The Daily Show: Ears Edition - The Precap | Desi Lydic on Trump's Press Ban Endgame

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

This week's host Desi Lydic joins Daily Show writer and producer Matt O'Brien to recap the latest news, and preview the week to come. They talk about whether Trump's White House press ban for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico is part of a larger push toward state-run media, the president's announcement that his controversial D.C. arch will also serve as a military facility armed to the teeth, and Trump's upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi to discuss AI amid fevered warnings that the technology could spell doom for humanity. Plus, Desi and Matt share stories from the Emmys and gear up for this week's guests: Jessica Tarlov, Tom Morello, and Merritt Wever. -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to recap some of the latest news and preview what's coming up this week on the Daily Show. I'm Matt O'Brien, a writer and producer at Said Daily Show, and I'm here. Thank you. You're welcome. with this week's host. The lovely Desi Lydic. That is how you pronounce it. Desi Lydic.

All right. Welcome, Desi Lydic, everyone. It took you 10 months to get that right, but here we are. This is the second time

we've ever spoken. Yeah. What's your name again? Matt. Yes. That's right. I am a big hit on the precap. Yes.

So I hear. I'm going to call you Devin because that's what makes me feel more comfortable. Devin. Yeah. Do you mind if I just call you Devin? It honestly makes me feel more comfortable too. He's got such Devin.

Of course, another writer. Everybody loves him. Everyone loves Devin. Not as divisive as me. No, no. Sure, call me Devin. Let's start with some kickoff banter. How about that, right?

Is this where we do kickoff banter? Let's do some kickoff banter. Desi, did you have a good time at the Emmys? Oh, I'm so glad you brought it up. Because if you didn't, I was about to. I can't shut up about it. It's the one thing the public likes hearing is us attending award shows. So relatable.

It's so relatable. It's why we do it for the accolade. And the stories. And the stories. To fill airtime. Did you have a good time in L.A.? I did have a good time in L.A. I took a very good friend of mine as my date, Stephen Bowman, who I don't get as much time with as I like.

Big fan of the precap. Big, loves the precap. I hope he's listening right now. He better be. If he's any kind of friend to me, he would be. Yeah. And I had a great time. Oh, great.

Yeah. It was fun. Yeah. Did you have a nice time? I did. I went with my wife. Sorry, ladies. And.

Wow. We're going to hear about it in the comments. What a sigh. Your wife who is the most beautiful woman on the planet. What kind of magic did you? That's very nice of you. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Trickery. Well, the compliment was it for you. It was for your wife. Yeah. I guess I conflated it as that very beautiful woman would choose. Yes. You know, so therefore it was, do you understand why I was glomming on? You both are.

Lucky to have one another. Thank you very much. She's lovely, though. She's truly lovely. I am going to make her listen to this for the first time. Good. She doesn't enjoy listening or watching your work? No.

Not typically? No. Did she enjoy Kevin's work? She loves Devin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are happier than ever. Oh, good. They have a beautiful family.

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Head over to superpower.com and use code TDS for $20 off your membership. That's code TDS. After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about Superpowered. Do us a favor if you could and tell them the Daily Show Ears Edition sent you to support the show. What did we miss? Well, a lot of news over the weekend. Over the weekend, a lot. So let's start with CNN and MS Now and Politico, those journalists being denied White House access. Is it crazy that I kind of forgot that Politico was still around?

Yes, this is, I feel like everybody's like, oh my God, CNN and MS now. And Politico. Oh no. What are we going to do without Politico? Yeah. Sorry, Politico. This is crazy, though. This is big.

Yes. Aside from maybe First Amendment issues. Yeah, all that aside. All of that aside. Authoritarian control of information. State, state-runner. I think it's going to be a careful what you wish for with Trump because I think on some level, he needs to feed off the anger.

He seems to revel in having these people he hates in front of him. Right. So I think it's going to get pretty old pretty quickly. I agree. I agree. I'm genuinely concerned to see the effect that it has on the media. I mean, now who's going to tell Caitlin Collins that she should smile more? Exactly.

Who's going to do that? Yep. No, I think it's like he's clearly been laying the groundwork for this for quite some time. This isn't the only time he's done something like this. He's weaponized the justice system. He's gone after journalists in the past. This is just a larger, more brazen step towards state-run media. Yes, nothing surprising about this.

No. But it does feel like a big move in that direction, which is frightening. Yep. Do you think that there's a little part of Caitlin and the other female journalists who are like, oh, no, I can't go into the Oval Office and get yelled at? by a nasty man who calls me stupid and tells me to smile more. Oh. I think there's, the other question is how have they, I know this a certain amount of, not I swore an oath, but, you know, this is the job that I've taken and this is the role

that I, I'm putting my ego aside and I think it's more important to report on this. Yeah. than to let those, you know, childish attacks get me down. However, everybody's got limits. How much of that bullshit can you really take? Right, right. It's this weird symbiotic thing where it's almost like President Trump knows that they're going to be there no matter what. So he doesn't have to really set up any limitations or guardrails on his behavior, right?

And he almost maybe, again, enjoys that he can do this. And they kind of feel like they have to stand strong. Do you think maybe he'll miss the attention and go, you know what? I take it back. Now you know, now you can come back. It'll be, I think it'll be a while. They've learned their lesson, even though nothing has changed. Now, I believe today when we're recording this, the press pool is banned together and said that they're not going to, even Fox News, I think, has.

Is that true? Yeah. They're not doing pool coverage. Wow. So, which was surprising. Good on Fox News. Because it really is going to be the very small few conservative networks that will still be there, I feel like. Yeah. If Fox News is out.

That's big. That's pretty incredible. Do you know who we can talk to about that this week? Devin? Devin, obviously, Devin. Okay. Jessica Tarlob who's coming on the show. Jessica Tarlob is coming on the show.

She's coming on the show. Of Raging Moderates, the podcast and of the Five. The lone liberal on the five. The one liberal on the five. The brilliant Jessica Tarlov. Yes. Hardest job in television. Have you interviewed her before?

Other than doing this podcast. Other than sitting in this show. That's right. Jessica Tarlov is on the show. Jessica Tarlov's coming on the show. Can you believe Fox News is letting her on with me? That is interesting. Yeah.

Are you, do you have anything off the top of your head that you might want to get into with her? Well, she wrote an incredible book. It's called I Disagree. Part memoir, part how to guide and how to show up in disagreements and have conversations with people, which will come in handy for the holidays. Book is excellent. She really is very open and vulnerable and talks about her upbringing and it's a great way into these lessons. but I the thing that she talks a lot about is showing up unapologetically and being confident in your

disagreement, which I think is so important for everyone to read about and to hear her perspective on, but particularly for women. And confident but not combative, not combative maybe, that kind of thing. Yeah, but, you know, how to, she's very. Because I don't find her to be overly combative. No, she's not. On the show, which I really like about her. She doesn't take the bait a lot of times.

Exactly. She holds firm, but she does not get into a screaming match or become the fire brand that they want her to become. She very intentionally does not get emotional about it. And she comes with all of the facts. She's very database, brings the statistics. Like she is so grounded in facts. But it really like it grounds her in an undeniable argument. And how she prepares for that is mind-blowing because she's got a stat for everything at any given moment.

And I know she works really hard to be able to do that. But it's kind of miraculous. It's interesting on that show, the five, when she brings up facts and a lot of things that should bring their conversation to a screeching halt. Yeah. How the other hosts just keep talking. Oh, yeah. As if, yeah, yeah.

And then they just... Or they just get... That's not true. No, yeah. Okay. That's not true. And then they just keep going. It's crazy.

Yeah. There should be so many moments where conversation over. Yeah. Here's something that negates your entire rant. Right. Right. But I don't know if it's just strengthened numbers, but they just plow over her facts a lot of times. They definitely do.

But she holds her own. She really holds her own. She does, yeah. I'm curious to know how many times she's having. had people come up to her and say that she actually opened up their mind to something. Because she'll tell you she's not setting out to change minds. She's setting out to open minds. And she has had, she writes in the book about a woman who came up to her and apologized for writing something nasty about her in the comments and thought better of it later.

So I'm curious to hear about more of those experiences if she's had other people come up and say, you know what, I thought this one thing, but I heard you speak about it and you changed my mind. Gotcha. Wow. All right, well, we look forward to that. I think that's Wednesday of this week. Wednesday. Wednesday.

Excellent. Two other really good guests on the show this week, Tom Morello. Yeah. Of Rage Against the Machine on Tuesday. And obviously, I'm not just raised against the machine, but he's obviously a political activist and an incredible guitar god. Yep. And then Merritt Weaver on Thursday. That's a good lineup.

This is some good guests this week, people. Yeah. You know, stick around for the interviews. A lot of favors. A lot of favors. Merritt Weaver's going to hold your feet over the fire? I mean, maybe. She's in a new movie called Primetime.

The Chris Hanson. Yeah, to catch a predator movie. Chris Hansen, who was on cameo. Is that right? I don't know if he still is. But yeah, at one point he was on cameo. You could get a cameo from Chris Hanson. How many cameos have you gotten from Chris Hanson?

Okay. No, I think after he got caught for writing bad checks, That's a real thing. Is that true? Yeah, he was passing bad checks, I believe. And so then he surfaced on cameo. Wow. Yeah, that's a pretty good one, though.

If you're going to get a cameo... That's a great one. That's a pretty good one. I'm going to keep that in mind. At the end of a long, demanding day, nothing plays a larger role in overall recovery and daily performance than restorative sleep. Given that roughly one-third of life is spent in bed, settling for a saggy, worn-out mattress, often leads to

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and start your vacation as soon as you're on the plane. Book your sunny getaway today at flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Oh, let's talk about the arch. The arch. Trump is building his triumphal arch. And what he is saying is, is that it is a military installation,

that the arch will be a place to store drones and munitions. Finally. And he said, I think he said on social media, at great request of the military. Oh, yes. So it was their idea. Of course. Of course it was.

To make the arch a battery in the middle of Washington, D.C. Oh, my God. Finally, someone is January 6th proofing the Capitol. That's true. The buildings. Those people wouldn't have stormed the Capitol if they had known that there were missile launchers a few hundred yards away. There was a missile-loaded arch. That never would have happened. It does feel like he kind of, I was saying earlier to you before this, like it's like something my son would build with Legos and be like, I'm building an arch now to end. add guns to it.

Totally. Now it's done. Mom, look, I built a zoo at a Legos, but wait, one gun, two guns. Guns and lasers and bombs. It's just such a weird G.I. Joe view of the military that, you know, it just feels like, you know, oh, man, the G.I. Joe arch now with real bomb storage. Yeah. I don't, it just feels so childish, such a childish view of the military that way. It's really playing to the lowest common denominator.

It is. And now, of course, the real reason for this is that he can get money to build it. Right. If he couches it as a military, as a military necessity. Oh, you say no to the ballroom? How about a ballroom with guns? There you go. No to the arch?

How about an arch with guns? Yes. How are we going to defend an already heavily protected in armed city like Washington, D.C., without an arch with guns in it? I'm so happy that he's so well protected as AI comes after the rest of us. Yes. Who's going to want to drive under an arch that could potentially explode? That sounds terrible.

I already hold my breath when I go into tunnels and over bridges. That's what you're supposed to do, right? And given the way his construction projects have gone, there's a real possibility that someone gets hit by- It could go awry? I think it's hit by a falling semi-automatic rifle while they're taking a selfie with the arch. Oh, God. Anyway, all right. So that is our latest military installation is the Trump Arch.

So those are some things that we're going on over the weekend. Well, guess what? We're going to talk about some stuff coming up this week. We are. Let's do it. Some ongoing stories, of course, Xi from the president of China. President Xi is going to visit Washington, I guess, amid the growing AI crisis that we have going on. He and President Trump are going to discuss the possibility of AI regulation, AI guardrails.

Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it? I don't know. I'm skeptical this is going to be a productive. If there was ever a meeting for show. Uh-huh. This would be a lot of nodding kind of like, uh-huh. Yeah, we're definitely going to curb our development.

I think being skeptical is exactly the right feeling. Yeah. It's who's going to blink first, and neither of these guys is really into that. I just wish that the government was willing to regulate AI as much as they're willing to regulate my uterus. You know? Well, if your uterus could make cool videos of if it could be. put boobs on goofy and make him dance or something. I don't know.

Hey, don't assume my uterus can't do that. You don't know what my uterus can and cannot do. You don't know what I've been practicing at home. I just mansplained your uterus too. Yeah, how dare you? I'm so sorry. I'm going to slack over some of the videos. Here I was thinking I was recovering.

And it's gotten worse. As soon as you brought up your uterus, I should have taken the bait. Yeah, yeah. You fail. You know who wouldn't have done that? My wife? No. Devin wouldn't have done that.

God, fucking Devin. Oh, he's so perfect. Yeah. I bet he's not insecure. Anyway, of course, the CEOs of Anthropic, the Anthropic CEO especially has warned us that AI is going to eliminate humanity. There's a greater than 10% chance, right? That's what he said. By the end of the decade, I think that's what he said.

In 10 years, in the next 10 years. How bad does it have to be for an expert? that to come out. Someone who has nothing. That's how I feel. But to gain everything from it working. It must be really bad behind the scenes for him to come out and say, I think we need to tap the brakes on this. Yeah. Because he has every reason not to. He is one of the only people that has every reason not to do that. Right. So I fear for humanity and your uterus. Thank you. Thank you. I feel cut that part out about the uterus. No, Alan, I'd like you to keep it in.

Oh, God. I'd like you to keep my uterus in, please. Does Desi have final cut on the pre-cap? No, but my uterus does. Your uterus does? And she wants this in. Fuck. At Cox, your internet and mobile price won't change for five years.

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Requires two-gig speeds and gig unlimited mobile. Taxes and fees excluded from price lock. Mobile data speeds reduced after 20 gigs. All right, Daily Show and Tell. Let's do that, Desi. Ooh. This is, people know what this is, right? You just talk about something that's on your mind, something you've watched Red, happened lately.

anything interesting. Let's just fill some time. Do you know what I'm excited about? Yes, go ahead. Troy Iwada is in a little show called Heated Rivalry, The Parity, in New York City. It's a musical, and I'm going to see it on Sunday. Wow.

I cannot be. Troy Aywada of Daily Show fame. Troy Iwada of a daily show. We can, Alan, can you edit that out? You know, Alan's in Canada, and we don't have a great relationship with Canada. Oh, you were pronounced. dancing it the Canadian way. Iwada in Canada.

Can you do me a solid, my Canadian friend? I'm so excited to see Troy's show this weekend. It's a musical. In New York. In New York. Fantastic. He's supposed to be incredible. The show is supposed to be hilarious.

I love heated rivalry on its own. I love my Troy Iwada. I cannot wait to watch it. I'm curious what the crowd would be like at that. Is it a thunder down under type crowd? No. I think it's a. Well, it could be.

I only asked because I know that that show was huge with, you know, kind of the white suburban soccer mom crowd. Are you assuming because I'm going that I'm bringing the white suburban song? As soon as I said it and I saw your face, I knew that was a mistake. I mean, it was instantaneous. What I wouldn't give to be a white suburban soccer mom. As soon as I am white and I am a soccer mom. See, there you go. I don't have the suburban part.

You are not suburban. No, I just know that that was a, that was part of the reason for that show's popularity. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. Not that there will be a lot of. Not by any means was that the only group that watched it. It was a massive hit.

Yeah. But I was wondering if that's who would show up at that, at a musical like that. I would guess a lot of women. I would guess a lot of straight women will be going. Okay. Yeah. I think, no, it's supposed to be hilarious. And I'm very excited to see it.

I'm very happy for him. Oh, yeah. Well, he's hilarious. and the best. I'm excited for him. And I hear the music is incredible. Right. Yeah. He's got he's got a great singing voice which is. He's got a real musical, you know, flare to his performance. He has an incredible voice. Anytime we ask him to sing or do something rhythmic, he's so capable. Oh, he brings on the house. But unfortunately, we don't have enough opportunities to get him to sing. We need to figure out a way to work that in a little bit more.

That's a good, that's a good idea, actually. Pitches in the comments. Send your pitches in the comments. Anywho. What's your. daily show and tell my daily show and tell how hot your wife is okay god i better think of something quick to stop you from talking uh here this is interesting um let's see my so we my kids asked for a 3d printer oh yes um which i was not really familiar with what they do exactly i mean i knew that they were interesting or whatever. So they've been printing out little, I guess, it basically just prints out plastic stuff

and you can put it right in a landfill or you can keep it around your house for a few days before it goes in a landfill. But my daughter, she printed out. I said, what are you printing out? And she goes, I'm printing out a hat. I said, okay, cool. It says make America great again.

Like, this is, no one in my family watches my work. It's red. Yes. She's making a hat. Cool. And then so the other day she comes in wearing a bright blue, I guess I want to say it's a Vietnamese rice harvesting hat that she printed out that she's been wearing to school. And it is.

How's that going over? So far. So good, I guess. How old is she now? She's nine. I believe the teacher said, unfortunately, we're not allowed to wear hats in the classroom. Yes, that'll take care of it. I love it.

And I can't tell if this is just weird or culturally insensitive what you're doing right now. I love that nine is the age when typically like you go to pick up your kid and they're like, oh my God, don't make eye contact with me. I don't know you. Just let me walk by myself. And you're doing the opposite with your daughter. You're like, just walk over there. The kid with the plastic rice harvesting hat. Daddy will be across the street.

I'll meet you at home. Whose kid is that? Not me. So anyway, who knows what else the old 3D printer is going to be spitting out. But that's where we started. Oh, no. It was with a weird hat. Stay tuned.

I'll let you know. Good luck with the 3D printer. How that goes over. Does it have an algorithm? Do 3D printers sort of like have an? algorithm or some sort of memory. It has some sort of app where you can look at what other people have created. Okay.

Right. And I guess they share it publicly and then you can try to print it yourself. Okay. I think the idea is you try to create some stuff on your own and share it with people. And then everybody, it's this sort of everybody shares their projects. Okay. So everyone will be walking around with the facts now. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, she's starting a trend. You know what? I could start just knocking them out for people in the office. That's okay. I don't think that's... I don't think that'll be necessary. I mean, it's thin blue plastic that you put together.

It could not be a less appealing thing to put on your body. Oh, boy. But she's very proud of it. Oh, boy. Well... Interesting kid. Anyway, that is going to be it for the pre-cap. Desi Lideck all this week on the Daily Show.

Thanks a lot for hanging out. Thank you for having me, Devin. It was lovely. Silky, smooth, as usual. I'm Devin Delequante, a writer and producer on The Daily Show, and it has been lovely hanging out with my favorite, Desi Leidic. Shout out to Matt's wife. Shout out to Matt's wife.

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