The Daily Show: Ears Edition - The Precap | Michael Kosta on America's Battles with Iran, Canada, and US Open Tennis Influencers

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

This week's host Michael Kosta sits down with Daily Show writer Scott Hercman to catch up on the latest news, and preview the week to come. They dig in to what happened while the show was on summer break only to discover that not much has changed. America's still at war with Iran, still antagonizing Canada with tariffs and renamed lakes, and the climate is still trying to kill us all. Looking ahead they take a look at the influencer invasion of the US Open, the massive punishment of the LA Clippers, and the even more massive Meta settlement over teen mental health. -- Go to https://Quince.com/dailyshow for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/dailyshow -- 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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That's Shopify.com. You're listening to Comedy Central. Hello and welcome to the pre-cap, a daily show podcast where we sit down with this week's host to recap some of the latest news and preview what's coming up next. I'm Scott Hirkman, a writer at the show, and I'm joined today at home with your host for the week, Michael Costa. I'm Michael Costa. I mean, we're not even back in the office yet. We are not back in the office yet. We are still at home.

You are in a sauna, I believe. I'm in what they call. I'm not in the sauna. I'm in the side room. But why am I here, Scott? Because I'm escaping my family for this. This is the greatest one hour of my day right here. Yeah.

And you can two-time us. You can do the podcast and get a good schvitz in at the same time. And if I take my shirt off and I put on my sauna hat, don't hold it against me. You have a sauna hat? Does that a thing? What? That's what the sauna had door-to-door salesman told me. Yeah.

Is it to impress other people in the sauna? Absolutely. Who doesn't love this? Oh, I'm sure Desi, Josh, Jordan, Ronnie, and John Stewart did the same bit when they were in their sauna. You're the only person I've spoken to while in said sauna. So I'll get back to you on what Ronnie's doing in the sauna. I imagine sweating a lot. Sweating a lot.

We're just getting off summer break. Yes. We're one of the few adults that still have summer break. What do you do for your summer break? It's true. It is such a privileged problem to be like, oh, I'm antsy. Work gave me the month off. I have kids.

It's a very parenting heavy summer, which I love. But I was able to get away and do some Michael stuff. I did a motorcycle tour. I did a bicycle a couple days in New Jersey in New York on a bicycle that was really cool

which did you do first bicycle or motorcycle I did motorcycle first couple weeks off and then I did the bicycle and I will say I think you should do it the other way I would agree

yeah I was going so fast on the motorcycle and on the bicycle you're like wow I'm slow and this sucks What about you, Scott? What'd you do? A lot of family stuff also.

I saw the Paw Patrol movie. That was a big highlight in my home. That's big. That's big. I felt like we were out of that phase and then we saw the movie and now we're back in that phase. Scott doesn't even have kids, you guys. I'm the one who had to get rid of the toys and get new ones for myself because I had to get back into it. But yeah, a lot of outdoor stuff, swimming, sports.

How do you stay, how do you stay upbeat and enthusiastic about parenting when you wake up? It's early. It's been five days of parenting in a row. How do you stay up for that? I drink at night. Drink at night. Okay, good to know. I feel like we come up with, like every night we'd be like, all right, so what are we doing

tomorrow? And now it kind of like set up. It wasn't just like, all right, we'll sit at home and figure it out by 11 o'clock. who'd be like, all right, we're going to the Bronx Zoo or we're going to go to the beach today. So that like once you're packing up the car, your adrenaline is just like pumping and you're like, all right, we're doing it today. I'm hyped. How do you handle that? Well, no, I like that.

Because packing up the car, I feel sometimes like an explorer heading west. Yes. And there's this whole idea of like what will we encounter today and will I protect my family? Even that means if you're going to the Bronx Zoo, if you're going anywhere, going to the beach. I mean, taking a family of young kids to the beach is very similar to heading west in the late 1700s, not knowing if you will come back alive, mangled, dead. I would venture to say it's harder. It is. We're the heroes.

We're the heroes. We are the modern. day, Lois and Clark. Lewis and Clark. I really like that because I, I feel like when we pack up the car, it's like, okay, we have provisions. We have hockey sticks in case we need, like, we're driving 20 minutes to my parents. And it's like, all right, we have a kite.

I don't know. Maybe like, we have a gun. If that breaks, we have a crossbow. We can, we can eat deer. Yeah, exactly. It is, it is, you know, that's actually one of the things I love about being a dad is, you know, so much of our world is surrounded in politics and division and comedy. And it just gets me out of that space, you know, temporarily.

I'm very thankful for what I do and I'm very interested in what I do. But like when it's go time with the family locked in the car seats, like that's the, that's it. That's what you're focused on. There's no like podcast to listen to while you have kids in the back seat. When people are like, have you been following the news? It's like, I wish I could be following the news. Like I am in like Bluey land. Yeah.

And I'm like invested in what's going on with Bluey and his dad. I don't know what's going on. If by news you mean what's happening with Bluey's dad. I did take a break from the news. And I will say I sometimes feel guilty about that. Thankfully, I'm not a journalist. I'm a comedian. But because of our show and also because of what I believe is a serious moment in our country's history,

I really feel and I really want all Americans to be paying attention. You know, that's like when my friends say, oh, I'm not really paying attention. I'm like, you got to pay attention right now especially. So like I did feel guilty for stepping out of that. Thankfully, all that guilt has subsided because now we are stepping right back into it. Getting dressed should be completely effortless, which means having dependable wardrobe staples that get worn on repeat. The sweater that matches virtually everything, the tailored pair of pants, and the perfectly fitted tea makes a daily routine run smoothly. Quince focuses specifically on

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I mean, Trump and Heggseth. Yeah. I think five days. I mean, when I heard five days, I was like, oh, they're changing it to five days. I mean, it's now been what, five months, six months? I think almost six months. And I don't know if they're procrastinating or don't have a plan, but it seems like they don't know what they're doing. And the big story while we were gone was, the U.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that there were all these reports of like horrendous conditions. They were at sea for, I like this wording because the news said an all-time record, which I thought was funny to put in words terms like talking about it's sports. Yeah, it's records. And they finally docked in Thailand for what they call rest and relaxation stop. So they're not

home. They're just taking a break in Thailand until they have to get back on the boat. Well, and keep in mind, yeah, it is crazy. And keep in mind, this is something I learned, and so I want to share with our listeners. Thailand is not where you would typically dock if you were where they were. But the two places they normally dock have been blown up by the Iranian military, which that seems to be lost on many Americans. So they're going way out of their way to dock. You know, it's like when talking about the family trip, it's like when you drive 35 miles. off the interstate to fill up the gas. You know, you wouldn't do that, but you would have Iran had blown up your normal shell stations. If they had blown up all your shell stations, you would go to a different state.

Yeah. So this is a mess. This is like, you know, troops first, America first, no new wars. Here we are in a war. No one wants or supports. The troops are not being taken care of. Was this the aircraft carrier, Scott, where people were like jumping off of it? There was a report that somebody jumped off the boat.

And then they were being like very sketchy with like, oh, is it from emotional distress? Yeah. Or like, I don't know what the other reason would be. It's scary. I saw some of the pictures of the food they were eating and it reminded me of the fire festival. And it was just like, oh, it's like the fire festival, but war. Right. Like, if war couldn't get bad enough.

Right. It's like fire festival level war. If you're launching missiles and having missiles launched at you, let's feed, let's feed them appropriately. And yeah, this is a shame. This is a really sad shame that they're American soldiers are in at risk at all and treated so poorly. I mean, these deployments are not this long typically. No. Yeah.

All time record. They're usually out shorter. But something that I thought was interesting also. I saw in their like cleanup of saying that more. morale's not that bad. One of the things they listed for like why morale's not bad, like, oh, we have a psychologist. Also, we have an emotional support dog. Nice.

On the vessel. So don't worry. Everyone's good. And I was like, oh, that poor dog has been out to see for 280 days. This dog's like, why didn't the president Google the stray to whore moves? 40% of the world's oil goes through the straight. What if I could have told him that? What a fucking idiot?

Oh, man. I mean, yeah, the poor dog. Why do animals always get thrown into this? The poor dog. There's one psychologist. by the way, I have friends who have served and they're the first to tell you when you call the VA hospital for mental health help, it's like, yeah, sure, we have an appointment in eight months. I mean, half that ship should be psychologists. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, so who knows when it's going to end? I'm sure we'll talk about that this week on the show. But I guess the challenge here is I get frustrated and comedy should not just. be frustrations. But we'll find some comedy, I'm sure. We always do. You always do, right, Scott?

I always do. I always do. There'll be some stupid press conference or, you know, some something. Yeah. Someone will fall or somebody will fall. Hopefully not the emotional support dog. Yeah. Well, we might not talk about that war because we could be talking about another war,

which is our war with Canada. Canada. A? A. Yeah. What do you got to say about that, Alan? Totally going to kick your butt in this war. Alan's Canadian. Alan's Canadian.

And the producer of the podcast. But yeah, we're levying mutual tariffs against each other. Trump renamed Lake Ontario, Lake Trump, and posted an AI video doing that. Well, he didn't name it Lake Trump, did he? Oh, Lake America.

Sorry, he named the Lake America. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, once he names things, it could go either way, what he's naming it. But yeah, he's naming it, like America. And this is through a federal was this to an executive order?

It was an executive order. Okay, so I dug into this because anybody who knows me or watches the show knows, I like water. All right? I like water. You fucking love water. I love water. I'm a water guy.

As I've told anyone that would listen, all of this other stuff we talk about on the daily show, we wouldn't even have to talk about it if our water was gone, because we'd all be dead. It's wild to me that our president is mad at how the war in Iran is going. So he's picking on his neighbor. It's very first grade. But he can do this.

He can write an executive order which will change the name on American federal maps only. That's very important. Yes. It's not globally. It's not even in Canada. Here's the problem. He's creating a distorted reality. And, you know, Google falls in line, changes it on their maps.

Apple falls in line. And when Trump gets inaugurated and we see Google and Apple there and we maybe think, oh, what's the big deal? He's there to support the president, whatever. It's like, this is the shit that's a problem. Everybody falls in line. And that's not, this is in a, you know, it's awful. It makes me very mad. Well, it makes him feel like he.

he can keep doing things like this. Correct. Correct. And then courts try to step in. And then he calls the courts corrupt. Yes. When it's so like third grade level, we're like, I licked this. So it's mine now. Right.

It's so silly. But I saw one funny winner of this name change is globe makers. Okay. Because it's going to cost the money to make more globes. Sure. But I saw one globe maker saying, well, anyone who wants to buy a new globe where it says like America, it gives us a. a boost in globe sale. Give this a boost.

So, you know, do you have a globe in your house? No. Do you have a globe? Absolutely. I have a fucking globe. I have a globe that you plug in. And at night, it shows you the country borders also. So put that in your put that in there, Alan. Put that in the pod. Dude, I love a globe. I love a globe. I love spinning a globe. Spinning a globe is fun. It reminds you of a basketball. Yep. That's what I like. You can shoot it and then it breaks. I think a globe should be in the house.

I think it's important to show children, hey, this is, you see this tiny little spec? That's us. Yeah. And, you know, I, why doesn't some employee at Google or Apple who's like, you know, disgruntled and knows how to hack, why don't they hack in there and change Google Maps to say like, you know, something different that's funny? I don't know. Like Seymour Buts. Like Lake, like Lake Seymour butts. Yeah. That would be funny. Lake Ben Dover.

Yeah. If I'm ever president, that's my first executive order. That's number one on the agenda. But you know what? Where else can this go? Like he can do this more and more. He's done it with the Gulf of Mexico. And he'll keep doing it. So until people vote him out or, you know, yeah, it's wild. And I know you feel this way. It's crazy to see him and these tech companies like working on this. Like you have somebody dedicated to like, oh, I'm going to change the map today. When there are legitimate issues that aren't made up happening, not to bring the room down, but we're seeing like crazy climate disasters all over the world right now. Like Nepal, the wildfires, the flash floods at the Grand Canyon.

And like not only is he and our government. not doing anything about that, but now they're also like paying billions of dollars to cancel wind farms. Yes. And I know you feel this way too. It's so frustrating to see the inaction, not just the inaction, but the action towards making it worse. Yeah. And you're kind of damned either way.

I'm damned if I fall for the Lake America bait. But also it is important to me. You know, I'm, I don't want to spend time talking about the. reflection pool. Yeah. But also, it's unprecedented what's happened or his name on the Kennedy Center. But you're right. Like, man, climate change is a thing.

We're all experiencing extreme weather. And we were talking about it prior to this. We feel responsibility. We feel onus on our shoulders. And I'm sitting here going, wait a second. Why am I feeling more guilty when I use a plastic straw than the president is? we need leaders to come together. This podcast should call like Costa's pissed.

We need leaders to come together and offer solutions that collaborative solutions that we can get behind and be inspired for the future generations, not worried and scared. Costa for president? Geez, I don't know. I really, I wasn't even feeling it. This was going to come out. But maybe it's just this water. The water stuff gets me. The water thing. If water becomes the main issue of our time, you are ready to go.

I'm a Michigander. You know, we're surrounded by the Great Lakes, Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Now, by the way, Holmes, that's the acronym for the Great Lakes. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. Well, now, because Ontario is America, it's going to be haines. It doesn't make any sense, Scott. Makes no sense. How am I supposed to remember that now? That's going to be impossible. You touched on something interesting to me that, you know, like, you're like, oh, we would

love to not be talking about the reflecting pool. But sometimes what happens at our job is the reflecting pool stuff ends up so much funnier than anything else that's happening. Like, remember we worked on that chat the other day where it's, it was you at this point, like months ago. You're drinking the reflecting pool water, hoping like it turns you into the Hulk. Yes. And it's like that's so fun for us to jump into. Yeah. And then when we have to jump into these stories, we, we get like so frustrated sometimes. And it's harder to have fun. How as host do you kind of tackle those two things where this is just a fun day? This is an I'm angry day. They're

fucking with our water day. Right. I mean, I don't think, I don't think you should go in with this is an angry day or i'm angry day i think what's way more um helpful and often funny is when you just find specific details and go all in on that i'm so thankful that i'm not a journalist i have to remind myself of that i'm a comedian so you can get mad but man what the daily show does so well and what you writers do so well is here is a serious story about the reflecting pool pretty low stakes look it's easier to heighten stuff if it's pretty low stakes right yeah like the reflecting pool is pretty low stakes it pisses me off it's a sign of our authoritarian regime but at the end of the day nobody's dead uh it's a symbol so those that's when the daily show writing team like really can

heighten shit and now costa's drinking ecto cooler and now i'm turning into the hawk and we go higher and higher If that was the southern border, many Central Americans are risking their lives to cross over into Texas, that's a harder thing. Those stakes are truly, truly high. So you are right, as I'm talking this out, we got to cover the big stakes and the high stakes, but those lower stakes, that's where we can really play comedically, I feel like. Which I feel like you do a good balance as the host. I feel like sometimes you come in and you'll say, like, we got to talk about it. that. Yeah. I mean, if RFK Jr. ate a bear on the side of the road, that's beautiful. That's low stakes and comedic. Yeah. But him, you know, changing vaccination requirements, not as funny.

Kind of a bummer. Kind of a bummer, man. Yeah. By the way, do you know what I'm having a cappuccino right now with my Comedy Central mug? I mean, that is outrageous branding. That is great branding. Alan, how much money do we we just make? Alan? All of it. All of it. We made all the money. Hell yeah.

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Yeah. Some of the things we can look forward to, a good amount of sports going on. I assume that's why I'm here. They usually only want to talk sports with me. I'm ready for my Nix preview two months in advance. I'm so thankful you're on the writing staff, Scott, because when we do sports war or there's a sports story, I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me with these guys.

And now Scott actually knows a few things, which is nice. Yes, that is the one thing I can definitely say I know a few things about. When the NICs were like winning, everybody came up to me to talk to me about it. And I was like, Where have you all been for the last 10 years? All of a sudden, we're high-fiving. But it was good. But the U.S. Open is going on.

Yes. You are famously a tennis professional. That's right. Wrote a book. Wrote a book. I played professionally not at the U.S. Open. I never got that good. But I love the sport.

It is safe to say it is a passion that has hurt. hurt me physically and emotionally my whole life. But that's how you know you love it. So on that beautiful note, do you have any picks for the U.S. Open so that I could go on Fandall right now and take some bets? You know, Americans always do very well at the U.S. Open. I think you'll notice the money lines will not be as if they were playing in a different country.

It will favor the American a little bit. But Americans really step up at the U.S. Open. So I would always, you know, I always like to really think about the Americans. Cocoa Golf on the women's side is looking great. So life savings on Cocoa. Life savings on Cocoa. I would also put your wife's life savings on Jessica Pagula. Done.

She's made the finals. Her dad owns the Buffalo Bills. She's a great competitor on the men's side. Taylor Fritz is looking great. Tommy Paul is looking great. And yeah, it's just, you know, I like the Americans at the open. They also, by the way, by the way, and they resurfaced the courts every year. Before they do that, they look at the playing style of all the Americans and they kind of find.

That's diabolical. They kind of, I mean, they all do this. Wimbledon does this with the grad. The French does this with clay. The Australian Open will famously slow down or speed up a court depending. So, you know, that also serves the use of pun, excuse me, serves the American tennis players. Pun intended. Nice.

There's been a bunch of stories with the U.S. Open about like the takeover of influencers at the U.S. Open. There's been a bunch of videos of like people with ring lights in the stands. I mentioned this to you yesterday that. It kind of felt like for a while tennis was like begging for more fan engagement. And now they got it. And they're like, get rid of all this fan engagement. We don't like it.

How do you feel when you're there about all that stuff? I have a question for you. At a Knicks game, are you seeing any of that? I'm not seeing ring lights or influencers. I feel like you can tell the fans who are like there for the hype and the fans that are there because they love the game, but I feel like once the game starts, it's all high-fiving. But I also think basketball is different. You know, it's like constant action.

Tennis is, I feel like growing up, I remember going to the U.S. Open and it being like, okay, you remain quiet until the point is done. Then you can get loud and clap. And it has like more of like a respect element to it where people are yelling the entire Knicks game. But I don't know, if I saw a ringlight at the Knicks game, it would shock me. Yeah. I mean, you bring up a great point in that the, you know, the sport caters to different things.

Tennis, there's a lot of downtime. And in particular, in the first week, the matches are kind of bad. Like the favorites are winning easily. I mean, I went to Arena Sabalanka's second round match. She went in 51 minutes. I mean, by the time I got a beer and a hot dog, it was over. Yeah. So that's, that is also why fans are chatting.

They're on their phone. They're doing the post. You see a lot less of that in the quarters and the semifinals when it's like a very, very close match. But I do think you're right. Tennis was begging for popularity. Now it has it. And it's shut out a lot of people that actually want tickets to watch the sport.

So they have to adjust this. And, um, my, my, my, former coach at University of Illinois, Craig Tiley, now the CEO of the USDA. Let me call him. Let me call him. Siri, call Craig. No, but they got to make. They got to make some adjustments. And I hope they do adjust this because it's not the sport.

The sport should be taken seriously by those that are there to watch it. And it's a little bit of a mockery when people have ring lights and aren't paying attention to these world class athletes. I mean, I went there the other day on, like, family day where there were matches going on. I was there with my kids. I watched about five minutes of tennis. Yeah. By the time we got through like the 45 minute chase bank line to get a tennis keychain, it's like, oh, I don't even know what I'm doing here.

It's more about like the activations than watching the sport itself. It is very, it is very commercialized more so than the other grand slams, you know, for sure. I still think it is one of your better nights in New York City of the year. You know, I was there last night. The amount of people from all over the world that show up, the outfits, the energy, the, you know, where else can I watch a Russian superstar female and then walk 100 feet and watch a Tunisian male doubles player? I mean, it's just got so much going on and it is so much fun. I would love for the USDA to turn the volume down on the influencer stuff. There's enough tennis fans that will buy the tickets.

You don't need to go. You don't need to do all that. Well, a big reason for all this like attention towards the U.S. Open is the world famous honeydews drink, which I'm going to be honest, is delicious. I was reading it made $17 million last year. Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know what it is, it's three honeydew melons inside like a cup of vodka. Hand scooped.

Hand scooped. And let me just tell you, you know, when you buy a can of tennis balls, how many tennis balls are in there, Scott? Three tennis balls. Three tennis balls. They just have to figure out how you can get the noise with the smell for the honeydews. But it got me thinking that. I think the Daily Show could really use a signature drink to bring in $17 million. Do you have any ideas for what a Daily Show signature drink would be?

I think a signature daily show drink is absolutely correct. And I would argue that the U.S. Open saw the success of Wimbledon's strawberries and cream. Oh, I don't even know that that's a thing. Wimbledon has been buying the same strawberries from the same. farm for 200 years and they put heavy cream over it's delicious um and u.s. open buys their melons from the same farm okay hey nice melons so so I know there was just somebody walking by that had nice breasts oh sweet I I think the daily show should have a signature drink and what would it be to

Depending on who's in, depending on the administration, like it's just like a, you know, currently it's just a blackout drink. Yeah. A mind eraser. A mind eraser. Oh, just like a race is the last three years. Tequila, Jack, whiskey. That would be great. We should serve drinks at the show, by the way.

Would you be in favor of hosting while people are drinking and doing influencer content with ringlights? Absolutely. I think there's no better audience than after one drink. The problem is the two, the three of the four. The two, okay. And are we doing free drinks in this scenario or we're also passing out checks to everybody? I think John Stewart's credit card is at the bar. And it's a free, you know, by the way, Kimmel used to do green room before the show free drinks.

And I think they stopped that because people would like puke in the audience or something. That sounds very fun. The other big sports news is this L.A. Clippers punishment. going on for circumventing the salary cap to sign kawai leonard they are fine the team is fine 30 million dollars the owner is banned steve balmer is banned from any clippers associated events or activities for a year and they lost five draft picks because they paid kawai leonard a salary on the books and paid him or as it's very unclear pablo tori did an amazing investigative journalism on it Yeah.

Millions of dollars off the books to get him to sign with the clippers for a less amount. It's pretty amazing to see someone get in trouble in today's day and age. Oh, right. I mean, that, you know, what's it called? It's like the efficiency fantasy. Like when you actually see people do something wrong and get punished, it's like, I get off on that, you know, especially based on like, yeah, that's my king. but Scott, the reason they kind of tried to circumvent this is because of the salary cap. Is that right?

It's because of the salary cap. So let's say you have like $80 million to spend on each of your players. They were paying Kauai $24 million so that they would have more money to round out the team. And then off the books, pay him an extra $40 million or so that he would be happy to sign with the team and not go somewhere else for more. money. And certainly this is, people have thought of this before, but this is clearly against the rules. This is clearly against the rules. I can't imagine it's the first time that it's ever happened. Yeah. Um, the like the funny detail was it was, Kauai Leonard was being paid for being the spokesman for a charity that was planting trees. Right. But they never planted any of the trees.

Oh, man. It was just a fake charity. So I think the punishment should be, they should have to plant a he should have to plant trees. Dude, my six-year-old had to do a tree study in kindergarten, and she had to explain to me how it takes sunlight and turns it into chlorophyll, is this even right? And then turns that into oxygen. Kauai Leonard should have to do that. We should have to do a tree study.

And presented for everybody. I love the law and order still exists in sports. Yep. You know, look, it's like if you deflated the footballs too much, that's against the rules. You're punished for that. If you cheat, you're punished for that. Now, of course, there's cheating and doesn't always get caught. But in this world we live in now where the president can call the head of FIFA, although that's an example of the law and order not happening.

But there is this fantasy. Soccer doesn't count as a real sport. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I really enjoy knowing. that there is a space where there's rules. If you use your hands and you're not allowed to, they penalize you.

You may have to sit out for, you know, hockey. God, is there anything more beautiful? They literally say, go sit in that box. Yeah, and they have to sit in a box alone. So it's literally a timeout. It's an unbelievable. It's a timeout. And they're mad and they're spitting blood and their teeth are hanging out.

But they know the rules of the game. So they go sit in the box. Yeah. They cool down. All they're missing from. being like a toddler box is like a couple fidget spinners. Totally. Here are some calm down toys to relax until you get back in the game.

And I think I think I appreciate sport more now than ever because if someone's pinky is offside, you're offside. And that's the rule. And it draws the line and we can review the tape. And we believe the tape. We believe the tape. Everybody watches the tape and everyone agrees we are seeing the same. thing. How many times is there a news story where Fox is saying, no, no, no, if you watch it,

it's this. And MSNBC is saying, no, no, if you watch it, it's this. It's no, it's a tape. You can't dispute what you see. Elon did the Nazi salute. Yeah. Here's the tape. You said, you said this war would be five days. Here's the tape. Go sit down. You get a, you get six months off in the penalty. But I know it. So there is a beauty of the hierarchy and the law of sport. So good job. By the way, journalism at its finest, let's always applaud independent journalists doing their job to call out bullshit and in some small capacity make us feel that there are rules and society, uh, is fair to a degree. Yeah. So we can't, you can't say it better than more sports. We should all be watching more sports. We should all be watching more

sports and less politics. Less politics. The other huge story, not sports-related at all, is Mehta's $17 billion settlement over teen mental health. They didn't apologize or say I did wrong, but they paid $17 billion. Billion. Billion. Billion, billion, billion, billion with a B.

And they agreed to make major changes on their platform for teen use now. Yeah. I have the list here of some of the things like setting screen limits. It mutes during school hours. It mute like the app is muted between midnight and 6 a.m. For teenagers, there's no more light counts or reactions or plastic surgery filters. Yeah, that's ridiculous. You're restricted to only using the apps for two hours a day.

So after years of giving us all mental health issues, they're going to stop. Yeah, and just keep in mind, everyone, they've they've said a lot of this shit before. and let's also keep in mind every time we open up the app i don't know what version i'm running they change these things and they change it again and you don't even know yeah let's not rely on the for-profit tech company to do the right thing let's also police itself police itself let's also elect leaders and our and give our schools the power to you know ban phones I mean, that's now, you know, the state of New York. I don't know the other states, but, you know, you cannot have phones in schools.

I don't know exactly know how they enforce all that. I know my kid's school, they put it in a locked bag. Oh, wow. You know, it's pretty, it's, it was a high priority. I love that. So I hope somebody there gives a shit actually. To actually, not to date you, but you never had cell phones in high school or college, right? I had, you know that, um, um, say,

the bell zack phone yeah you had the back phone you stuck that in your pocket for no we did and i mean i'm trying to think of the example of that i mean we used to this'll date me we used to sneak out of school and go into my friend's car and listen to a cd right we did we did we know walkman yeah you had a walk man but you yeah yeah so it's just a much different i feel and by the way these kids you can't expect a 14 year old to know how to regulate this shit that's no and they shouldn't have to know they shouldn't have to know exactly to be the parents and when they're in school yeah there has to be something that's helping them what about you what was your school tech sitch i was like uh in middle school was like when flip phones were a thing and you know we would like sneak them behind your friends back

to play snake snake snake was fun snake was fun snake was fun and then like blackberries and bBM became a thing and then iPhones by the time I was in college, there definitely was a wild, wild west aspect to it that I only realized now. Social media wasn't as prevalent then. Yeah. So we weren't like posting pictures or making videos or making content. But in terms of just having a phone at school,

like we were texting each other answers during tests. Yeah. And like texting each other the entire. But we lost like what you were saying with the CD, we lost some of the adventure element. Like writing on a note and passing it to somebody is like, oh, don't get caught. Sitting there like this is like, oh, not as fun. It is so difficult for this generation because the pictures and the images, you know, we were, we were bullied and made fun of maybe a little bit behind our back because we wore a stupid sweater one day.

but that stupid sweater photograph wasn't posted and shit. You know, it's just, it's really hard. And we need to be more supportive of this generation and helping them get through a difficult time for everyone in their lives at that time. It's a difficult time. Yeah. Yeah. And even with Instagram, it's like, I never had a place where I could post a picture. And my friends from school could comment on that.

Yeah. but also 30 family members from around the country could comment on it. Right. Like sometimes when I post things, I have an anthal right. Like, I love you so much. You look so cute. And I like, this is. Comments off.

Comments off. Great. Thanks. Thanks. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Cool. Cool. I'm a big fan of Jonathan Haight in his anxious generation book. Yeah. And, you know, we need kids to be feeling free to play without a adult supervision and a lot of that freedom gets taken away with the phone. So look, Meta, pay up, keep paying up, and I hope you care. By the way, all these tech guys, all their kids don't even have this shit.

They're like, no, my kids aren't on YouTube shorts. No, my kids don't do Facebook. Why? They know something we don't. Yeah, exactly. I would never let them use my product. Yeah. That's like when my son asks me to watch the Daily Show.

I'm like, what? No. Absolutely not. You're not allowed. You're forbidden. Probably if you just said, yeah, you can watch anytime you want. He'd be like, I don't actually want to. One time I put it on and he was like, this is the news.

That's funny. I was like, yeah, it is. It is a news. Yeah, he's never asking. He's like, oh, can we go do Paw Patrol instead? That sounds more fun. I was like, yeah, that is way more fun. I get it.

All right. Well, now it's time for something we like to call Daily Show and Tell. So, Michael, what's something you've watched? watched, read, listened to, argued about, or just been on your mind lately that you want to tell to our amazing listeners who have been craving content over the last month? Well, this is right on brand. It's also holding up my microphone, so my microphone's going to drop down a little bit. I have been getting, you know, I like water. This is my current read. This is a, this might as well be a textbook. This is about. the fight to try and damn part of the Delaware River.

And the Delaware River famously is where, in Trenton, New Jersey is where George Washington crossed. I've seen the picture. You've seen the picture. This is called damming the Delaware, the rise and fall of Tox Island Dam by Richard Albert. This is a textbooky. But the reason I love it is it's about water rights.

It's about Philadelphia and New York trying to dam parts of the Delaware River, which is one of our last dam-free, more or less free-flowing rivers in the United States. Hey, I don't give a shit about the Delaware. Okay. Well, do you care about the seven states in the southwest of the United States that don't have any fucking water now because we've over-dammed the Colorado River? Because Lake Mead is less than 20%. I mean, it's like water, you guys. I can't like stop talking about water in this podcast. It's just I'm really into it and I want us to pay more attention to it.

And by the way, Delaware River, Scott, beautiful, beautiful. You know, this is a perfect time for me to bring this up. I was the water guy for a brief time at the daily show. I had been working on this deep dive into bottled water. Nice. For years at the show. And I stole it. The guy who had kept pitching it.

Nobody was doing it. And then when you first hosted during guest hosts, your long story short was, I repitched it. And you were like, yes, I'm the water guy. I'm the water guy. You became the water guy. And I thought, what the fuck? Well, and for those of you that didn't watch my first week hosting, it's like, look,

climate change is so big and impossible to solve. One thing we can actually do all the time is just stop using plastic bottles and just start using usable bottles. Very simple. You already have them in your cupboard. You have thousands in your cupboard. What are you showing and telling these days? Showing home, man. What do I do this summer? I will say this. This is anyone who is alive in the 90s or is just likes a good concert. I went to a simple plan bowling for soup concert two weeks ago. And I have never had so much fun in my life singing about mental illness. It was what a Me and my wife were literally like, to be hurt, to be lost, to be like we were the time of our lives.

That's great. And I really enjoyed that. So if you see a pop punk band from the 90s doing a show near you, go to it because it was a very fun and happy experience. There's a car that always parks next to us on the street, you know, one of these cars that we're always moving at the same time and all that. And it has a bumper sticker that makes me smile all the time. And it says, music has an interesting power. And I think it's such a funny bumper sticker. But also, yo, what is it with music?

You and your wife singing together about mental health. I mean, it probably helps your mental health to sing about mental health. It's just amazing. My kids can't stop watching the video of us singing. That's great. And I'm like, oh, but these are terrible lyrics for you to be listening to you. Right, right, right. Yeah, and I love that bumper sticker that's like, it could just say music rocks.

I know. It's like such a kind of thought-provoking dumb bumper sticker, but I love it. Yeah, that's really great. Concerts are great. Live music is great. It's the one thing that, you know, I remember growing up and they had a Tupac hologram concert and everyone's like, this is going to replace live events. No, dude.

A band playing music. and you're in it and you're enjoying it. That is, that is magical. Live events, sports, concerts, stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy. Which Michael Costa does. That's right. That's right.

We'll never not be fun. It will never be replaced because it is real and you can feel it in the room. You can feel it in the room. Absolutely right. All right. Well, that's all the time we have for the pre-cap. I'm Scott Hirkman. Catch John Stewart hosting a brand new episode of the Daily Show Tuesday night

and Michael Costa hosting the rest of the week all on Comedy Central. Show the mug. Show the mug. Oh, yeah. Comedy Central. It's right here in my Cappuccino mug. Oh, yeah. Paramount Plus and right here in podcast form on the Daily Show Ears Edition. And now I'm going to go have a Daily Show signature cocktail because we are done. Which is a mind of answer. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes, time on Paramount Plus.

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