oversaw my show. And it was always a fight because, you know, it's like the echo chambers, right? Like the three news networks are covering mostly the same things. I mean, now, you know, Fox would be an outlier and, you know, still cover Hillary's emails. But for the most part, people were covering the same stories throughout the day. I was very intentional about disrupting that and talking about stories that impacted communities of color, policy, you know, people who live below the poverty line.

I wanted to have conversations that were being had in the corner. corner office as well as the barbershop, as well as the beauty salon, as well as on the block, you know, for the old men who sit outside in front of the, you know, convenience store all day. I wanted everyone to feel like they had a home, and I wanted to reflect the lived experience of everyone. Well, we talked a lot on this show about the tragedy of America's maternal mortality rates, especially the disparity that claims black and indigenous women at three times the rate as white women. Imagine being without clean water for six straight days. Well, that's the reality right now for the 150,000 residents of Mississippi's largest city. All right, after centuries

of genocide and oppression, imagine seeing your ancestor's stolen belongings sit in a museum and you're told you can't have them, you can't touch them, or even photograph them. You take something even as simple as the economy, right? You know, a lot of people, you know, in these morning news shows and they say, oh, the economy is doing well, you know, the market is up. And it's like, the market is not the economy. And if you go and talk to people in my pre-gentrified neighborhood, they would not say the economy is doing well. You take labor reports and they're like, oh, we added X amount of new jobs and here's the unemployment numbers. Well, that's the overall unemployment numbers. But when you disaggregate that data and look at unemployment for

black people, for Latino people, we feel disrespected when you say, oh, the jobs report's numbers are great. And so the more that people kind of centralized white perspective and white voices, it leaves so many people out. And so when you talk about newsroom diversity and who makes these decisions, don't come tell me that you just hired, you know, 50% of people of color and women, and they're all entry-level employees or mid-level management. Put those people in the C-suite, put those people in decision-making positions so they can disrupt the echo chambers in a meaningful way. Because what is a 25-year-old to do when a 55-year-old is in charge of the entire newsroom and they're making a decision that runs contrary to the lived

experience or belief system or, you know, experiences of the rising majority. They don't always have or feel the sense of agency to challenge that. And so when they don't have that, they either exit the business or they become a part of this machine that keeps doing the same thing over and over and it never gets disrupted or change forever. Those battles that you're having in the newsroom with your show on MSNBC, The Cross Connection. How much did you have to split your time being the host of that show, helping create the narrative of that show, the stories you wanted to cover.

And also, what sounds like a teacher of this experience, did you find yourself having to put on those two hats? And were you surprised by that culture at MSNBC? Yes, I put on those hats every day. And so what I found on my show is I would have to do something to please network executives. And then I would have to do the rest of my program to please the viewers.

And those things often went like this. You know, if I was going to please the executives, fine. I will do two segments on Trump because that's what everybody wanted, you know, the network executives wanted to talk about Trump. However, if, you know, one of the members of the group Migos was murdered, well, that was something that a lot of people were talking about, especially on the hills of so many other hip-hop artists being murdered. So that was going to be something to please viewers.

If there was a story about indigenous communities, you know, having to travel over two hours to vote, that was something that was going to please viewers. If we were going to do something on the Asian American Pacific Islander community being the fastest growing demographic in the country, but yet no political parties are reaching out to them, that was something that was going to please viewers. And so, you know, the way my bank account was set up, I had to at least do some things to please network executives. but it was always my mission, you know, and I would encourage, you know, anybody who wants to pursue any career when you are mission driven, and I was mission driven. And my mission was for the equality and liberation of black indigenous and people of color, the rising majority of the country. That was my mission. And so nothing was going to sway me from that mission. And I knew if I ever fell out of favor with network executives, that would have to be okay because my mission was to elevate the lived experience. and to hold the line for the people who were very much architects of this country

and very much deserved to have their voices and perspectives heard, particularly after centuries of being so violently silenced. Now, I mean, your show was canceled days before the midterms. Four days before the midterms. An important voice in this conversation. It made a lot of news, and there were a lot of questions. How much did you find that your personal mission was? out of touch with whatever MSNBC's mission was?

Well, I felt that pretty early on. Every week I had to defend and fight for segments that we did. Did that feel contrary to what other hosts at MSNBC were having to do with their own shows? Yeah. You know, I would say my colleague Joy Reid and I probably had the most pushback on our shows. But there were also things that other hosts would do that would make it easier for us, which again is problematic. My colleague Ari Melbert, you know, is a big hip-hop fan.

If you watch five minutes of his show, you know that. He quotes rap lyrics all the time, and it was fine when the white man did it. You know, when the white man did it, it made it easier for everybody else to do it. But let the black woman start out doing that. And it would have been a major problem, a major problem, but he was celebrated for doing that. Tiffany, it was never fine when Ari Melbert did that. It was never fine.

That was never accepted amongst the audience members. Well, he used to get rap artists on his show and, you know, they, they seem to, you know, play into it. But either way, you know, you look at Morning Joe, my former colleagues, Joe and Mika. I mean, we got the term Moscow Mitch from Joe Scarborough. But if, you know, if Joy or I, you know, were to say something similar, it was like, hey, we don't really want name calling. But even if you take it out of MSNBC and just look at the media landscape in general and some of the more colloquial conversations that happen when it comes to voters. There were so often in the media landscape that you would hear terms like soccer moms,

NASCAR dads. Well, those were all euphemisms for white voters. And it's not that black people could not, you know, have that same moniker as well, but we understood what that to meet, what that, what those terms meant. It did not feel inclusive of the black experience, which is the biggest voting block when it comes to Democratic, to the Democratic Party. And so, even when they did voters of the Heartland, you know, you go to these diners in the middle of nowhere where apparently no black people have ever been or ever eaten, and that was voters of the heartland. But

why not go to a basketball game in Southwest Atlanta after it let out and talk to the parents there? Are they not voters of the heartland in a purple state, I'd add? Why can't we have like basketball dads or, you know, the unty voting block or something that reflects. reflects my lived experience, even when you have candidates on and you'd have, you know, these Democratic candidates and the anchor would always press them. How are you going to appeal to these red state voters? How are you going to, you know, get these Trump voters who feel homeless? How are they going to come over to you? I have yet to see somebody ask a Republican MAGA voter. How are you going to appeal? You want to penetrate Democratic Party. How are you

want to appeal the base vote are black voters? Your party seems to stand for a lot of things that runs contrary to what black voters want. How are you going to appeal to them? How are you going to appeal to the changing demographics? People of color are increasingly becoming the base vote? What are your policies that speak to that demographic? Those things never happened. I was never able to get Republicans to come out on my show because they did not want to answer those types of questions. But access journalism would grant you an interview with Ted Cruz or Marjorie Taylor Green or the guy, the Senate guy, the Senate candidate,

Ron Johnson, the Trump acolyte who was running for Senate and with He would happily go on those shows if he knew it was going to be an easy interview. And that does not serve anybody, but the anchor itself. It certainly does not serve viewers or voters. And you bring up an entry point. It is, in 2016, after the media landscape was, quote unquote, surprised by the red wave,

the Trumpism there, there was, all you saw was anchors in these small little diners, and now we have this midterm election where everybody's shocked, by the blue, whether you call it the blue pushback right there, but we're not seeing anybody go to these other democratic areas and try to figure them out. I guess, I think you're hitting on something that,

I think there are a lot of perhaps progressives out there who look at a place, who look at the media landscape. Everybody's picking their own media outlets to try to tell them, perhaps the story that they think one elucidates the world that they see or the story that makes them feel better about themselves more often than not. There are those places in the mass media market that people look at. And we don't have to go all in on MSNBC, but I do know that as a place for a lot of people who look at that

as having a left-leading perspective, who will take in a lot of these considerations. And I think hearing some of your stories here is depressing to hear that even these ideas of being inclusive in the stories that we tell is meeting such resistance at at these levels. Like, where do you see these stories being able to be told? Clearly, we know where they need to be able to be told.

Where are you seeing examples of them being told? Well, I think social media has really democratized who has a voice in this space, which has come with great benefits to democracy, but also to some of our demise, right? Like, we talked a little bit about Twitter, which, you know, you have superstars on Twitter who we really don't know who they are.

We just know their avatar. You know, you have people who just create these YouTube shows who can just declare themselves journalists who might not have the journalistic acumen to really interview. The podcast drink champs, you know, and they had Kanye on that podcast. Well, that wasn't a journalist, you know, that was somebody having a drink with Kanye. So there wasn't the space to challenge some of the things that he said. And so, you know, I think the good thing about it is their space, and it has made everybody wake up and say, well, wait a second. you know, a lot of people are getting their news from other places, like the Daily Show, quite honestly.

And I have been a long, long time fan of the Daily Show, but I do think, well, that should not be your only news outlet. You know, you do have to supplement that. Even my show and people would say, I don't watch any news except for your show, it would make me a little nervous because it's like, well, I'm a prospective host. And, you know, I'm giving you my perspective. It would be helpful if you had some of the baseline stuff. And you and I both know print drives broadcast. Print journalism drives broadcast journalism. Everybody starts out reading the paper.

Read six, seven, eight papers. But even there, there's a lack of newsroom diversity. So I don't know that I can say where news should be consumed. I would say the best answer I could give to that is stay tuned to where I land. A final question in here. Do you think the media is glad Trump's running again? I do. I do.

I think Trump gave the cable news network such a boom that they salivated. And that's why I think they were always constantly trying to get me to do Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. You have talk about Trump. But I think they're going to be disappointed. I have seen some in the news media a day late and a dollar short be a little more mindful about how they cover him. But I also think that the American body politic has lost their appetite for the reality TV show that was cable news. For a brief moment in time, people love to see, you know, this throwdown, this battle, this kind of gutter back and forth between opposing viewpoints. And, you know, it was like the anchor would do all but say, let's get ready to rumble and then you bring in this, you know, segment.

You know, I think post-pandemic and being overly sensationalized by this level of yellow journalism from print to broadcast has left people a bit apathetic towards consuming news at all. Yeah. Well, Tiffany, I'm excited to see where you land. That is definitely going to be the place to check out. Thank you for coming on and thank you everybody else for checking out this episode of Jordan Klepper Figures the Conspiracy. Whether you're listening on your phone or watching on your laptop, especially if it's a laptop at a repair shop in Delaware, we'll see you next time. Thanks, Jordan. Listen to Jordan Clepper Figures the Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

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