The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Goes “Captain Phillips” on Venezuelan Tanker & MAGA Purges "Woke" Fonts | Lonnie Thompson

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

The U.S.-Venezuela conflict escalates as the Department of Homeland Security TikTok-ifies the seizing of an oil tanker, and Trump can't resist taking credit for the “Captain Phillips” moment. Plus, the State Department bans the font Calibri for being “too woke,” and Michael Kosta unpacks the new beef between conservatives and the font's creator. This Christmas, gather round from all sides of the political spectrum for the holiday rom-com “Oh, Trolly Night!” Watch online enemies and unlikely lovers come together to find out the answer to the question: Can love Trump hate? Paleoclimatologist at The Ohio State University Lonnie Thompson sits down with Michael to discuss his groundbreaking work collecting ice cores in tropical glaciers – the subject of the film “Canary,” which is available to stream for free on YouTube over the holidays. They talk about how ice can be used to study climate history and understand where we’re at today, the importance of following your dreams, and how his work drilling in 16 countries leaves him feeling optimistic about climate change solutions. Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at http://mintmobile.com/daily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only sorts for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Michael Costa. baby we got good one welcome to the Daily Show I'm Michael Costa we've got so much to talk about tonight everyone on Santa's naughty list throws their own Christmas party

Trump tells Venezuela look at me I'm the captain now in which fonts are the gayest we investigate so let's get into the headlines let's start with an update on America's escalating conflict with Venezuela while it may seem to have come out of nowhere it dates all the way

back to the Mesozoic era when oil formed under the earth's surface, which Venezuela then greedily parked on top of. And now this conflict's heating up. We turn to that major escalation off the coast of Venezuela. American forces seizing an oil tanker seen in this dramatic video here. The Department of Homeland Security shared the footage, said to the song, Mama Said Knock You Out. I'm gonna knock you out.

Mama say, knock you out. I'm going to knock you out. Mama say, knock you out. Oh, my God. Does everything have to be content these days? Can't we just take other countries' oil for the love of the game? I will say, I am so glad that we didn't have social media during World War II. Imagine if you saw a video of your grandpa storming the beaches of Normandy

while Wet-Ass P.C. by Cardi B. plays. When Donald Trump delusely, delivered the news that America Captain Phillips to this oil tanker, you can see the moment when he thought for a second about not being Donald Trump, but then he decided to be Donald Trump. As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually.

ever seized, actually. How big was the oil tanker? You seized Abraham Lincoln. You tall, little-ass bitch. Trump really will find a way to brag about anything. I seized the largest oil tanker. I had the best MRI. I had the perfect phone call.

I'm best friends with the world's greatest pedophile. You know, you know why you keep winning, Donald Trump? You're the only one in the competition. That's why that creepy-ass hand-orgy trophy is all yours, dude. No one else wants it. No one is quite sure why Trump is going after Venezuela so hard. But the fact is Venezuela is being threatened, which is why yesterday their president, Nicholas Maduro,

came out in what I assume is his most threatening war hat to deliver a response. And look, I know that looks unsurious, but this is a president addressing his own country on the brink of war. Let's see how he responds. Don't worry, be happy. La la la la la la la la. Don't worry.

Be happy. You know how there's always that one guy at karaoke who thinks he nailed it? This guy is about to be overthrown. How is he so chill? Maybe they do have the best drugs, huh? So it seems like war with Venezuela is an even though Venezuelans don't want it.

Americans don't want it. And Donald Trump still isn't quite sure if Venezuela is a country or his cleaning lady. Not to mention nobody... Not to mention... Nobody has the energy to start calling Arepa's Liberty Cornmeal Cakes or something. And if you're wondering why the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,

isn't trying to find a diplomatic solution. It's because he has more important things on his plate right now. Secretary Rubio tells the State Department, get with the Times. No more woke fonts. Yeah. Yeah.

No more woke fonts. Wait, what the fuck is a woke font? Was it a font offended by the Sydney Sweetie Jeans ad? Help me out here, Rubio. What makes it woke? The State Department is ditching Calibri after a new order from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. are now switching back to Times New Roman.

In 2023, the Biden administration had the department begin using Calibri, which is saying it's easier for visually impaired people to read. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Calibri is woke because it's easier for visually impaired people to read? Who wouldn't want to help the visually impaired? I almost helped a blonde guy cross the street once.

It's very brave of me. But apparently for MAGA, the definition of woke has been so stretched that at this point it means helping other people at all, even if it doesn't hurt anyone else. That means if Calibri was woke, then ramps are woke.

Braille is woke. Those chairs that lower old people into the hotel pool are woke. How else are they going to secretly finger blast each other under the water? That's not the world I want to grow old then. This is such a pathetic attempt to start a culture war. There's no way conservative media is going to run with it, right?

Right? Right? Secretary of Rubio trashing the Biden era change to Calibri, a softer, wider font. Rubio says, and I quote, switching to Calibri achieve nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence. Boom. The superior font is back. Boom. Boom. Boom. You didn't see that, did you? No, because it wasn't written in Calibre, you soft-ass blonde bitches. I almost feel bad for conservative media. It's like they're suffering from an outrage shortage under Trump.

Merry Christmas is back. We can say the R word again. Let's see, are there any gay fonts? And of course, Newsmax had to make this whole idea of a font called Calibri sound suspiciously ethnic. He's ordering every U.S. diplomat worldwide to stop immediately using that Calibri? Calibri? Calibri-Aqabar. Kala-Kalabramdani.

Whatever happened, a good old family. American font names like Kyle or Chad. Look, let's not forget about the real victim in all this. Of course, I'm talking about the man who designed the Calibri font. And before I show you who that is, just take a moment to picture in your mind what this professional font designer might look like. Because you're correct. Joining you now, Luke de Groot, the designer who created the Caligri font.

I really appreciate you. joining us today. I mean, has anyone in history ever been more font designer than this guy? He only had two options in his life, this or killing James Bond?

He looks like a guy who I would listen to while stroking my chin, and then when he walked away, I'd go, I have no fucking clue what that guy's talking about. But just look at this blackboard. I mean, this guy's got game. He's got a candle thing. what looks like a new jeep.

And then look at the bottom right here. Look at that ghost made out of train tracks. Did he just... Is this like a new letter? You can see why this man makes the medium bucks, huh? Honestly, I'm just glad this kid who went to middle school and drew the cool S all the time was allowed to make a career out of it.

Anyways, let's hear what Sprockets here has to say. I assume it's something along the lines of all. All fonts are beautiful, and we shouldn't be pitting them against each other? I would rather say that Times New Roman is not a professional font. The distances between the letters are very irregular. It's way too spindly. It's too thin. The setups are too thin.

The sharp details are hurt in the eyes, and not very pleasing to read. Whoa! Shit! Shit! Damn! What? We got ourselves a font beef. This is like Tupac and Biggie, but for nerds.

I hope Times New Roman comes back hard. Yo mama so fast, she only types in Ariel Bold. Oh! Boom! For more on the Culture War Over Fonds, let's go live to Washington with Ronnie Chang. This is good, Ron. Thank you.

Ronnie. Isn't it silly to say a fine? is DEI. Oh, I'm sorry, Costa. Are you speaking in comic sands right now? Because you sound like a fucking joke. Look, Americans voted for change. And by change, they meant fonts.

Okay? Trump officials know that fonts are how the woke mind virus sneaks into your eyes. And they're doing something about it. Ronnie, no one cares about fonts. And for what it's worth, Calibri's just easier to read. Calibrate's just easier to read It's less harsh on my better cuck retinas

Well, hey, maybe stop skipping eye day at the gym, bro So you're telling me if I don't want to be woke I have to use Times New Roman? No, that's even more woke. Even the name, Times New Roman? As in, I'm just Roman in the bathhouses for gay sex? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that's not what it's short for.

for it, but fine. Okay. Which fonts are not woke? Look, not a lot. Okay? It's basically just the Metallica font and maybe the goosebumps font. But that's why the Trump administration's hard at work designing brand new fonts here at the MAGA font laboratory. The MAGA font laboratory? Yeah, yeah. It used to be a research facility to combat childhood diabetes, but RFK Jr. all the fat kids raw milk and send them home. So now they're using this facility for actual good, okay? By creating the most alpha, unwokest typefaces you've ever seen. Check this one out, Costa.

It's the America Rules font. You see this? It's pretty much the Sopranos font, but even more letters are guns. And guns are cool. Therefore, this font is cool. You scared, Costa? No, no, it's just hard to read, though. Yeah, that's the point.

They want things to be harder to read, okay? Reading is how liberals indoctrinate children. Remember that book? Curious George? What's he so curious about, Costa? Islam? I don't want to know. Which is why we got enough.

other font that's even harder to read. And we're calling it MAGA Warrior. Every capital letter is a Confederate monument. Except the Ws, which are boobs. Now, imagine getting an official memo with that, Costa. You probably shit your pants. Ronnie, Ronnie, this is insane. These are all offensive, and they're just offensive

for the sake of being offensive? Why does this administration always have to act like such agro-brose? Because America needs to project strength. Like with this font called, fuck you, bro. All the letters are just middle fingers. Okay?

You see how much better it makes this Maya Angelou poem? No, okay. This isn't even writing anymore. Why can't you guys just settle on a plain, neutral font, like Courier? Oh, courier? As in send a courier to the bathhouse to pick up some Lizzo posters? No thanks, Costa. You see what these fonts represent...

Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm being told one of the experimental fonts got out. And this one's just a gorilla with a rocket launcher. Okay, so I got to get out of here. Okay, well, just follow the exit signs, Ronnie. I can't.

All the signs are just middle fingers. I mean, it's so cool. but where'd I go? Where do I go? Where'd I go? Where'd I go? Where'd I go? He'll be all right. Ronnie Chang, everyone. When we come back, we've got to sneak peep at the best Christmas movie you'll see this year. Don't go away. Ronnie! You know, you don't have to let big wireless and your overpriced phone bill suck the joy out of the holidays this year because right now

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I wasn't invited to the Obama's Christmas party, but it's fine. I'm used to it by now. But there is one Christmas party this year that I would have loved to attend. George Santos hosted his inaugural Christmas party on Tuesday night. I'm very excited to be celebrating with close friends, supporters, and all people who really stuck by me. The guest list included convicted socialite Anna Delvey and disgraced pharma exec, Martin Screlly. Wow! George Santos, Anna Delvey, and Martin Screlly at the same party?

It was very exclusive. The password to get in was your social security number and your mom's maiden name. I'm just confused, though. George Santos threw a Christmas party? I'm starting to think this guy's line about being Jewish. But the only thing I enjoy more than Christmas parties are Christmas movies, especially ones that I star in.

And even though this year, the Christmas spirit might be told by our political divisions, one holiday movie shows that there's still a way to bring people together. Roll it. This holiday season, she ran an anonymous resistance account with a million followers.

Looks like Taco Trump just folded like a cheap gordita. He was her anonymous MAGA-Arch rival. At X-Miss Mom Defiant, that's Daddy Trump to you, and he will spank America great again. Their online war was raging.

Until one December, They met IRL. Oh, I'm so sorry. Do you want to do Christmas stuff? Now they'll get to see. Hey, at Reindeer turd three. You're dumber than that worm in RFK's brain. Yo, ex-vis mom defiant. If we ever meet, I'll spit in your face.

That's sometimes the one you hate. I will piss on the vaccinated grade. Your mom gives more free rides than a mom don't us. Here's Santa Trump dropping shit on you from his sleigh. from a sled. Cry more, bitch. Just might be the one. He's fun.

He's handsome. I really think this is it. Is this too much of Clinton's on Trump's face? I like it. She's fun. She gets me. Grock, do you think she's the one?

I am Mecca Hitler. The globalist Jews are conspiring to take over the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're going to find out Oh, geez. If love trumps hate. Wait, your reindeer turd three? Your ex-Miss Mom Defiant?

You called me Elon's throat goat. You had me swatted. You got me fired from my teaching job. Oh, cry more, bitch. I guess you don't care about facts or my feelings. Nobody's perfect, except Pete Buttigieg. Sometimes all love needs is a Christmas. This miracle.

The Democrats caved again. Ha, Democrats caved again. Chuck Schumer is pathetic. Wait. We agree? This holiday season. I didn't know you hated Chuck Schumer. Everyone hates Chuck Schumer.

I know why. It's because he's Jewish. Not now, Grog. Oh, Troly Knight. When we come back, Lottie Thompson will be joining on the show. Don't go away. This holiday season, Comfort is sharing cozy mornings with the people you love. Avocado products transform your home into a peaceful, grounding retreat, made with certified, organic, and sustainable.

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and save big during their holiday sale. Avocado, dream of better. Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is a paleo-climitologist whose pioneering research collecting ice cores to study climate change is featured in the documentary Canary. Please welcome Lonnie Thompson. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Sorry, asking up your intro. No problem. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming, and thank you for all the work you've done. Thank you for, man, that doesn't seem easy what you've been doing, your whole professional career.

You've been studying ice cores in the... tropical regions, glaciers. That's right. That's you got it. What is an ice core? Look, Lonnie, I know. They don't know. What's an ice core?

An ice core is a cylinder of ice. They're about four inches in diameter. Yep. And we drill them, we use a drill, just like you would, drilling for oil. You go down, you bring up a core, and you can drill hundred and 200 feet or you can drill

three miles in Antarctica where we have lots of ice. So what does that cylinder tell you? Ice is amazing. I can say that. Is it? I spent my way studying this stuff. Ice tells us not

just climate, things like temperature from the isotopes and the ice and precipitation by the annual layer thickness. It also tells us volcanic eruptions, things that can change climate. We can look at changes in the output of the sun through cosmogenic nuclides.

Meaning, in those years, so you can go all the way down to this glacier and know what it was like a thousand years ago? We have records from Antarctica. I would go back over 800,000. Get the f*** out of here. Yeah. What did you guys do your job today, huh?

Fill out a little Microsoft Excel sheet? So we know the temperature, we know if it rained that year. And we also know the composition of the atmosphere and the bubbles trapped in the ice. So we can look at CO2 and methane, those things we're concerned about today. What's the natural? And where are we today? Right, I was going to say, so knowing that history then allows us to analyze where we are today. That is the purpose.

And we'll get to that in a second. And the movie's called Canary, and it is a beautiful documentary. of your life's work. And if this even intrigues you at all what he's saying, check out the film. It's available actually for free now on YouTube for a few weeks, which they're doing for us and for our audience to watch it with your family

over the holidays. You can't just fly 20,000 feet to a glacier with a six-ton drill. Am I right? Yeah, absolutely. So how do you get all this stuff up there? Well, first of all, you have to have lots of good people to work with. Right.

Can't do it alone. Right. So this is a team effort. Okay. And you have to have lightweight equipment. And we're very fortunate to live in this age where you have Kevlar cable and you have Teflon and you have all of these things that allow us to do these. So it has to be lightweight, portable, but you still, in total, weighs six tons.

Yeah. And you've got to get it up there and assemble it. So, yeah, a great team effort. I mean, you were, yeah, this is you carrying tools up there. At one point, you were going, oh, we'll take a helicopter. The helicopter pilot's like, fuck you, I'm not doing that. That's exactly what happens. And one of the things I loved about this story was you kept being faced with more nose,

with more you can't do that. The helicopter won't take you. And you just kept figuring out a way to do it. not only that you had a heart transplant I mean you still hold the record for the highest elevation that a person's

been at with a heart transplant at 20,000 feet, 22,000 feet I mean you went yeah meanwhile his doctor's like hey can you not you know meanwhile you went on six more expeditions with this heart

nine now nine now I don't mean to be crude, but I, you know, it feels like you were willing to die for this work. No. Okay. I'm very, very fortunate that I am 77 years old. Right. But my heart is 34.

That's great. Yeah. I mean, we live in an amazing time in human history that this is possible. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about where you're from. You're from West Virginia. Whole country.

Absolutely. You said you had teachers tell you growing up, don't dream too big because you probably won't get there. And here you are right now. And did that motivate you? What do you have to say to kids that are hearing similar things where they're from? It's very important to listen to advice. but at the end of the day

you've got to look at yourself find out where your limits are we all have limits right we have to find those and so for them if you've got a dream go after it you have a passion go after it yeah because you can change the world

yeah well let's talk about that because you're very open in the movie about you collected all this data around the world it's very clear right I mean Absolutely. The more greenhouse gas we emit, the more glaciers recede and melt.

Absolutely. And you released all this and data, went to Congress, and where are we at? Well, we have made, sometimes I go back and forth on where we're at. Yeah. But we have made progress. Yeah. It is much better today. No one denies climate change.

Yeah. Because it's in your face. Yeah. It's happening everywhere. Yeah. And I found, in drilling in 16 different countries around the world, far more good people on this planet, wanting to do the right thing, trying to do the right thing. And if we all, those good people do the right thing, we change the world. Right.

And it's hard to measure awareness, but the fact that climate change is even in our vernacular, we're not doing enough, we're not fixing the problem. Can you get frustrated by that? I mean, here you are lugging a six-ton drill on the top. of a glacier to get information to help fix and solve climate change, and yet we haven't fixed it. We haven't fixed it, and I have to give my daughter credit for Canary. She told me a decade ago, she said,

Dad, one more ice score, you're not going to change the world. You're going to have to reach thousands to millions of people. And I want to give credit to Danny O'Malley and Alex Revest, Adam Smith, producers of the film, I don't think we could have found better producers to tell the story. Well, and I love that these film producers are picking scientists to showcase, right? I mean, why not make science and environmentalists heroes of stories? And I think it's amazing that they've done that. And so, go ahead.

Yeah, I would say that telling the true story of scientists and getting the truth out is a way to inspire the next generation. of young people. Yeah. It's also interesting that your daughter, younger generation, was basically saying, hey, you got to get

on TikTok, Dad. But your daughter did say this, which I loved. The change won't happen with one person, but it also can't happen without one person. It can't happen without you.

It can't happen without me. It can't happen without every country. That's what it takes, understanding that you do matter, every person matters. Can we globally do this? Yes. Absolutely. I take a lot of solace in the fact that our research teams are made up of Russians, Chinese, Americans, South Americans, Tibetans, and we can go to 22,000 feet, and we can work together to accomplish a mission.

And so for climate change, we don't have to have the same cultures, the same religions, the same belief systems. we just have to tackle a common problem. Right. And I believe we will. I mean, we did get ourselves here. Right? Humans made the problem. We did it.

So we might be able to fix it. We should be able to fix it. Is that naive of me? Maybe a little bit? No. No. Let's talk more about ice. Why is ice so cool?

Like, I don't know. Why? I mean... I see these ice cores, and I go, I don't understand how you can really tell the temperature 750 years ago. First of all, in the upper parts of these cores, they're annually dated. They're like a tree. You get winter snow, isotopes depleted, summer snow. They're enriched.

Like a tree, you count back in time. If you're in the tropics, you've got a wet season, dry season. Dry season, there's a dust layer. Count those. You can go back through our history. We can go back through previous cultures like the Tijuana, the Wari's. We had no written language, but the ice was recording every year through their rise and their fall. That's beautiful.

And it might be your wife in the film says, and your wife is someone you work with as well, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And she said, it might have been her, but someone said that you wanted to tell the glacier story. I want to let the glaciers tell their story. That's what I meant. Yeah, the glaciers tell their story, yes. The beauty of ice and glaciers is, to me, they're my truth serum.

Okay. They have no political agenda. Right. No lobbyists are going to get to them. No special interest groups. Right. They're just summing up temperature, precipitation, cloudiness, radiation, and reacting. And in today's world, they're all retreating.

Right. Because the world is getting warmer. Right. It's a very clear story. And, of course, ice melts when it gets warm and disappears. And where does that water go? And the oceans. Right.

And therefore, sea level is rising around the world. Yeah. That and thermal expansion of the ocean because oceans are getting warmer. Right. So that's, and maybe that's clear to someone like you, but maybe for a dumb TV host like me, when the glaciers melt, other really bad shit happens around the world, right? Absolutely. This isn't just if you live beneath the mountain.

This isn't just, this is for all of us. This is for all of us. Yeah, and we're all going to be affected. Yes. We're all going to be affected. As someone who's devoted your life to science, and I love the movie Canary. Please watch it.

It's great. You can watch it all ages. It's great with watch it with kids because they're going to go, what's that? That's a drill. You should be a scientist. Why is science important to you? What does it mean?

to you, science. I know it's a broad question, but I thought you'd have a thought. Well, I think science, I mean, you look at our history, you look at our vaccines for polio, you look at our web telescope, we can see galaxies outside of our galaxy. I mean, science allows us to see the future. It gives us hope for the future, that we can make a difference. We can change things. Yeah. We just have to go after. You know, it's, you don't know what's possible until

you try. And if we try, we advance. And we've made tremendous advances in science. And it's good for all of humanity. Yeah. Is that what you told the helicopter pilot? Hey, we don't know until we try,

buddy, let's go. Canary is available on YouTube for free to promote science and adventure over the holidays. Lonnie Thompson. We'll take a quick break with him right back after this. Thank you for talking about.

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See you in January. Now, here it is your moment of zep. So we're into 16 now. Gosh, I just, I was a leader on 5G getting that done. And now they're up to six. Let's do it again. So six is coming, huh? Does it ever end?

And what happens? You'll be into seven, right? Before six gets old, you'll be into seven. Anybody have anything else to say? 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.