The Daily Show: Ears Edition - SCOTUS Torches Trump's Tariffs, Iran War Looms & MAGA Co-opts Team USA Hockey Win

Episode Date: February 24, 2026

Team USA sweeps Canada for gold in Olympic hockey, Jon Stewart navigates how MAGA interprets this win as proof of America's democratic superiority, and Desi Lydic homes in on the U.S. Olympic team's secret weapon: superior political systems. Plus, Jon explains how the Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Trump’s tariff strategy and examines why the U.S. is on the brink of war with Iran. A. Mechele Dickerson, University of Texas law professor and author of "The Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream," joins Jon to discuss how the government created the middle class they’ve now abandoned, how mortgage interest deductions, HOA exclusions, and school hours hinder the middle class, and how to restore the tentpoles of pension jobs and home ownership that fuel the middle-class American dream. For a limited time, our listeners get 50% off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, AND 3 Free Gifts at Mars Men at Mengotomars.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Ninja Lux Cafe, the three-and-one machine that makes espresso, drip coffee, and cold brew. No barista skills required. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for news with your host, John. I'm John Stewart. We have got a phenomenal show for a night. Author, Professor Michelle Dickerson, is going to be our guest tonight.

Very delighted to have a while. But first, let me give it up for this. The staff and crew who were able to make it in here tonight to put on a program and, and I'm not going to forget you guys, and our audience. Made it out tonight. Clearly our audience tonight have gone the wrong way on the decision tree. Delighted they're here. Should we risk life in lim to see a show we could see on TV in just a few hours?

in our homes? Why not go out this hip-breaking weather? You know, I don't know if you guys in the audience noticed, but snowy outside. Bad out there. I mean, this blizzard made it nearly impossible for even weather people to take selfies. Or even be seen.

Hello? I mean, when the plows get stuck, the plow got stuck. you know, I commute this way. This is how I always commute taunton. By the way, under Zoran Mamdani, tauntons are free. The rides are free. And we have a fresh layer of two feet to cover

all the tauntan shit in the streets. We were this close in New York City to having the snow and the dog shit gone. Like this close. And then God was like, you know what New York City needs? A layer to cover the dog shit. But let's get to the big news of the week. As you know, tomorrow night is President Donald Jar Jar Trump's big state of the union speech.

But no matter what Trump says, folks, it's not going to change how we in this country are feeling. This country is in such emotional turmoil right now. The government sanctioned and executed violence in Minnesota. The rank corruption and profiteering of elected officials and their families. The manufactured outrage over, God forbid, an American performing at how. half time in the Super Bowl in Spanish. It's a feeling that we are one nation divided under siege. That perhaps we've crossed a rubicon of this great American experiment.

And that we slowly and inexorably are sliding into the abyss of fallen and broken democracies. But then, like a cross, it's to recover from, but the vulcanized rubber disc went bonafying. There is nothing that can take away. from the joyous moment as all Americans celebrate this incredible wait what the is that FBI director cash Patel and why are they putting a medal around the neck of FBI director cat is cash Patel a make a wish listen i not and i'm not trying to diminish his condition it is listen listen there is currently no cure for crazy eyes crazy eyes crazy for when you want to turn every picture

into some sort of meth-fueled mugshot. Are you telling me I was going 90 and a 35? But I got to tell you, MAGA especially, is going crazy for the victory. American pride, power, and patriotism on full display. This is time for America, not you whining little clown.

Masculinity and celebration. These are things that have been completely and totally sanitized from our, arch feminist culture or estrogenetic culture. What a super weird year hockey is having. To go from

nobody gives a shit about hockey to, well, I like to watch them. Only hockey can save us from a dystopian extrogenetic future. Perhaps the strangest part is how this victory in a hockey match is being perceived on the right

geopolitically. got to go all the way back to 1980 when we defeated the Soviets. This felt just as sweet because I guess since we don't have Russia to kick around anymore, Canada will do. They're practically communist and they're closing up to the Chinese. Hockey is all that they have. And we took that. That's all they got. What's with the sore winning?

Why are we such dicks? And by the way, don't we in America have enough real enemies? Now we've got to pretend like Canada's way of life is incongruous to the West. Yeah Those completely best neighbors Our nation has ever had I think what I think we had like a little fight about beaver pelts in like 1789

Since then But for more on Team USA's victory over Canada What it means we go live to Desi Lideck We're making this thing out to be some kind of Miracle on ice Yeah cause it is Woo we did it John USA USA

USA in the face by the red white. Yeah, no, it certainly wasn't a great victory for the U.S. hockey team. No doubt. It was... Yeah, but not just the hockey team, John. Same way we defeated communism in the miracle

on ice. This victory proves that our system of government is far superior to Canada. As they say in hockey, game set and match. It's not a hockey term, so... Offsides. Get the

Okay, whatever. I just don't know if our political systems are really all that different from Canada's. What democracy separates executive power from the legislature with the president appointed by an electoral college, while their democracy appoints an executive based on

the outcome of which governing party has the majority. And as we learned on the ice yesterday, that system sucks. The system seem actually pretty similar. I mean, don't both the U.S. and Canada bicameral legislatures?

Yes, but American senators are elected while Canadian senators are appointed. Just like how Canada got appointed to our nuts, bitch. It kind of came out of nowhere. Comprehensive and filthy, Desi. Aw, thank you. Here's another.

In America, we have electoral districts, but in Canada, they call their districts writings, which is fitting because Team Canada was riding our nuts, bitch. Stop saying nuts. By the way, another reason, we're better. America's Congress has a sergeant at arms,

but the Canadian Parliament has an usher of the black rod. And speaking of ushering of black rod. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I didn't like where that was going. Yeah. Same way the Canadians didn't like were my... Just don't encourage her. Cold weather has changed them.

Like, look, the game didn't. didn't change the fact that Canadians still have a better health care system than we did. Yes, okay. I thought so too. Until I saw the scoreboard for profit health care one, universal Canadian health care zero. USA! USA! No, but that wasn't even the final score. What was the final score? Did you even watch the game? I watched D's nuts. I did not watch the game. So why are you celebrating in the team's locker room?

Oh, I'm not Milan. I'm at a planet fitness. My God, anything to get away from my family on a snow day. Desilajek, everybody. We have defeated our new enemy Canada on the ice and vanquished them to the penalty box of history. Now America can live in a golden era, peace, prosperity. The United States could be on the brink of war with Iran.

What the fucking even skate? Possible conflict could we have with people in street shoes? Is this real? The drumbeat of a possible war with Iran growing louder. The largest assembly of U.S. forces in the Middle East that we've seen in years. One report is saying we are days away from strikes. Days away from war. Usually when we get in a war in the Middle East, there's a

Marty Supreme Level Press rollout. Months and months of endless promotion, interviews, manufactured intelligence, they got weapons of mass destruction, Schwab! Until finally, we acquiesced to the war just in the hopes that the selling of it will stop. And because it seems vaguely charming. But this war, one day it's nothing, and the next

day, we filled their waterway with giant ships. Why? What's the urgency? Spence envoy Steve Whitkoff has this warning about Iran's nuclear power. They're probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material. An atomic bomb by Monday? Oh shit. When was this interview taped? Do they already have the bomb? Is it five business days to the bomb? Do Muslims get weekends? Do they work through?

I got to say a week away from having the material for a nuclear bomb. I'm a little surprised to hear that. You know, I thought I remembered someone saying something about that nation's nuclear program being... What was the word I was looking for? Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. That's right. I remember Trump saying we totally obliterated

their nuclear program and yelling at people who questioned it which makes me wonder how obliterated was it? It was obliterated like nobody's ever seen before. So the kind of obliteration that somehow re-bliterates

almost immediately? Yes, no one has ever seen that before. We obliterated that building. The building we are currently standing on? Yes, that is good. So is our plan now to re-obliterate their nuclear program every few months? Or is there a longer-term strategy? Taking the armada to offshore Iran is to put pressure on Iran,

first and foremost, to come to the table to negotiate around nuclear weapons. Oh, I see. The old carrot and stick. Our peace through strength will force Iran to make, let's call it an Iran nuclear deal. I remember that phrase from when we made a nuclear deal with Iran. I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Oh, right. Trump obliterate.

So just to be clear, Donald Trump is on the brink of war with Iran to either obliterate the program Trump had previously obliterated or to force them into signing a deal like the one Trump had pulled out of. It's all in Chapter 9 of Art of the Deal, eating your own asshole. Is that how Hitler started? It was a USA. And suddenly people were just like, USA, USA. But obviously there is no more solemn response. I segue into more serious. But obviously, there is no more solemn responsibility

for the President of the United States than the decision he makes to put Americans in harm's way through armed conflict. So as the President recently took to the podium, this burden of history, clearly, heavily weighing on his soul. I made a speech at a factory. They made steel products. And I said, how are you?

Nice to meet you. House business. President, I'd love to kiss you. This is a very powerful man. I don't want to be kissed by that man. You can always tell when a story is true. When it contains a character who refers to Trump as, quote, president. Just president.

Not President Trump, not Mr. President. Just President. But I'm sorry, I interrupt. your story, President. What else did this very real person say to you? He said, sir, I want to kiss you so badly. And I said, no, thank you. Yes, yes, all the steelworkers want to kiss you

and your unbelievably f***able tariffs. We'll read all about it in the official history of your presidency team of heated rivals. Ooh. As America stands on the precipice of armed conflict with Iran, Donald Trump is single-mindedly focused on preserving his wildly unpopular tariffs that somebody finally had the balls to say were illegal. After months of anticipation, the Supreme Court today ruling that the President Trump's

sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are unconstitutional. Wow. A court composed mostly of his... his own party's appointees has struck down the constitutionality of Trump's go-it-alone tariff regime. That's bound to cause him some introspection. They're just being fools and lap dogs for the rhinos. They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices. They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. I think it's an embarrassment to their families.

You want to know the truth. When a guy who had sex with a porn star right after his wife had given birth tells you you're an embarrassment to your family. Take that seriously. But the Supreme Court didn't come to this decision rashly. The Supreme Court took months to make this decision. They had oral arguments back in November. They took 10 months.

Working through all the thorny legal issues associated with this case. Trying to thread some type of needle. Lots of nuanced legal issues. legal issues that the court has to thoroughly consider. The court put in the work. And that's why this decision will stand the test of. President Trump doubling down on his trade policy saying that he will raise global tariffs to 15%.

It's so dispiriting. You know what we need? We need one of them stuffed comfort monkeys that poor punch has. Poor punch. although and no disrespect but clearly there is probably something wrong with that fucking month I say this and and it's adorable

and he's breaking by heart that being said who are we to question the wisdom of the tribe they're the ones that know him best decided he's probably in the middle of question their lived experience for our parents a social attack. I mean, look, even that fucking stuffed monkey looks like, hey, I don't want to be here.

I could be living the life of Riley in a nice bedroom in Westchester. Instead, I'm being dragged through the gravel in the middle of Ichikawa. Sorry, I'm standing by this. Cute now. But when puberty comes, that is not going to be a happy stuffed monkey. He's wifing it later. Trust. dare you people substitute your wisdom for those other monkeys? I was doing this all weekend. My wife's going to be so mad at me. All weekend, I just kept

going, but there's got to be something wrong with the monkey, right? Anyway, the point is, folks, the point is, folks, we're on the bring war with Iran. Russia still bombs Ukraine with impunity, and yet Trump is out there kissing dudes over tariffs and saving his most vicious rhetoric for our own Supreme Court.

Can the state of the Union get any more surreal? President Trump mystified a lot people over the weekend when he announced a U.S. hospital ship was on its way to Greenland. What? When doesn't need a hospital ship, they've got universal health care. Thanks Trump, it's even stupider than that. Both of the American hospital ships, mercy and comfort, are out of commission under repair.

Comfort isn't even in the water. Look, I'm no expert, Pope Guy. But they are supposed to be in the water, yes? We're trolling Denmark. We're going to war with Iran. We're abandoning Ukraine. We're charging everybody 15. and more. We're pushing away our closest neighbors,

ostracizing ourselves from the entire, oh my God, we're punch. America has gone from being a shining city on a hill to being the weird smelly monkey nobody wants to play with. I think that's why they don't want to play. I don't know why. But I don't know if you can make a stuffed monkey big enough for all of America to f***. He is fucking that monkey. When we come back, Michelle Dickerson will be joining in the studio.

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restoring upward mobility in the American Dream. Please welcome to the program, Michelle Dickerson. By the way, for some odd reason, tonight's audience, in the middle of a blizzard, packed with Texas people. Ladies and gentlemen, there's been some sort of weird nonverbal communication between the Texas people. I don't know if that is a call to violence or perhaps camaraderie. But isn't that odd?

You came out, and by the way, thank you for coming in a little early because of the weather and all that. So we really don't appreciate it for the world. Oh, thank you so much. I'm delighted you're here. This is such music to my ears, this book. A Middle Class New Deal. I want to talk to you about one of the mis-I-guess misunderstandings

maybe about our middle class. is that it didn't, it wasn't just happenstance that created the middle class. It wasn't just the invisible hand that did it. Government really played a role. So walk us through a little bit of that. Well, I would even say they played a role. They created it. Our political leaders after the Depression in World War II decided,

do we really want to bring back all of the servicemen, because it was mostly men at the time, into an economy that had barely recovered from the Depression. And so they made the conscious decision to create the middle class. It didn't just, since I have a lot of Texans here, it didn't just crop up like weeds in a field after a Texas storm, right? It's there because we created it. So let me just translate.

Very quickly. It didn't just pop up like a bagel, store in Bensonwood. Would that be? Okay. But that's exactly right. And there were little things that I found so interesting.

Prior to the New Deal, if you wanted to buy a house, you couldn't get a 30-year mortgage that was amateur. There were these, and you had to put down 50% or even more to even get in the game. Yeah. And not only could you not

get a 30-year mortgage, they didn't exist. Right. And so when everyone sits around now talking about, well, you know, homeownership, you ought to be able to buy. Well, when people had to put down 50 percent and you had maybe a five to 10 year repayment period, very few people could own a home. And so Congress allowed banks to create the 15 to 30-year mortgage, which is why I argue in the book and when I talk about it, that if Congress wanted to fix the problems that are going on now, if they wanted to restore the middle class, they could because they created the middle class with things like, you know,

creating a 15-to-30-year mortgage product. Right. Now, is it that the programs that we have now are not sufficient to do it, or that we shifted the way we do it. So now they might say, well, so in this, they established what, the Federal Housing Authority. Now, let's also be clear. These programs were for almost exclusively white people. Right.

Which is why we see such a gap in wealth and equity that still exists. Yeah. Homeownership gap. It's been basically 25% gap between white homeownership rates and black homeowners forever, right? And also the wealth gap is largely driven by the lack of housing wealth in most black households. Right. And by the way, that's because of, again, not the free market. That was a manipulated market as well. You talk about redlining and blockbusting. Well, and that, and the other thing is you couldn't be approved for the FHA guaranteed 15 to 30 year mortgages. And so if you can't get the mortgage loan, which is cheap, it amortizes, then you're stuck.

in the really bad private market, which means that you pay too much, and then you live in a neighborhood where your homes aren't going to appreciate in value as much because, you know, up until the 19, you know, late 1960s, racism was legal. I mean, our laws allowed... There were covenants, even when it wasn't explicitly legal, there'd be Homeowner Association covenants. Exactly, yeah. That would say you can't sell your home to certain types of people, and we know who those certain types of people were. But you use, I think, to great effect, your parents rise to the middle class and the way that they overcame that. But it was unusual, and they had to work harder to do it.

Exactly. And so one of the things that I try to do in the book is to show how my parents became and remained middle class to then show why it's so hard now for young people to do the same thing. It was harder for my parents because they were becoming middle class. in the 1960s, 1970s. And they were teachers. And they were teachers. But they knew they had to get a college degree. So at that time, you could actually get a,

what I call a good job, full-time, 40-hour-a-week job that paid you enough to support your family without a college degree. Not true now. But if you were black then, you really needed to get the college degree or else you were really going to be fighting obstacles. But yeah, my parents were able to go from being, My mom grew up on a farm. My dad's parents, my father's parents were laborers.

But they were able to go to college. They didn't have to drown themselves in student loan debt. They worked hard. They got up every day. They followed the rules. They bought homes. There was racial steering from a lot of the real estate agents. But they were able to buy homes.

And you couldn't go on Zill. It wasn't like, you know, your parents could look up on the Internet and go, oh, that's a good school system. Exactly. They had to take the word of whoever it was, it was, pushing a certain thing. I mean, the agents are trying to push them into neighborhoods where the schools weren't high-quality schools. And my parents, again, understood you've got to put your kids in a school that at least puts them in a position, K-12 school, that puts them in a position that if they

want to go to college, they'll be able to go to college. So you have these tent posts of the middle class, which is home ownership at reasonable down payments and reasonable non-escalating. You know, you make the point in the book that back-down mortgage rates were not tied to anything so they could jump and, you know, crazy ways. So, you know, these mortgages that relatively flexible, jobs that would give you pensions and health care and would allow you some stability to go along. Are those the tent posts that we're now missing, and how did we end up missing them? Well, I'll answer the last part first and then talk about the, I call them markers in the book. The last, the reason we've lost them is because political leaders, and I mean at all levels, local, state and federal, have refused to exhibit the will to save the middle class. They have the ability. There is nothing they fetishize more, though. I can't, how often do politicians just say, I'm about lunch pail? It's sitting around the table and all that. So how have they missed the mark between their rhetoric and the reality of what they're doing?

So I don't want to say what I thought. You may, may, may. In fact, if you want to, you can curse. These people have heard everything tonight. I went after, let me tell you something. I went after a beloved monkey today. But no, what do you think? I think they have convinced lower and middle income Americans

to look horizontally to blame. So we're doing tribes. The reason that you can't buy a house, the reason that you don't have a good job is because that person over there is taking your job from... Immigrants. Immigrants. Or, you know, diversity is now a bad word

because it doesn't mean what it was supposed to mean, just sort of have lots of different people from different walks of life. Right. And so once you convince people to shift blame horizontally, they don't look up vertically. Because if you look vertically, you see that the only trickle economics that we're seeing now is trickle up.

So wealth and income is trickling up from middle class families to the top. But if you convince people that your enemy is horizontally, then they don't notice that there's a whole lot of wealth and income that's going up to others. I'm curious what you think, because if I were judging this on party, I would say the Republican Party would convince about horizontal. But the Democratic Party would convince you that this deregulatory or what they would call like neoliberal economics works that it's become a subsidy economy or a gig economy will retrain you, we'll do all that. Have they also failed in in their political will or in the programs that they, is it a design flaw in those programs? I think they just haven't been paying attention. So one of the things I say in the book is that it's not just the middle,

is suffering because of one thing. They're suffering because of everything. So if you think of the markers of the middle class, you can't afford to buy a home. You have a job, but it's not a what I call sort of good job. It's not 40 hours a week, full time. Right. With benefits where you are called an employee and not a contractor.

Right. We've gutted unions. Right. people can't afford to, you can't get sick, right? Because if you get sick and you can't work, most people don't have savings. Right. So it's not one little thing.

It's just a series of paper cuts since roughly the 1980s. But to follow up on your point about subsidies, if we actually said, let people work in the gig economy, if you want to pick up a little money, that's fine. but you shouldn't have to piece together three jobs. Right. Three gigs. Three gigs, yeah. Because you can't find a 40-hour-a-week full-time job where you are called an employee

and you have the benefits that go along with being an employee in this country. So this brings us to, because I think that diagnosis is exactly right. So what is the medicine? What is the remedy? How do you re-engage? a middle class new deal? Is it just about recreating that those FHA programs or the GI Bill in a different form?

What's the way that it could be done? Well, what I always say, I want each local politician and I want each voter to pick one thing. So if you want to focus on college, let's make sure that people can afford to go to college and not have to drown themselves in debt. So pick college.

college if you want to. If you want to focus on, because actually now I don't spend as much time talking about homeownership rates because people can't even find affordable housing to rent. Right. So if you were living in a neighborhood, particularly a gated community type neighborhood, and you were saying things like, oh, well, we can't change our homeowner association rules because those people may move in. And we need to make sure. that we keep these exclusionary zoning laws because you have to have a 3,500 square foot home on an acre lot with a huge setback. I mean, anytime you have those kind of rules in place for housing, what you're saying is we don't want the middle class to live here. And so the argument... So they're now zoned out. They're zoned out, exactly, because the developers can't build a small home because the zoning rules don't allow it. Right. And the last thing, and my favorite thing to always attack, which usually puts me in like the same company with like the Cato Institute. Right.

More libertarian. Yeah, yeah. Is the mortgage interest deduction, it needs to go. Right. Because that helps people that already have something. It helps certain people that already have something. Most people, the middle class, they don't itemize their deductions. So they actually get zero benefit from the mortgage interest.

They're doing the easy form, right. Exactly. And so what we're doing is we're subsidizing the housing expenses of rich people. And so a lot of what we're doing, I would love to see sort of big, bold, broad things like, you know, an FHA or a program like that. But what I would really want people to do is look at what we're doing now. What can we eliminate the mortgage interest deduction? Exclusionary zoning. What can we do?

another thing I talk about a lot in the book is the typical school day is not aligned at all with the typical work day for parents. Right. So if we want to make it easy for a lower middle income family to be able to function, why are we still pretending like we're a bunch of farmers? Right. We don't need to have the schools opening at, you know, seven or eight in the morning and then shutting at two or three. People have to go to work, right? Right. And then you have the whole summer off where that's lovely if you, since I picked on Texas before, if you summer in the Hamptons.

Right, right. But it's not so... I'll pick on Jersey Shore. Okay. Jersey Shore's still cool. Okay, still cool. Thank you. All right.

But it's not so great if you actually have to work during the summer. Right. And you've got to figure out something to do with your kids. So the thing that I want political leaders to do and voters to do is to out. is to ask what could we do, what one change could we make that could make it easier for the middle class to attain one of those markers. And to get that.

And it strikes me as to run on a middle class New Deal would be a banger for voters. I mean, it strikes me as more people than not are trapped in that sort of that pinch between, you know, child care and health care and elder care and education and government creating common sense kinds of programs for that. So it strikes me as odd that that hasn't been the focus. There has, like, on the more populous areas of the right and the left,

but not so much full stop. And I think the reason it hasn't is because can you imagine how powerful it would be if the middle class unites? Right. So if you have horizontal unity, that means that, ooh, we're looking up now. We see where the problem is. So I actually sort of understand why no one wants to have all of the middle class to unite because that would be a formidable voting block.

It would be incredibly formal. And it strikes me as, as unions get weaker, isn't our representation supposed to be our unions? like, aren't they the ones who are supposed to be? Why does it always have to be that, well, you guys have to get together and have meetings and come up? Why can't our representatives be the lobbyists for the middle class? Like, it strikes me as insane that that's not the case. Well, and particularly since we've gutted unions. I mean, since the 1980s, they've done everything possible.

If the state right to work laws don't kill them, the, I mean, I'm not going to refer to the United States Supreme Court the way that others have... You're the nicest person on the show. Maybe even in the whole building. Maybe on the entirety of the West Side. It's because I'm from Memphis. Very, very nice. They mind their business in Memphis.

That's very true. You have to be polite. Absolutely. You have to be very polite. It's because what they've convinced everybody is that capital is more important than labor. And what I would say is they've convinced everybody that rich people are more important than everyone. They've earned it. They've earned it. Right, right. Instead of it being just a lot of it

being happenstance and luck. Hello. True. Yeah. Well, it's a fabulous book, and I just think it's such a great prescription. And everybody interested in reconstituting a healthier, because if you build a society on a stronger tent pose, on stronger foundation, we all benefit. Everyone's better off. Because they always say, like, oh, no, help the rich, because a rising tide lifts all boats, and you're like, well, not if you don't have a boat. Then it's just water, and you drown. Then you're drowning.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much. The middle class new deal available now. Michelle Dickerson, quick break over there. Cafe quality brews without a barista. That's the Ninja Lux Cafe. Yep, no skills needed. Rich espresso, balanced drip coffee, rapid cold brew.

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