The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Pisses Off Japan with Pearl Harbor Joke & Afroman Cucks the Police in Court | Rebecca Traister

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Trump bombs a Pearl Harbor joke at a meeting with Japan's prime minister after a reporter asked him about the Iran war, and Jordan Klepper finds the optimism in Afroman winning a defamation suit against the police who raided his home, preserving free speech through relentless mockery, brutal infidelity jokes, and lemon pound cakes. Michael Kosta delivers the latest get-rich-now opportunities from the hottest business headlines: The Fast Food Wars get a greasy relaunch, Topo Chico mineral water dries up in the U.S., and rare Pokemon cards have collectors collecting fat stacks. Rebecca Traister, bestselling author and writer at large for New York Magazine, talks to Jordan about her latest book, “Angry Girls Will Get Us Through.” They discuss the constructive power of anger to bring people together and affect social change, and the mission of her book to tell the under-recognized stories of angry women, girls, and nonbinary people who sparked some of the most impactful moments of change throughout American history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Comedy Central. The most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only sorts for new. This is The Daily Show. Weirdest beef. Michael Costa wants to steal your kids' Pokemon cards, and the war with Iran is more busted than your March Madness bracket. So, let's get in the headlines.

We are now almost three weeks into the war in Iran, and it's not going great. Oil prices are surging, our planes are getting shot out of the sky, and now Pete Hegeseth is asking for an extra $200 billion to fight this war. And they say women be shopping, huh? And on top of all of this, our allies are angry that Trump started this war without consulting them. But of course, President Trump is smoothing things over with his trademark charm. Why didn't you tell U.S. allies in Europe and Asia like Japan about the war before attacking Europe?

Because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay? Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay? The Japanese prime minister did not like that joke. I haven't seen an American bomb in front of Japan that badly since. You get the idea. Although I will give Trump credit, though. He didn't do a Japanese accent, so let's call that progress.

But taking all of this into account, it feels like America could really use a win right now. Rapper Afro-Man wins a defamation lawsuit filed by seven Ohio sheriff's deputies. He's calling it a victory for freedom of speech. Yeah, it looks like American victory to me. I mean, just look at what he's wearing. If aliens landed here in America, they'd be like,

take me to your leader. Oh, it must be this guy, right here, right? His glasses. Love the glasses. Now, you might remember Afro-Man from his hit song, Because I Got High. Or you might not remember it because you got high. But, basically, back in 2022, local police in Ohio busted down Afro Man's door,

rummaged through his clothes, took money from his house, scared his kids, all to look for evidence of, crimes that they never ended up charging him with. Now, after a raid like this, a lot of people might try to lay low for a while, not piss off the cops, but Afro-Man happened to notice this particular moment where one of the deputies was searching his kitchen and looked longingly at a lemon pound cake. And Afro-Man did what Afro-Man does.

He released multiple satirical music videos using his own security camera footage of the incident that included images you're seeing some of that here of these officers. Mama's swimming past. If this sheriff wanted to put down his gun and cut him a slide. Oh man.

I'll tell you, rap songs have really evolved. They used to say, fuck the police. Now they body shamed them over carbs. And that was just the beginning. Afro-Man put out a whole series of videos about the cops, addressing specific grievances in songs, like, will you help me repair my door?

And why are you disconnecting my video camera? As well as songs with more general observations. Randy Walters is the son of a bitch. And that is why AI will never replace real musicians. Now, a lot of people found these cuck-the-police music videos funny, but the police officers who starred in them did not. So, last year, they sued Afro-Man for defamation. And right away, the officers had a problem,

which is that when you sue someone for making fun of you, you have to get up on the witness stand and talk about how badly you suffered from it, which led to moments like this. Sean, you were called Officer Poundkekeke by Mr. Pernard? Multiple, Todd. You saved hundreds of poundcakes at work. And with the people.

Oh, my God. My God, the horror! The horror! I can't imagine the pain of being sent free desserts! I just hope Afro-Man doesn't find out that I love banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery. It would be devastating if my haters sent me hundreds of them with the Nilla Wafers specifically. I mean, oh God, I would never recover. Remember, Officer Poundcake wasn't Afro-Man's only target. Officer Randy Walter sued afterman.

for saying, I mean, what was it again? Randy Walters was a son of a bitch. Right, right, right. Which again met Randy Walters had to get up on the witness stand and answered the question, are you a son of a bitch? And when they call you a son of a bitch,

that would be an opinion? I'd say that would be an opinion. Because there's no way we can prove whether you're a son of the bitch or not. She's been done for you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about you're not being. No one mentioned your mom.

Your dad could be the bitch. I got to say, I didn't realize that determining whether or not someone was a bitch was part of the legal profession. It does give me hope for my new pilot, bitch court with Judge Jordan. And this, you know anybody's buying. This is generally the big challenge with the defamation lawsuit, because to win, you have to argue that a reasonable... person would believe that Afro-Man's claims were facts and not just jokes.

And that's especially awkward because Afro-Man also said he slept with Randy's wife. Oh, wait, no, I'm sorry. How did he put it? Yes, thank you. So, now poor Randy Walters had to argue that a reasonable person might believe that, which led to perhaps my favorite moment of the tribe. So you're claiming that is the defamation statement. that he said he had sex with your wife?

Yes. Okay. And that's painted you in a false light. It's caused tremendous pain in my life that my wife is cheating on me with Mr. Foreman. But we all know that's not true, correct? I don't know. I don't know.

Just look at me in my whole deal here. I think a reasonable person could assume I'm unable to satisfy my wife. Look, okay, okay, obviously, obviously. No one thinks that Afro-Man is sleeping with this guy's wife. I wouldn't dare slander them or their beautiful child.

Now, can I just say? Can I just say this? This puts Officer Poundcake in an even worse light. The other guy is like, Afro-man called me a son of a bitch and said he f***ed my wife. And then you're like, yeah.

And he said I had a sweet tune. Again, okay, the central question of this case wasn't whether Afro-Man songs were factual. It was whether people would think they were true. And this is how his lawyer made the case. Look at that suit. Does this look like a man who thinks that everybody's going to assume that everything he's saying is back?

I'm beginning to see how brilliant wearing that suit is. Ladies and gentlemen, does my client look like someone you should take seriously? He dresses like the DJ at the club where Betsy Ross strips. And by the way, I love this lawyer, too. Look at Hagrid Esquire over here. Let's wrap this up. I got the big Zizi top case at three,

and then I got to go back to forging my own swords. Thank you, Your Honor. But there were actual free speech issues on trial here, and Afro-Man was unapologetic about his rights. After they run around my house with guns and kick down my door, I got the right to kick a can in my backyard, use my freedom of speech, turn my bad times into a good time.

Yes, I do. And I think I'm a sport for doing so. Because I don't go to their house, kick down their doors, flip them off on their surveillance cameras, then try to play the victim and sue them. Wow. I don't know if I want to stand up and salute

because of the speech he gave or because he's wearing all the American flags. Regardless, I'd say Afro-Man should run for president. except that was a real thing that happened in 2024. And all of you idiots didn't support him. We could have had President Afro-Man right now. And look, I'm not saying that would be ideal, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be an improvement.

How to get rid, don't get away. My morning flew by and I didn't have time to cook anything. And I looked up at the clock, and now it's 10. 10 a.m. and I'm hungry, and it's March. That's what I said to myself this week, realizing that life is super chaotic and we just don't have time to do everything that we want. What do I want? Easy nutrition that's ready for me whenever I want that actually tastes good. This is where my friends at Hewell come in, sponsor of this podcast. That's H-U-E-L. Huel is a perfect solution for high-protein routine support, busy days, habit-building, convenience and control this year. I have goals to be

healthier and keep on top of my nutrition this year. And fortunately, I've found an easy way to stick to my habits, all without compromising my nutrition and goals. This is thanks to Huell. If I'm being honest, I am absolutely the person who looks up at 1 p.m. and realizes I've had coffee. Just coffee. No breakfast, no lunch, just caffeine. So lately, I've been keeping Huell Black Edition around to stop myself from doing that. On the days I'm sprinting out the door, I grab a Black Edition ready to drink. It's a complete meal. 35 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 27 essential vitamins and minerals,

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daily show at Huell.com slash daily show, new customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting this show. If you're busy, this is a game changer. honest and rigorous financial news, then go eat a dick. But if you want to get rich, then you want Michael Costa in another installment of Costa doing business. Oh, attention. Welcome to Costa doing business. I'm your dollar dollar bill sergeant Michael Costa. And by the time I'm done, you maggots will be money marines ready to blow your bank account sky high.

The only PTSD you'll come home with is pretty tall. tall stacks of denaro. Now you're probably thinking, whoa, Costa, isn't profiting off war with Iran immoral? Number one, no, number two, wrong war, dumbass. Hit me. The new frontier in America's fast food wars, the CEOs of our favorite burger joints, engaging in some online corporate trash talk. The CEO of McDonald's taste testing their new burger,

but the tiny bite he took quickly going viral. Now, the CEOs of McDonald's fast food rivals making their own videos with a lot bigger bites. Yeah, that's right. The fast food wars are back, and I smell an opportunity that'll clog your wallet and your toilet. But be careful, because war is hell.

After the fast food wars of the 80s, my uncle Bob was never the same. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, scream in, where's the beef? Where is it? I promised the beef's wife, I get it home safe. Of course, like all wars, this thing has spread across the region. Canadian burger chain A&W has entered the fray.

Ooh! Incoming! Alan from A&W here with... You heard about it. Here it is. The teen burger and the teen sauce. The iconic teen sauce. I invite you to join me for lunch.

Just you, me, and a couple of teen burgers. I'm sorry. Teen burgers? Those better be 18 burgers, Alan. Trust me, telling people you like the taste of teen sauce is not the flex you think it is. Let's keep this guy 500 yards away from Wendy just to be safe, okay? And for the record, I'm not into teen burgers.

Costa prefers his burgers with a little experience, you know? A burger that's been around the block. That's why I'm all in on middle-aged burgers, okay? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it might be graying on the sides and you need to apply a prescription cream to its back every once in a while.

But this is a burger who gets all my Simpson references and still thinks it's cool I drive an 88 Camara. Plus, it's got the one thing I look for in a burger. No other options. Pick you up at eight burger. Now, no matter what age burger you prefer, if you want to wash it down with something bubbly, it's going to be a problem.

Hit me. America is running out of Topo Chi. Coca-Cola owns the brand and says the flagship product is temporarily unavailable in America. It's due to facility upgrades at the water source and production facilities in Mexico. Due to the shortage, these last remaining bottles have gone up to $6 a piece. Whoa, $6 a bottle. That's almost as expensive as a pint of clean blood. But hey, don't let the price of sparkling H2O stop your bank account from H2 Grow.

because I'm currently seeking investors in Signor Castas, Guadalajagua. It comes straight from the source, the pipes of a Tijuana motel that I've been crashing at. Now, it isn't exactly what you'd call sparkling, but it does have bubbles now available at Whole Foods, Newark Airport's only grocery store. But we're not talking about making money

if we're not talking about trading. Not stocks, I'm talking trading cards. A he-ye-me. The thrill of hunting down rare in-demand Pokemon cards has been sparking excitement for three decades now. And some of these cards can be worth a fortune. Influencer Logan Paul recently sold one card for millions. Over 16 million for a single card. Yep.

And this follows my three main rules of investing. Buy low, sell high, and always take financial advice from Logan Paul. But buyer beware, there are a ton of fake Pokemon. on cards aren't there. My $10,000 rare Pikachu turned out to be a Polaroid of a rat spray-painted yellow. I know. Then, when I went to get a

refund, Timmy was gone from that playground. And then the parents got all freaked out of me for screaming at the other kids when I'm the victim. How is that fair? Huh? F*** you, Timmy. What's that? That must be the dinner bell. Which means I got to go pick up a hot, middle-aged burger, and take her out for a

$6 topo chico. And you No, that guarantees I'll be tasting that special sauce. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Sorry, folks, that's just the cost of doing baysnays. Don't go away. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel.

While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to West Jetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. For New York Magazine and bestselling author whose latest book is called Angry Girls Will Get Us Through. Please welcome Rebecca Traster. Angry Girls will get us through. Angry as in good. Anger is a good thing. A force for good.

Can be a good thing. Can be a good thing. Can be a good thing. Walk me through this. How can this be a good thing? So there's a lot of different things that anger can be. including political anger. I would say that we live in a period in which a certain kind of political anger

that is not good is radically shifting this country in a terrible way. That's a punitive anger on behalf of an inequitable power system and angry people, a lot of angry white men who want to get back their power

and are doing an enormous amount of destruction. This book is not about that. No. This book... This book is... Ooh, whoa. Five. Fun, fun, angry white, oh, no, there's no angry white men in here at all.

How am I going to relate? This book is about the women who have pissed those men off. So this book is a book about angry women and girls and gender nonconforming people who have been angry at inequity, at injustice. And I would argue that that kind of anger is good, can be good. but also one of the reasons I'm writing this book, and one of the reasons, this is an adaptation for young readers of a book that I wrote for adults,

is because that anger has been under-recognized. We don't get taught about it. It's not appreciated. In fact, women and girls and gender non-conforming people are often told that their anger makes them ugly or hysterical or crazy or dangerous. And in fact, when I have gone back to get an education that I never got, and I had a very good education,

but was never taught. that at the beginning of almost every major social movement that has reshaped this country, not just the officially women's movement ones, civil rights, environment, labor, there were angry women and girls at the start. And their stories haven't been transmitted to us. So this is an attempt for me to begin to tell some of those stories

that I don't think got recognized or appreciated, and it's specifically about the anger that didn't get appreciated as catalytic and righteous. Now, it's a good time to write about history. It's being rewritten as we. Sure is. Is there any, you kind of walk through a lot of characters within the women's movement. Is there anybody who stands out to you in this as particularly important in a moment like this? Well, there are a lot of people who are very important. I will tell you somebody I've been

thinking about recently, in part because she just died. A woman named Claudette Colvin. And that's a name that a lot of people might not immediately recognize, and that's, in fact, kind of nuts. Claudette Colvin was 15 in 1955, March of 1955, almost exactly 70 years ago, when she, as a 15-year-old girl, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery. This is nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Now, the civil rights movement, which had been planning to stage an action around this, did not want Claudette Colvin, this 15-year-old girl, to be the face of that action. She did get arrested.

She became a plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that ultimately that in 1956 would bar racial segregation on public transportation. So she's incredibly important. Her choice that day on that bus actually changed the law. And yet we're not taught about her. There are a lot of very messed up reasons that we're not taught about her and that the movement itself wanted to choose Rosa Parks, who herself is angry in ways we're not taught about. also in this book. But one of the reasons that I think about Claudette Colvin in particular,

writing this book for young readers, is that the way she described her choice that day as a high school student was that because she'd been reading history specifically about the abolition movement, a century before her, she says that she felt like the ghosts of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth were pushing on her shoulders, gluing her to that bus seat. And it reminds me of why it's so important that we have this history, that we do tell these stories of anger and resistance, because a 15-year-old girl can be inspired by them a hundred years later and wind up a plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that winds up altering the law around segregation and public transportation. Now, I'm kidding. You see the import in recognizing the pattern where anger has

been, in many ways, whitewashed or sanded down. And you're asking people to, you're asking people to, connect with that anger right now. But I think a lot of people also feel the burnout attached with anger. Like, how does someone hold that anger, that righteous feeling that they have, when they're pissed off at the system? But when I go and talk to a lot of people who are watching the news, there's no shortage of being mad at it. But almost for self-survival, there's a desire to step back and give yourself that space.

How do you reconcile keeping that fire burning and also staying sane in this world? Well, there's such a great question. and it's so real. And especially these past couple years, I've heard that so much from so many people, people who are angry in the first Trump administration and now are tired, right? It's another reason that it's really important

to tell a longer and more complex history. And the first thing I want to say is that anger can be a very destructive force. I never want to pretend that it can't be. It can explode relationships between allies, between friends. It can be very combustible and destructive. We don't talk enough about how anger,

shared anger, can also bring people together. It's the building blocks organizing and of movements, it's also how people support each other. And when you discourage people on the margins from expressing their anger, that means they can't let other people know what they're angry about and they can't hear the other people who might be right next to them in class, on their block, at work, who are angry about the same things and with whom they could form a bond that winds up being supportive, people they can work together with, do organizing, and also celebrate with. One story in this book is about

kids who planned a trans prom. You know, there's celebration in anger. and in organizing. There's comfort through the losses. And then there's also people who can spell you when you're exhausted. And so one of the things that I want to stress about anger, including for young people, is that while it can be harmful and hurt, it can also draw people together.

And we don't talk enough about that. So actually, I think that the answer to burnout, there's sometimes no answer to burnout, but community helps. Community connection, working together, really listening and paying attention to the people who are angry about the same things you are, how they're doing, how they're feeling.

Can you help them? Can they help you? You talk a little bit in this about your own writing process and how years ago comedy was a tool many people used as a way to invite people in and still do, but that you shifted to an angrier stance and immediately found that that was resonating more or it got much more attention.

But when I look at the media landscape right now or the platforms with which people engage in, anger is sort of the bar for engagement. So how do you balance what seems to get clicks with actual effectiveness? Feels like the conversation happens amongst a din of anger, and it just gets lost within that. So that's a question that I think we could ask about almost any era, right, where you're trying to break through, whether that's in newspaper periodicals, or whether it's in a television era, or now whether it's in an internet clickbait era. And there's not an easy answer except that I think people, I think all of us here can recognize and connect with things that are authentic versus things that are performed, right? And I don't think there's a formula. You can't perform anger in a way that's going to resonate. You can perform it in a way that's going to make people laugh that might make people. But, you know, I don't think there's a single solution to that problem. I think it's a matter of continuing to think hard about what we want to say and to whom we want to say.

say it and how we want to say it, and make sure that it's coming from a place that's real and not just trying to get the attention. Because people can see through that pretty quickly, I think. Oh, I hope people can't see through inauthenticity. That's my greatest fear. It really is. Your audience for this is primarily a younger audience. Did you consider boiling this down to a 90-second TikTok? They love me on TikTok. Yeah, no, I'm a huge TikTok star. In talking to a younger audience, though, is a There's lots of conversations around a shorter attention span and the way in which to get their attention.

Have you found a response from younger audiences into digging to this history that they haven't heard yet? Yeah. I have two younger readers at home. And I know a lot of younger readers because of them in my real life. And it's funny, there are shorter attention spans, but I think we under, we undersell the curiosity.

We don't take, again, part of what this book is about. We don't take seriously the curiosity. and appetites of young people. Yes, there's all kinds of candy around. You know what? People are curious about the world. We send them scary messages about it all the time, right? We tell them they live in unprecedented times.

That's terrifying for young people to hear. They actually sort of have hunger and, you know, there are lots of different ways that can be satisfied, but with actually getting fuller, richer, more complex, sometimes funnier, sometimes angrier stories. So I actually, I give young people a lot of credit for having varied appetites. Well, it's a great thing. I think it is it does it does elucidate some history that a lot of people don't don't normally see and if you really could get that down to a 90-second tic-tok I'm working on you're gonna get it the book is angry girls we'll get us to a dancing robot is

entertaining customers at a restaurant but things quickly get out of hand when the robot starts smashing plates a waitress jumps in and tries to drag the out-of-control robot away, but the robot keeps up the silly antics. 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,

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