The Daily Show: Ears Edition - The Precap | Michael Kosta on Russia Dropping a New Plague, and Vivek Ramaswamy Almost Dropping a Kid

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

This week's host Michael Kosta sits down with Daily Show writer Nicole Conlan to recap the latest news, and preview the week to come. They discuss the bubonic plague making a comeback in Russia, Vivek Ramaswamy nearly dropping a child after struggling to pick him up at a campaign rally, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem filing for divorce, and Mayor Mamdani joining forces (and hands) with his former rival Curtis Sliwa to spread flu shot awareness in NYC. Plus, Kosta and Nicole look ahead to this week's guests: Aaron Sorkin, Sebastian Stan, and Kyle MacLachlan. Check out Nicole's podcast The Climate Denier's Playbook on Apple Podcasts or Spotify -- 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

A huge portion of the day spent sitting in meetings, and the other half is usually spent trying to look back through messy notes to remember what actually got decided. It's incredibly common to leave a complex conversation thinking everything is clear, but later on, the heavy mental load kicks in, trying to reconstruct what was said, separating the background noise from crucial details, and figuring out the exact next steps creates a ton of follow-up confusion across a team. To solve that, a very interesting shift has been happening since introducing Plaud into the daily workflow. That's spelled PLA-U-D. What makes them completely different is that they are a hardware-first AI work companion. Instead of just being another digital app running in the background of a

computer, it's a dedicated physical device built to capture real-world conversations. It effortlessly bridges in-person discussions, phone calls, and online meetings directly into one continuous workflow. The biggest daily change is that it completely takes the pressure off remembering everything. Attention isn't split between trying and listening anymore. It allows for total focus on people in the room. For highly structured decision-heavy meetings, the Plaud Note Pro has become an essential tool. It functions as the world's most advanced AI note taker, turning raw audio into structured summaries, clear insights, and actionable follow-ups. It lets you focus on the conversation, not the notes. For anyone whose business, medical practice, or sales cycle depends heavily on accurate discussions,

this makes a massive difference. And for anyone managing sensitive information, it's built to enterprise great security standards, fully compliant with SOC2, HIPAA, and GDPR. Check it out at PLAUD.com.A.U.D.A.S. Daily. And use code daily for 20% off. That's PLA-U-D-A-I-S-D-A-I-S-D-A-I-ROMO-Code Daily. Turning an idea into an actual business often feels daunting, but timing is everything. With the holiday shopping season approaching, launching a store right now allows new entrepreneurs to capitalize on the biggest wave of online consumer spending all year, rather than waiting on the sidelines. Shopify is the definitive platform for a reliable, record-breaking holiday-selling season at every stage.

rebuilt website themes and AI site building tools make setting up a beautiful, professional storefront fast and easy without ever touching a line of code. For extra support, Shopify's built-in AI assistant, Sidekick, helps manage business tasks and plan holiday discounts with a single prompt. Launching before Black Friday means taking full advantage of massive online traffic when more people are actively browsing and ready to buy. Additionally, Shopify checkout, which shop pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition, ensuring more browsing visitors turn into complete sales. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday,

go to Shopify.com to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com. Go to Shopify.com today to hear your first... 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 what happened last week and take a look at what's coming up next.

I'm one of the writers of the show, Nicole Conlin, and with me today is your host for the week, Michael Costa. Hi, Nicole, this is fun. This is fun. And hello, Walter, who's sleeping in a position that I can only describe as uncomfortable. Yeah, Walter is my dog, and he really is a big fan of the precap,

even though he's yawning right now, as we speak. Very exciting, and we're both in our whites, our Wimbledon whites right now. Yes, that's why I wore this shirt. It's not because it's the last one that was clean in my closet. I love that shirt. And as I told you before we started recording,

sharks survived the Big Bang. The asteroid. The asteroid. Yes. Yes. Sorry. No, that's not the Big Bang. Big Bang is when the universe started.

Thank you. Sharks, we'll take that back. Sharks survived the asteroid that killed 80% of species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. Yeah. This shirt is about how, like, we're overfishing. Like, the back of the shirt talks about. like empty seas.

And it's crazy that sharks survived the deadliest event on record and might not survive humans. Yeah, might not survive how fisher boats are dropping chains on the bottom of the ocean and like dragging the floor. Not great for sharks. But an asteroid that was 10 miles wide in traveling at 40,000 miles per hour and was equivalent to a thousand atomic bombs. Sharks were like, we got it. No problem. I'm just going to go swim a little deeper. Now, Michael, I can't help but notice that one of your ankles has a big brace on it.

Yeah, I had an MRI today. Okay. Which I've never had an MRI on a foot. That was fun. Okay. I wonder what, brain? I've had, I've had shoulder. Shoulder.

I've had wrist. But the foot was nice. I actually didn't have to go all the way in the tube. Foot's easy because they just like put a bunch of stuffing around it. Yeah. You don't have to do anything. That was great. I have a chronic.

electronically sprained foot. Okay. I'm not going to get into all the details because doesn't everyone love hearing about everyone's medical ailments? Well, no, but there is a big contingent of people online who love hearing about feet. Feet, that's true.

So this could really help us. Well, what was funny was, let's just put it this way. The third time I sprained my ankle, I was at a bowling alley, and what happens with me is I go, my vision turns bright red and I go into such a pain that I kind of black out.

It's really, really, really, really, really hurts. And I come to, and there's a man standing in front of me, and this woman says, talk to him. He's a doctor. I'm on the ground grabbing my ankle. And he goes, well, actually, I'm an anesthesiologist. And I'm like, am I just going to ask an anesthesiologist? Anyways, long story short, he said, Michael, you still think your ankle's 20 years old.

I said, I should be better. It happened six weeks ago. He goes, it takes 10 and six months at your age. now. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's a long time. I'm and I was like, God damn it. The whole time I thought I could still follow the rehab program of a 20 year old. Right. I can't. I had ankle surgery five years ago because I kept rolling my ankle over and over again and because like you roll it and then the ligaments and tendons get all loose and so that makes you more likely. So I just kept rolling it and then I rolled it really bad one day. And then I was having trouble bending it. And so I

finally went to a doctor who got an MRI. Yeah. And we got the results back and he was like, it's all fucked up in there. He was like you have cartilage damage. You've got a bone spur. That's why I couldn't bend my ankle anymore. He was like your ligaments are like barely attached to the bones. And then I had surgery and recovery like kind of sucked but wasn't that bad all things considered. But I have not rolled my ankle one time.

Okay. So what? Because I don't, I'm going to try to avoid surgery. Yeah. But what do they do to the ligament in surgery? I think they like cut part of it off and then just reattach it so that it's like taught. The actual ligament in your body or they provide a alternative ligament? The actual ligament in your body.

Okay. So I don't, as far as, I think I have maybe a couple screws, but nothing else foreign in there. I did the worst thing you can do when I was initially injured was I went on YouTube and I watched ankle surgery videos, which is like web-m-dying yourself. I don't even know what's wrong and I'm already like, got to get the foot taken off. I am not optimistic about this MRI. I think the doctor's going to say you got your shit's all fucked up in there too. Yeah. But let's fingers have to have fingers crossed.

Yeah. I'm rooting for you. I got, I went to a few specialists and I got prescription in souls, which is very nerdy, but they've helped a lot. Except the guy who did my ankle doctor was like, okay, I'm going to send you to this guy. He's the best at this. He's very weird. And I was like, okay. And so then I went to the address my doctor gave me.

It was just this guy's house. Already weird. Already weird. He, like, did the consultation in his living room. And he, like, he spent a long time making these insults. And then he was like, all right, well, I'm going to go out to the garage. You stay here in my house. Oh, my gosh.

Okay. And it was like a very long process, a very strange man. And my feet and ankles have never felt better. So it is interesting. We are willing to accept high levels of weirdness if somebody is great at their job. Yeah. Yeah. And that goes for all jobs.

Yeah. Comedians, musicians, artists, writers, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like in comedy, if you're an asshole, you better be very funny. Yes. And then it's fine, kind of. And that's not it's not fine, but you're going to keep your job. Yes. But if you're not funny, you better be really nice. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's our lesson. You only have to be, you only have to be nice if you're not funny. That's right. You could take that straight to the bank. Otherwise, you take that one straight to the bank. But I also, I'm putting myself in the ears of our listeners right now. A lot of people who don't live in New York City, Maybe everyone hates foot problems, but it takes on a whole new level here. Oh, yeah, because you walk everywhere. You walk all the time. And you're also carrying goods on you.

Yes. You're not just walking from the parking lot to the car. You're walking various elevation changes of like concrete and you're also carrying stuff. And you've got kids and a tiny dog that you can trip over as well. Well, this guy is probably the reason I don't have any cartilage because he likes to hide under my legs while I cook. Yeah. You know what's going to be? I just foresaw the way his life is going to end

is I'm going to drop a steak knife and he's going to be standing right there. Keep that in the edit, Alan. Walter's going to have a real Final Destination style ending. Spotify Ads Manager makes it easy to create your first audio ad in minutes for free. Sign up today, launch a campaign, and start reaching your audience.

Speaking of Final Destination style endings, there's a plague in Russia. I know. How can you... Well, what is a plague? It's, I think it's literally the bubonic plague. Oh, shit. So it's the plague. It's the titular plague.

I thought plague was just like a term for a sickness. But even though they called it the sickness. Yes. Well, I think it also can be. But when you say the plague, typically you're talking about bubonic. Yeah. And it sounds like one researcher has died. Oh, wow.

And there have been like a bunch of shutdowns and quarantines. But what I'm confused about is the bubonic plague is, very treatable with antibiotics. Okay. So I'm not a hundred percent sure why there seems to be this huge out. Because there's always, like, weirdly prairie dogs have it a lot. And there's a lot of prairie dogs in Colorado. And so every few years we'll get a story about, like, can you believe these prairie dogs with the plague?

So I didn't think it was like that big a deal, but it seems to be not great. I mean, if that's the map where it is, they probably haven't even gotten antibiotics up there yet. That is so far away. It's in Siberia. It's not near anything major. You know, I give nature and in particular sickness a lot of credit. They are not afraid to make a comeback. Viruses, bacteria.

It is that, you know, they have to, we've got better medicines. They adjust and morph themselves. Yeah, I'm wondering if this is like some sort of antibiotic resistant bubonic plague, which wouldn't be great. Yeah. Well, you know, it was an interesting interview. It was when John had on last week the. guy who the Evan Gershkowitz. Yeah. Yeah. And his book about Russia and what a beautiful place it was as a as a man who's served a prison sentence there. Yeah. What a complicated. The book's amazing.

Did you read it? I have not read the book. I have a copy on my desk because I did I was on guest prep last week. So I'll give it to you. It's really good. Oh, great. I would love to read that. And that's not even my show and tell for this week. Yeah. Great. Nobody, nobody say that it's my show and tell. And I have a show and tell that's unrelated to Russia as well. Yeah. Perfect. Great. But it's on brand for me. Okay. I can't wait. I've been getting little hints about what this show and tell might be and I'm trying to guess and I'm, I don't know. We'll see. I mean, it is strange that COVID happened and all the people that know about this stuff said this all will be happen, this type of thing will be happening more and more as the earth warms and as we are more connected to other countries in multiplicity of ways. And it feels like it has since then. Yeah. So, I mean, those scientists get to do a major victory lab. Yeah, they should feel awesome.

Yeah. Around whatever hospital we're all going to be quarantined in. Yeah. Moving on to something that is less effective at killing people. Oh, man. This is a crazy story. Yeah. So there was a woman in Tennessee who many, many years ago was convicted of murdering a classmate.

They sentenced her to death. And this week they tried to, you know, administer a lethal injection. And they botched it. Yeah. So they didn't kill her. And then they revived her and took her to the hospital. hospital and now they're going to have to try to administer another lethal injection. Yeah.

And this is the state of Tennessee. Yes. I believe. It has a history of botched death penalty. It's done something like this before. And from what I remember from when Gianna Tobani was on the show and I was hosting and she wrote a book called The Volunteer about a man in Tennessee, check please, Assad or Allen. He had said, stop with the game. and kill me.

Yeah. Go ahead. Like, I'm ready. I'm asking you. And even though he was asking, the system doesn't actually know how, can't do it. Appeals and they couldn't get the drugs and they couldn't. So it's just a mess, the death penalty. And Gianna speaks about how complicated, how much compassion do we have for someone who has committed a heinous crime.

Yet we are also trying to do the same to them. She talks a lot about how much sympathy do we allow ourselves for the person, for the victims, for the whole process. It's just a really interesting conversation. I guess I can't make any promises because I don't edit the podcast. But if Alan, if producer Alan makes it possible, we'll put the link to that interview in the show notes so that people can watch it and get sort of a more informed opinion than I have about the situation. And, you know, Nevada. Nevada, thank you. It was Nevada. I think at one point Tennessee or somebody was like bringing back the firing squad. Yes. Which doesn't seem to be much better than lethal injection. Although the like in France when they had guillotine, when the guillotine was invented, part of it was viewed as like a compassion thing because it happens so fast. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's a very dark subject. And, you know, it's a very dark subject. And, And what I find most interesting about humanity and our society is the idea that the state was trying to kill someone, messed it up, and then medical professionals were trying to bring her back to life.

Yeah. So they can kill her again. Yeah. I mean, that is just that ethically, conversationally, something is off here. It's a mess. It's a mess. And I would encourage everyone to check out Gianna's book. And also, let's think about ourselves

and do we want to be in a society that punishes killers by killing them? I don't personally, but, you know, we can move on. If we do, we should at least nail it on the first try. Well, that's what this guy was saying in the book. He's like, just fucking do it. Yeah. Do it, do it, do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Anyways, I know.

messed up. Yeah. On to some more lighthearted news. Yes. Have you seen this video of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramoswamy, former co-head of Doge or something like that. Have you seen him picking up and almost dropping a kid? Aren't you so, I don't know about you. I wake up every morning thankful at the amount of money Doge has saved this government.

It's every single day. And then knowing that we can put it towards Iran, I can't be happier. Yes. I see the benefits throughout my life personally. Yes, for sure. Every day I'm walking down the street. I'm like, that was Doge. That was Doge.

That was Doge. That was Doge. That was Doge. And Vivek has retired from a successful career, cutting government spending to do this. Can you, and you're watching this for the first time? I've never seen this. It's very funny. Alan, can you cue it up? Oh shit. There you go. Whoa. Oh, geez. That is a big guy. You want to say something? You want to say something?

Yeah. That's our educational system right there. There are many funny things about this. First of all, I thought, when I saw this video going around, I thought that must be like his kid at a rally. That's somebody else's kid. I don't know whose kid that is. When he picks them up and he almost drops me, he's like, oh, big guy. Yeah, the big guy. I mean, when I'm at the playground with my kids and there's like another kid screaming

on the swing saying, get me off. And I'm closer to that kid than the parents. I always say like, do I have permission to help your child off the swing? You don't touch someone else's kid. And by the way, they always say, yeah, grab my kid. Yeah. Michael, very trustworthy. Very trustworthy. And by the way, I do have kids. I'm not just at the playground. The other thing is that kid was not helping. The kid went fully like dead body and was not helping Vivek in the scenario at all.

And if you think it's hard picking up a kid, imagine moving an adult body, right? Just think about that. It's heavy picking up a kid who's alive. Yeah, that's a good point. So if you ever have to dispose of a body, Yeah. That's going to be a lot harder than picking up that kid. It is. And that is very funny. And I would say to all politicians, it's not going to be a good photo op if you're picking up a, that was not even a toddler.

No, no, no. That was like a nine-year-old kid. A nine-year-old kid. That's funny. Also not having anything prepared for him to say. To just be like, hey, you third grader, open mic. You'd say whatever you want. It'd be great if the kid was like, we need to reevaluate our strategy through the straight

hormone. There's 40% of the world's oil goes through this straight. Okay. Oh, whoa, I dropped you again. Yeah. So that is what Vivek Ramoswamy is up to. Some other former cabinet members. We got Christy Gnome, news about Christy Knoem this week. I was

just thinking a few days ago, like, oh, right, remember Christy Knoe? I know. She was... It feels like a lifetime ago. But isn't she now the head of Special Shield Western Hemisphere Envoy? Yes. Something like that. Very funny.

And everyone was saying this whole time that her marriage was a mess, right? Yes. Because she bought the sex plane, which was ostensibly for deportations, but there was a bedroom. And then a news story about her husband dropped. Somebody leaked his like only fans, DMs. And so people were like not, because they're also a very, you know, traditional family values couple. And so people were like, okay, I guess they're just going to stay together. But they're now getting divorced.

Yeah, and wasn't it was like his requests were very strange or something. He was sending pictures of himself and look, I don't king shame, but he was sending pics of himself. He has like a, I think it's called a Barbie fetish. Yes. Where he would stick balloons in his shirt to look like huge boobs and then like wear like short shorts. Alan's going to pull up the picture so we can all see. And I might have even said this to you, Nicole, because it sounds familiar. But I was always like, why don't these people just say.

were in a kinky open marriage. But then the thought, the response I had was it's actually worse to say that than to just be a Republican, like there it is. Yeah. And just do all this shit in secret. Yeah. I don't, you know, do your thing. These are also like everybody involved was a consenting adult. There's no actual nudity.

Like this is all honestly fine by me. It's just like they're in this weird, like traditional family values. values, you know, socially conservative couple that is handing down these regulations for other people. And it's like, what are you doing? Is it true that Grindr always goes off the chain when the Republicans are in town? I think that's an urban legend. Or it's the kind of thing that like activity on any dating app increases whenever there's a big convention. Yeah.

Because I always thought that was a night. That was a fun one to want to believe. Right. But I always wondered if it if it would. and welcome to our podcast called Alan Google stuff. This is, I mean, Joe Rogan's constantly having him look up stuff. Yeah, Jamie's always looking stuff up on perplexity.

If it's good enough for the most popular podcasts in the world, we could do it. I don't ever root for anyone getting divorced. I hope her and her ex-husband are better for it. But there is a complexity to this because of this whole family value thing. Yeah. And man, is that such an insulting photograph of Christy Noem standing in front of the, I almost said prisoners. We don't even know if they're prisoners.

The men that were locked in that El Salvadorian jail. Really bad. And we don't even know if they had reasons to be deported or imprisoned. We also, I think she did a photo op in front of men in an El Salvador in prison who had been, they were like violent criminals who had been arrested in El Salvador. So, like, she was like. trying to make American immigrants look. Yeah, so it was a whole thing. So I really am not a fan or rooting for her, but personal stuff, I hope they get through it.

Yeah. Yeah. But at least somebody in the administration found love because it was just announced today that Cash Patel has gotten engaged to Alexis Wilson. Nice. His now fiancee slash country singer. Oh, is she a country singer? She is a country singer.

Oh, yeah, I remember this, this one. Yeah. So good for them. I will say, cash is probably a little busy right now. Well, he's still got to find that the grandmother that went missing, right? Yeah, I'm sure he's right on that. I'm sure he's really on that. Yeah.

So I don't know how involved cash will be in the wedding planning, but if they're lucky, that same oligarch who paid for Don Jr's wedding will pay for theirs. They'll pay for theirs. I mean, you know, he was in the news a lot as a drinker. And then that story came out, I forget who broke it. And he has stayed out of the news a little since then. Well, but there was the whole beastiality thing. Oh, I don't remember that.

Oh, that's right. We did a show. Josh had two shows and he got the fun bestiality stories. That's right. I was the next day. And you were the very dry and dark around war updates. And I was like, oh, cost of missed the fun show by one day. It is funny.

Some days you strike gold and some days you're like, oh, I'm shoveling cold today. I'm the policy guy. I'm the policy guy today. That's right. I forgot about the beastiality. Yeah, Cash Patel had that whole thing where he was like, we're taking away the restrictions against officers having participated in beastiality. And John Kennedy trying to throw him a bone, no pun intended, was like, so what do you

mean by this? Because surely you don't mean that if a guy fucked a chicken, he could still be in the FBI. And then Cash Patel not understanding that John Kennedy was like trying to be on his side, was like, this is exactly what it means. It's exactly what it means. And it's also for people who are victims of. beciality who are that that was like he he really kind of got over he got out over his skis on that one but you know what cover my dog's ears for this sorry walter don't worry neither cash

petal nor christie gnome can get you in here walter i would love to just be proud of these cabinet members you know or not know who they are not know who they are and just go like oh i haven't heard about the fbi in four years or yeah i just it's just all a big reality show yeah um another video that was popping off this week was two New York politicians who both are very good at using social media. It's true. Mamm Dani, Zoran Mandani, and Curtis Sliwa both got flu shots this week.

Nice. Zoran Mamm Dani, the mayor, holding Curtis Slewa's hand. Yes, Slewa was nervous about getting a flu shot. That's very sweet. And so Mamm Dani went with him. And it's like a very sweet video. I mean, Curtis Slewa is like kind of an unhinged weirdo, but I do like him as like a mascot. I don't think he should ever hold elected office,

but I like that he's a kind of guy that we can have around. I mean, that's kind of how I felt about Trump. I like that he was in the Republican debate. He's sort of a weird avatar. Yeah, it was like kind of a fun character to have as long as he didn't boat any real power. And now we see what happens when, you know. Yeah.

But Curtis Slee, I always give him credit. I mean, when I turn on the news at 7 a.m., and he's like at the live media hit, I'm like, this guy wakes up every day doing this shit. Yeah. Oh, he lives for this. He's 100% sincere. He's wearing that beret.

Yes. 100% sincerely. And so they got flu shots. And I always think it's nice when there's like a more conservative politician's like, you should get a flu shot. You should get vaccinated. Correct. I think the imagery of elected officials supporting science is a great one.

I agree. I agree. I got a few years ago, I got a flu shot at like the CVS inside of a target. And I was ahead of these two, a mom and her two. two little like five and six year old girls who were visibly very scared about getting shots. And their mom was like, it'll be okay. Like they do this all the time. And the pharmacist was like, do you might, like, can they watch you so they can see you get a shot?

No, it's not a big deal. And I was like, absolutely no problem. And for whatever reason, it is the most painful shot I've ever gotten. They must have just hit me at exactly the right angle because they stuck me. But I could have, I was like these two little girls need to get. get their flu shot. So I had to be like, oh, it was not a problem at all. It's really, it feels kind of good, actually. And then every shot I've had since then has been fine. It was just that one where I was on the spot that was a nightmare. Well, I think older kids who aren't getting vaxed as much

are more afraid of shots. Interesting. Which is something my pediatrician said when the COVID vaccine came out. Some of these kids were coming in for the first time. Keep in mind, the vast majority children are getting vaccinated. Yes. But the ones that weren't were terrified of a needle and they were like 11 years old. Yeah. It's like, oh gosh. Yeah.

I support vaccines and I need to get my flu shot. Okay. Let's look ahead to the stories that we're probably going to be talking about next week. Sure. The midterms are kicking into gear and Trump is on tour. Trump is on like a cross-country tour. He's doing rallies, I think, every day this week or at least three days. Trump's in Nebraska?

Yeah. Fourth rally in five days. Unbelievable. The stamina on this guy. especially because is Nebraska at play? I guess they split their electoral college votes, so I wonder if like their two senators are split also. Thank you for knowing that, Nicole.

Oh, thank you. Because there's two states that do that. Yeah, I don't remember the other one. I know Nebraska splits theirs. I'm going to say New Hampshire. That sounds right. Everybody at home, Google it on your own. Yes.

Google it on your time. This is our podcast. I have a second guess if it's not New Hampshire. Okay, way. Allen's looking it up. It was not be Colorado because you would know that. Correct.

There's two states. Maine and Nebraska. Maine. I was close. Yeah. Just one state off. Yeah. That's great.

So he's traveling around. There's also been a lot of polling that shows like, or not polling. There's also been a lot of stories that have been like, these Republican candidates are trying to get Trump not to talk about them. Right. Because he's so unpopular right now that he's like tanking their campaigns. I know. I just never know what to think.

think about all this because I don't trust it at all. I just want. It's like what I want is not always what it is. I hope I hope that America, um, opens its eyes and pays attention to the bribery that's happening to the, uh, geez, I just think Donald Trump has only helped himself in this election, not, uh, the average American person.

I feel like every election that I have watched for the past like 10 or 15, years, everybody's been like, this could, this could finally be the year that Democrats flip Texas. And then everybody gets their hopes up and they never do. And it's happy. It feels like a Lucy with the football situation. Correct. So I'm, I'm choosing to be pessimistic until proven otherwise. Pessimistic, but still registering to vote and voting. Yes. Yes. Do that. Don't let the system defeat you. Yeah. Stay voting and be pleasantly surprised when it happens. I agree. I agree. Michael, you've also got some good guests coming on this week. You've got some great We've got Aaron Sorkin, who is here promoting the Social Reckoning.

He wrote and direct The Social Reckoning. You got Sebastian Stan, who is in the movie Fjord. Somehow, I didn't realize that Sebastian Stan is like Romanian from Romania, and he speaks Romanian in this movie. Yes, and he is a, and I'm halfway through this movie, and I had to stop it because I needed a break emotionally. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It is really well done and really, really, really.

well done. And so yeah, but he plays a Romanian man living in Norway. Norway. It's based on a true story. Oh, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was hoping that wasn't the case. Get to the end of the movie, but it'll all be fine. Yeah. And then on Thursday, Kyle McLaughlin. Yeah, which of course I knew who he was, but I, you know, when you read someone's memoir, it's like, oh yeah, of course. Oh, yeah, of course. Oh, yeah, of course. And just a really fun writer. Fun book. I typically would not be one wanting to read an actor's memoir, but it is very well done and funny. And you really see the correct decisions he's made in his career and the terribly awful decisions he's made in his career,

which he's open about, which I love. That's great. That's what a memoir should be. Yes, yes. Yeah. So these are like, I mean, Michael, you kind of got A-list celebs all week. I can't fuck it up. I can't fuck it up.

Yeah, don't fuck it up. The pressure's really on. No, I love, you know, one of the best parts of this job, period, is the vast array of different successful people I get to talk to. Yeah. It's very cool. Yeah. Hearing from their stories, you know, just getting their energy, their vibe. When in a million fucking years would I have been able to talk to those three people? It's like insane.

It's very cool. It's amazing. I'm excited to watch all of the interviews. And I'm also excited to finally find out what your show and tell is. Oh my gosh. Because we're on to the daily show and tell. What is something that you have watched or read or listened to or have in your pocket that you would like to show and tell us? Well, this was sitting in my office and I thought not a lot of writers do I get to actually reference sports and they know kind of what I'm talking about.

But you actually have a good understanding of sports. Oh, boy. The pressure's on now. Pretty solid. So Tyler, one of our stage guys, gave me this recently. Cool. And I didn't know if anybody knew that tennis balls used to be white. Did you know this?

Interesting. Why did they become yellow? They used to be white tennis balls. And let me just see if this monitor makes it easy for you. Do you see my shirt? Oh, because they always wear white. Is this easier to follow? Okay.

Is this easier to follow? This is fascinating. The best show and tell we've ever had. You're really leading into the show. I'm really leading into the show. So let's hope that everybody's watching this on YouTube and not listening to it. When color TV was invented, nobody could track the fucking white ball. And the whole sport changed to a bright optic yellow ball.

Because of television. Because of television. I thought, that's interesting. And also, duh, but also good job doing that. That was a smart change. Have you ever played with the white balls before? That's a good question. I don't think I have, and I think it would be fine, but I think this would be easier.

Okay. Definitely be easier. Yeah. What's an equivalent in this? Like, hockey's played with... Hockey's got the puck. I mean, I play golf, and I'm... So, like, typically I'm always like, I want to be a little bit different.

So, like, with golf, I'll try to pick, like, a colorful ball, but then you just can't find them. So, like, the white stands out against the dark green better. But I think an optic yellow ball is fun. I've played with those before. It's also fun to play with a pink ball every once in a while. Yeah. But sometimes you lose them. When I was caddying, my first job was I was a caddy.

And you used to have to, like, part of your job was to, like, watch where people's balls went so they could find them. Yes. And whenever somebody played with a ball that was hard to see, it was like a nightmare. Especially because I was also 14 and I should not have had that job. That's kind of the job of the caddy. It's like, you know, it's next to the tree under the thing. Yes.

Yeah. So anyways, you know, I thought we weren't going to talk about tennis today. We talked about it a lot last time. But I thought, isn't that interesting? It's also nice to see when people make, when sports and organizations make adjustments for the better. Yeah. Yeah. How is your ankle situation going to impact tennis?

I assume not well. Terribly. Yeah. I mean, I love playing tennis and I play tennis. And I have not injured my ankle playing tennis in 10 years. It's always hiking now. It's bowling. It's bowling.

It's mostly bowling-based injuries. I should say there were a few beers involved. I think it's the bowling more than the beers, probably. What is your show and tell? And if it's showing that tennis balls used to be white, I am incredibly sorry. That's not mine. I am, for better or worse, using show and tell for a little bit of self-promotion because the new season of my podcast just dropped this week.

It's called The Climate Deniers Playbook. I co-host it with Raleigh Williams, who's the creator of the Climetown YouTube channel. We just put out an episode about the White House released an AI video about the auto start-stop feature in cars where almost everything in the video is wrong. So we put that out. We're doing an episode about AI next week. So there's never been a better time to subscribe to the podcast. It's called the climate.

The climate deniers playbook where in every episode we sort of break down a different kind of climate myth or piece of misinformation that people in power use to stop us from fighting the climate crisis. I love that. And we just need to care and pay more attention to our climate. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. It's like we have a lot of the technological and ecological solutions and the problems are largely political and cultural.

Yeah, it does seem like to be optimistic, technology and some of the development is quite amazing. There's a lot of amazing stuff. And the Earth is quite resilient. Yes. So if we like put in the work to help it, we a lot of things can bounce back. Not everything. Yeah. But there's still so much that we can save.

And I do think the Earth is going to. going to win. Ultimately, yes. I don't think we're going to win. The floating rock in space will be here for a lot longer than us, but it would be nice if we created a, you know, habitable place for us while we're here. Yes. You know, it's interesting talking about how we started here. I was at the Natural History Museum yesterday learning about the asteroid that knocked out the dinosaurs, but not the sharks. And there's this whole exhibit on all the other times in Earth's history that we've had a near blackout. Like a cataclysmic. We've had a lot.

You know, we've had like eight in the last 600 million years or something. And I just am watching all this going, oh, it's going to happen to us, too. If we don't do anything, it's just going to happen to us. Well, life finds a way. Yeah. Eventually some seed will sprout. But let's make it better for our kids. How about that?

Yeah. I think that's something we can all agree on. Unless you work at the oil companies. Yes. Right, Walter. Walter's ready to go back to sleep. Yeah, he is. There you go, buddy.

All right. That is all the time that we have for the precap. I have been Nicole Conlin, and you can catch Michael Costa hosting all this week on Comedy Central, Paramount Plus, or right here at the Daily Show Ears Edition. I'm Michael Costa, which one's easier to follow? If you're listening to the Ears Edition, he's holding the tennis balls again. Oh, yeah, I should explain that.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.