The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Puts the Squeeze on Venezuela's Oil & Eyes Greenland as Next Target | Stephen J. Dubner
Episode Date: January 8, 2026Ronny Chieng covers how Trump is taking charge of Venezuela's oil industry and replacing their old dictator with a new one: himself. Plus, this Venezuela takeover is so much fun, the president adds a ...bunch of other countries to his To-Be-Overthrown list, including Greenland, and Michael Kosta couldn't be more excited to be part of Trump's nation-extorting mafia. Jordan Klepper profiles Benny Johnson, social media star turned White House press commentator, who caught Trump’s eye with his generic vitriol, Russian backing, penchant for plagiarism, and unyielding obsession with Batman. Stephen J. Dubner, host of "Freakonomics Radio" and co-author of "Freakonomics," sits down with Ronny Chieng to discuss the book’s 20th anniversary edition. They talk about how Dubner and his co-author Steven Levitt wove together storytelling and data to present case studies without imposing their own judgment, and how their publisher, doubtful of the title, liberated them to write the book they wanted. Dubner also offers some Freakonomics insights for 2026 pertaining to animals and artificial insemination, and why one should never go before a judge just before lunch. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster—join at https://RocketMoney.com/DAILYSHOW. Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince—visit https://quince.com/DAILYSHOW for free shipping and 365-day returns. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/daily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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You're listening to Comedy Central.
From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only sorts for new.
This is The Daily Show with your host, Ronnie T.
Welcome to The Daily Show.
I'm Roy Chegg.
We got so much to talk about tonight.
Trump grabs more oil than diddy.
The new Batman reboot sucks.
And did you know, Iceland is actually green.
And Greenland is actually under threat
from the president of the United States.
So let's find out more
in our ongoing coverage of the war in Venezuela.
Leave the oil to me.
It's been five days since America invaded Venezuela,
arrested its president, and seized control of the country.
And now the real work begins.
Nation building.
I'm sorry, I read that wrong.
I meant narrative building.
The bottom line is we now have freedom in Venezuela.
I have so many Venezuelan friends.
They are crying tears of joy.
This is their first real opportunity.
for to experience democracy and freedom.
Listen, people smell freedom in the air,
and they can thank Donald J. Trump.
That's right.
Trump is stinking up the joint with freedom.
Can you smell it?
It's just crop dusting our hemisphere of democracy.
Breathe it in, people.
Finally, the Venezuelan people are in charge of their own destiny.
Let's see exactly what kind of freedom
they have won.
President Donald Trump announced that Venezuela
will be giving the U.S. 30 to 50 million barrels of oil
to be sold.
This oil will be sold at its market price
and that money will be controlled by me
as president of the United States of America.
Okay, okay, look, say what you want about his corruption.
At least Trump is hands-on with it, okay?
Dick Cheney had to funnel it through Halliburton or whatever,
But Donald Trump is like,
yo, just give me the oil.
I'll open a gas pump outside the Oval Office.
Okay?
Just come drive right up, but no Amex.
So yes, Venezuela has agreed
to hand over approximately $2 billion worth of oil
to the United States,
either the goodness of their hearts,
and because we are mugging them.
Which seems harsh,
but you know what?
A little bit of oil money for President Trump
is a small price to pay
for illegally kidnapping the president.
And now that this payoff is taking care of,
America will get out of your hair.
Goodbye forever, Venezuela.
You're finally free.
The U.S. now composing a military blockade
on its oil exports,
using it as leverage to get Venezuela
to give in to the Trump administration's demands.
The U.S. has conveyed to the interim leader of Venezuela
that she must agree to partner exclusively
with the U.S. on oil production
and kick out officials from China,
Russia, Iran, and Cuba, severing all economic ties with those countries.
I think we all know what's going on here.
Ladies, when your new boyfriend forces you to cut ties with all of your friends,
he's a keeper.
Sorry, it kind of feels like Trump wants to be the new dictator of Venezuela,
but that can't be right, right?
We obviously have maximum leverage over the international.
authorities, their decisions are going to continue to be dictated by the United States of America.
Okay, look, I know how that sounds, but just because you dictate doesn't make you a dictator.
Okay? Because, no, it doesn't. Because dictators, they live in like a gold palace or so off, oh,
And to any Venezuelans looking for advice on how to get rid of Donald Trump, we have no idea.
But I can tell you one thing that doesn't work, satire.
Doesn't do shit.
But if you're in a country in the area and this sounds like a good deal, well, good news.
news. You're next.
This is the start of changing Venezuela.
Then we're going to fix Cuba.
Nicaragua will get fixed. Next year we'll get a new
president in Colombia. Democracy is coming
back to this hemisphere.
Okay. First of all,
congratulations to this
guy on surviving the Ark of the Covenant.
And second,
Look, okay, the world is a messed up place.
If an oil rampage is what it takes to spread democracy,
maybe that's what it takes, okay?
Stop being such babies.
So which of these tyrannical dictatorships are we going after next?
President Trump and his team are also targeting a northern ally of the U.S.
with new threats to take over Greenland.
That's right, Greenland.
Because the only thing we hate more than a brutal authoritarian
regime is whatever the complete opposite of that is.
That's just one little hitch with invading Greenland.
Denmark, which controls the independent territory, is a close NATO ally.
The Danish Prime Minister has said a U.S. attack on NATO territory would effectively end the
alliance, which has never seen one member attack another.
Great, okay? That means they won't expect it.
The definition of a sneak attack.
The point is we need Greenland.
Why?
For their freedom or their oil or for national defense.
Look, I don't remember what excuse we're using.
But, okay, this congressman, he'll explain.
It's important that we have a stake in Greenland.
When you look at the Western Hemisphere,
we are the dominant predator, quite frankly,
force in the Western Hemisphere.
Yeah, Trump is the dominant predator in the Western Hemisphere.
predator in the Western Hemisphere.
At least
now that Jeffrey Epstein is dead.
For more
on America's plans
in Venezuela, we go
live to Caracas with Michael
Costa.
Michael. Michael.
Michael. Michael.
How are Venezuelans reacting to this extortion?
Extortion.
Oh, Ronnie.
What America is doing here is legitimate international business.
Trump is simply offering Venezuela protection from dictators and foreign enemies,
and in exchange, they give him money for that protection.
Capiche?
Michael, that's the business model of the mafia.
You're describing the mafia.
The mafia.
Oh, stugats.
This is not the mob.
This is just Venezuela
tucking an envelope of cash
in the Donald Trump's pocket every week
because it would be a real shame
if they forgot to pay
and their economy blew up
when it turned on its car.
Everything you're describing
is what the mob does, okay?
You're even dressed like you're in the mob.
All right, fine.
Maybe America is a little bit
of a mafia face. So what?
The mafia's Mouto Ben.
You get to wear nice suits.
You skip the line at the Copa,
and you get to kiss guys on the lips
when they portray you,
and you get to drink
from fancy little cup,
Salute.
Okay, Costa, it's a little late
in the day to be drinking espresso.
This? This is crude oil.
As Mynona used to say,
and that's a spicy diesel fuel.
Have you not seen any mafia movies?
It never ends well for them.
Name one mob movie that doesn't end well.
The Godfather.
Name two.
The Godfather, two.
Name three.
The Godfather three.
Name six more.
All those Scorsese movies and the Sopranos.
Technically, we don't know how the Supreme.
For all we know, Tony is still at the strip club, eating gabagool, getting a lap dance from a girl wearing a bikini made of gabagool.
Oh!
Costa, I know it's great to live by Lala's mob rules when you have power, but what's to start someone bigger from doing all this mafia shit on us?
Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, your brain is like a canoli with no filling.
If that happens to America, we'll just turn state witness.
I'm already wearing a wire.
No, this isn't TV, okay?
If we abandon international law,
what will stop the next superpower
from extorting us
once our run as an empire is over?
Name one time an empire's come to an end.
One time, the Romans, the British, the Germans,
the Germans, Mongolians, Ottomans.
Stop making places up, Ronnie.
And trust me, this is not going to happen this time.
Oh, really? Why not?
Because there's only one way
this Venezuela stuff to end.
And that is...
Ah, fuck, he sopranoed me.
God damn.
Michael Costa, everyone.
When we come back, we discover America's best reporter, so don't go away.
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Welcome back to a daily show. Every year there's more and more reporters joining the esteemed profession of
the news media. So to find out who some of them are, we go to Jordan Klepper in our ongoing
segment, News to Meet Ya.
Lately, President Trump has been introducing a slew of new reporters to the White House press
pool, including social media star and fellow forehead American, Benny Johnson.
Lucky for us, he's not afraid to hold the powerful accountable and,
ask the tough questions.
Will the President consider
giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom
to Big Balls?
Ooh.
That's a very important
question.
It'll be the first Medal of Freedom awarded to a
human scrotum since Rush Limbaugh.
Now,
it is these.
It is these kinds of bold
and very wrinkly questions that Benny
Johnson has been asking for years on his creatively titled programs like The Benny Show,
the Benny Report, Benny Brews, and Benny on the Block, and of course, breaking Benny,
two and a half Benny's, and the Kelly Clarkson Show featuring Benny Johnson.
But before he was getting literally a billion views online, Benny worked at storied news outlets
like Breitbart, The Blaze, and BuzzFeed, where he honed a huge.
unique perspective that was definitely authentic and original.
BuzzFeed announced it was firing its viral politics editor, Benny Johnson, for plagiarism.
Johnson wholesale copied words and entire phrases from The Guardian, U.S. News and World Report,
and even Yahoo Answers.
Wow!
How bad of a writer do you have to be to cheat on a BuzzFeed article with Yahoo Answers?
Yahoo! Answers, the website that bravely asks,
what if Wikipedia was written by guys who scrawl graffiti in public toilets?
But, now that he's no longer at bus feed,
he's not forced to write drivel like,
which Harry Potter house matches your Disney princess style.
I'm a Hufflepuff Moana, but that's beside the point.
Benny is now free to talk politics.
Give us a taste.
Every single thing you hate about your life right now
or American culture is caused by mass immigration.
American cities are treasures,
and we should not sacrifice them
to be Mongoloid horde.
White rage is how you win a war.
Leftists are a death cult.
Save this country from literal demons,
from Satanists and from scum.
You Slytherin Elsa bitch.
Wow.
Wow.
Maybe we were too hard on plagiarism, you know?
Regardless, Benny's constant stream of vitriol and cruelty
has reaped him billions of views.
Frankly, it blows my mind that someone this unoriginal and derivative
can garner such online attention and the ear of the president.
I mean, what am I missing?
Some of the most famous, most viewed right-wing online influencers
were being paid by Russia.
Part of a Kremlin-backed campaign to fuel Russian narratives.
Among those stars, Benny Johnson.
Oh!
He's just being paid by foreign forces to destroy America from within.
Phew! I thought my neighbors actually like the guy!
You know, and his popularity can't just all be Russia
putting their finger on the scale.
Perhaps there's a star quality.
there. Just show me the undeniable
charisma, Benny.
Whoa.
Benny, that's the good, the first good question
I've heard you ask.
What is going on?
He dances like a jabberwocky with polio.
Now, I know J.D. Vance said we don't have to apologize
for being white anymore, but
on behalf of the whites,
I'm sorry you all had to see that.
But you know what?
You know what?
Hey, you know what?
You know what?
You don't have to have coordinated limbs or a,
Toddler's sense of rhythm to be compelling.
Hit us with your classic
Benny Johnson charm and humor.
Welcome to the Benny Report.
I'm Batman. Actually, I'm Benny Johnson.
Okay. Okay.
For a second, I thought he was Batman.
You got me, Benny?
And I'll tell you what, if you like that Batman reference,
don't worry, there's plenty more.
Have you ever watched The Dark Night,
arguably the greatest superhero film of all time?
The scene when Batman comes up
the floor and there's like seven bad guys and they're like who he is and it's a big
Batman just takes them all out I want Batman to stay Batman not turn into
Antifa man so I'm a big Batman fan we're gonna begin by saying Batman for your boy
no no no we are not we are adults and we do adult things yes adults and we do
adult things like crossword puzzles
by orthotic inserts
and drink quietly over the sink after
our wife goes to bed.
We do adult things.
But yeah, Benny loves Batman
so much. He even released
an AI video of himself
dressed as Batman and
punching immigrants
in a Walmart parking
lot.
I know what you're thinking.
What a xenophobic and cruel
vision of Batman. But
But it's still better than the George Clooney one.
You're all thinking of it.
You're all thinking.
And you know what?
I know I'm going to hate this answer.
But what is it about the Cape Crusader you even like so much, Benny?
Both Trump and Batman are rich, mysterious, unpredictable guys.
They own skyscrapers in Gotham.
Okay.
So your favorite thing about Batman is that he's rich and owns buildings.
Benny, you don't like Batman, you like Bruce Wayne.
Benny Johnson watches Batman fighting the Joker, like, boo, you're missing the black tie
gala for this.
I got to admit, Benny, Benny, you're running out of chances to win me over here.
Can you show me anything that proves you have the goods to speak truth to power?
What's up, guys?
We are taking you inside alligator Alcatraz today with President Trump.
One of the most deadly spots on earth, the middle of the Florida Everglades.
Let's freaking cook.
This is going to be a wild one.
We're in rock and roll.
So come along with us on a nice raid in Chicago.
Let's go.
Let's rock and roll.
Oh, yeah, nothing says let's rock and roll like a quarter zip and some Warby Parkers.
Although I will say one thing I liked, not one mention of Batman.
Underneath Chicago, you recognize some of these tunnels.
from the actual Dark Night series.
God damn it!
Damn it!
For the last time, you are not Batman!
You're a thirsty influencer cosplay
as a journalist.
At best, you are the nipples on George Clooney's Batman suits.
Yes.
That's...
A gross appendage that years from now history
would prefer to forget.
At least I think that's true, according to Yahoo answers.
I'm Jordan Klepper. Good night and seriously. Good fucking luck.
Thank you, Jordan. When we come back, Stephen J. Wobbner will be joining us on the show so don't go away.
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Welcome back to The Daily Show.
My guest tonight is the host of Freakonomics Radio
and co-author of Freakonomics.
Now in a new 20th anniversary edition,
please welcome Mr. Stephen Dubner.
Thank you.
Thanks for coming on the show.
You're welcome.
Thank you for having it.
I read this book in college, and it changed the way I saw the world.
Why is everything in this wrong?
Well, we...
We didn't have chat GPT yet.
Let's start with the title, Freakonomics, come on.
Like, that makes everyone think it's a study on, like, Diddy Potty's or something.
That's what our publisher thought.
They said, there's no way we can call this book Freakonomics.
They said, do you know what Freak means?
And I thought I did, but then they said it has to do with, you know, children, animals, sex, things like that.
And I didn't actually know that.
But you went with it anyway.
We persevered, yes.
And it's a real, I mean, before we get into the substance of the book, it's almost a triumph of publishing, this story.
that you made this book because when you wrote it, co-wrote it,
you guys didn't think that it was going to become the phenomenon?
We did not. We did not.
I think every writer, like, you finish your manuscript,
and it goes to the publisher, and they're getting it ready.
And that's the period that we call the lull before the lull.
Because you assume that, like, you work hard on it,
but most books, you know how many books that are published every year?
It's like 250,000.
And most people, the average American, reads, like, zero.
So, um...
So the numbers are not good.
The numbers are not good.
You could say the Freakonomics don't make sense in that one.
But when you, I like, it's an interesting story.
You talk about in the foreword of this 20th edition
that you called it Freakonomics,
a publisher said that name's not going to work,
and you did it, and so it kind of freed you from the burden of expectation
and you wrote the book you want.
Is that because the publisher kind of gave up on it after you named it that?
No, in the sense, no, it's the publisher going like,
hey, these f*** are not listening to us
anyway. You don't want to listen.
We're just publishers. What do we know? We just sell
books every day. You don't want to listen to us. All right, right, what
you want you want? And then you wrote it and it blew up.
And then you want to rub it in their faces the whole time.
Yes. That is exactly what happened.
Very awesome.
No, I love it.
Yeah.
Dude, we all love underdog showbiz stories
of sticking it to meddlesome, you know,
producers and studios.
And, I mean, in case for the less educated people here, we don't know,
this book is divided into kind of almost case studies.
Yeah.
Right?
Which is also unconventional structure for a book.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, we didn't have, so I have a co-author, Steve Levitt,
who was on this show, probably in the studio right near here,
but not the same one 20 years ago when the book first came out.
He was on with John Stewart.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you had to come out with me.
And, yeah, we didn't expect the book, like,
we had a blast writing it.
And Leavitt is an economist. I'm a writer.
We started to spend some time together.
And he did, in economics, what I like to do as a writer,
which is find whatever stories, often odd or surprising,
and just go deep on them.
But the beauty of this is, I'm a writer.
We look for stories, but Leavitt as an economist, had data.
So we had data on sumo wrestlers and real estate agents
and what people name their babies and all these different things.
And so what we did is we just told stories like you do in a regular
book, but with a lot of data, and we showed our homework. We tried to really explain to the listener
why this thing that we say that is true, why you should believe it. And it's really hard for me to
understand why it succeeded the way it did other than there were a lot of young people like you
in college trying to figure out like, I know when the authority figures tell me the way
the world works, they're lying. I know that. And institutions, you know, they kind of tell you one
story, but it doesn't work out that way. So we were just trying to blow the lid off that with data.
For sure, now that you mentioned it, it did feel very countercultural at the time when, you know,
and now 20 years later, you guys are the institutions now.
I guess that's...
You guys are the old guys here, you know?
But, no, but I mean that when I said it changed the way I look at the world, it did because it kind of made me think about...
It was written, it was very easy to read, first of all.
So it was kind of like academics, but made dumber.
Yeah, I was...
I was the...
My partner is in academics, so you know what part I am of that.
Yeah.
No, you made it accessible, and regardless of...
you know, whatever was the facts involved.
But it just made me think of a,
it's a different way to look at the world,
that there's these, you could take two separate situations
and there could be hidden causation between them.
So, you know, for people, again,
for the uneducated people on social media,
who are watching this on YouTube, on the toilet,
while taking a shit.
You know, so for example, if you haven't read the book,
it's that there's a story in here about connect.
Can I just say, I'm glad that they're taking a shit
on the toilet. I mean, that's a win. You got to, I guess. I mean, I somewhat consider it the
bare minimum, but I guess in 2226, we take that as a win these days. If you're taking
a shit on the toilet, congratulations. You made it to the toilet. And there's connections here
between, you know, abortion and crime rates and stuff like that. You know, 20 years later,
I reread this. I think there was a second edition. You added a
forward. Yeah. But really it hasn't changed that much. It didn't. I mean...
Do the studies and the connections still hold up?
Yeah, I mean, I know thanks to the internet, which we all love in many different ways.
The internet. I hate you guys.
Legacy media for life.
So, um, it is true that if you do good nonfiction work, so, you know, I'm a journalist by
worked at the New York Times, et cetera.
There are a lot of things that are great about real journalism,
including the fact that rather than asking one person what's going on,
you ask a lot, you fact check it, et cetera, et cetera.
That said, if you write a book, which is full of what we argue
is all true stuff backed up by data,
there will be a million people who say, well, in my experience,
that's not true.
And then it starts a kind of pissing war there.
The good news is that the book, which we kind of went back
and reexamined a bunch of times in Levitt
and his co-author on the abortion crime study that you mentioned,
actually went back and did a whole new study
with 20 years more worth of data.
And, yeah, the book is legit.
I was very happy.
Great.
That's good to know.
It was great to know.
If you were to rewrite this book in 2026.
Oh, not possible.
Oh, why not possible?
Like, when I read it now, like, you know,
I hear the voices of the people that we were,
then. And when you're 20 years younger, you're a different person. I think we're a little bit more
like callow. And also the environment was different. You could just say stuff. Now you're in an
environment where because of the amplification of social, no matter what you say, there will be an
avalanche coming at you. And unless you're really good at tuning it out, which I encourage
everyone to become really good at, because that's important, then you're going to doubt yourself
and you're going to dial it down and you're going to make boring stuff. And we did not want to be
boring okay i don't know if you watch this show we talk about a ton of shit every day and
i i say this i i say this with truly no bravado i object objectively we truly do not give a
on this show if you watch it so i i kind of disagree on this we can't say anything now okay
i'm gonna leave no no no please don't but but i guess what i was trying to not so much that
you are younger and more spry back then i just mean like i
I was so spied.
Let me tell you.
But what I meant more was, like, if you were to write this book now, what case studies
might you put in there?
That's kind of why I made.
I would, I mean, the ones I'm thinking about are not necessarily as fun.
Like, there were a lot of fun ones, sumo wrestling, I mentioned, so on.
Like, I would write a lot about AI now.
I think...
Just to sell the book, could you quickly explain the connection being sumo wrestling and...
Oh, yeah.
So it turns out that sumo wrestlers will collude with each other.
even sumo wrestlers from opposite teams or stables,
because they will help each other kind of maintain their rank
in the big rankings that determines basically whether you eat or not.
So we looked at collusion in sumo wrestlers.
We looked at cheating teachers,
which I think probably still happens a little bit.
Can I tell you what's so interesting about that?
We looked at, it turned out that teachers,
when the standards were raised for children,
the no child left behind standards where schools would be punished
if a certain number of children would fail,
It turned out there were some teachers that would actually cheat on behalf of their students.
They would actually take their standardized tests, erase the wrong answers, and write in the right ones,
which is terrible and sad, sad face.
But what was particularly interesting was that the teachers who cheated were the bad teachers.
In other words, it was the bad teachers who had to cheat on behalf of their students
because the teachers hadn't done a good job teaching them.
So now I think we would write about AI.
What I love, sorry, before you get to the 2226 stuff.
I don't even have to get to the 2026.
No, no, no, I do want to hear what.
you hear, but one thing I love about the whole tone of these books is that you kind of present
all this stuff as you just did, kind of objectively without judgment, here's the connections
where you're like it or not, without providing any solutions whatsoever. And I, I love it.
I love it. That's what it's about, yeah. It's all right.
You're like, I would argue.
Socrates just throwing these mediocrities in the air and going, you know. But, uh, I mean,
please answer to you, but I do want to hear about 2026, though. I don't care about 2026.
No, no, I do. I can't.
But what I would say is that you're right that we probably don't provide a lot of solutions,
but I really appreciate and like that you said without judgment.
Because I feel that whether you're in entertainment, journalism, running a country, whatever,
I think the easiest trap to fall into is bringing your, what you think, your values,
which you think are the only values, to every argument,
whether it's about health care, whether it's about housing and so on.
And that's just prima facie a stupid way to operate
because not everybody believes like you.
So we were trying to just lay out like,
this is the way the world works
using these case studies or stories
and you, smart person who reads a book.
Now you go in the world and do something with it
without us telling you what to do.
Sure.
No, and I think there is value there.
It is value that without.
So I actually appreciate the tone you guys took with it.
And I guess that's why I would love to hear
what your 2026 kind of insights would be.
so that we could go into the world
and act like smart asses like you guys
and just drop some factoids on this place.
Let me think. Okay, if you happen to be seeking asylum
and you get before a judge, an asylum judge,
make sure you don't have the slot right before lunch.
Okay? Bad, bad fortune for you.
So if you happen to be like the last one before lunch,
you should do something like vomit to clear the courtroom,
so the judge comes back after he or she is eaten?
Who says you don't provide solutions?
This is what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what I'd be writing about now.
Oh, sorry, could you just explain a little bit why that's the bad...
Oh, because hungry people make bad decisions.
It's no joke.
And if you look at like sports referees...
But what if my case is weak, I need the judge to make a bad decision to get me into the country.
Oh, to get you into the...
Oh, that's a different story.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
So I haven't gone that far with that logic.
I'll tell you, how do you feel about artificial insemination?
Is that a topic that interests you?
It interests me a lot, I would have to say, yeah.
I like watching that a lot.
So one thing I've learned recently is that there are two animals
that are very popular in America,
one of which is conceived almost
Republicans and Democrats.
One of which is conceived almost always by artificial insemination.
The other, never.
And I found this interesting.
The one that always is is turkeys.
is turkeys. And the reason is that we like to eat breast meat from turkey in America
with mayonnaise and mustard and so on. And so they've bred the turkeys to have such big breasts
that they physically cannot get close enough to procreate anymore. Therefore, all turkeys
you eat are the product of artificial insemination. But on the other hand, on the other hand,
thoroughbred race horses, they're not allowed to be bred by artificial insemination. And the reason
is that Kentucky has this real stranglehold,
a monopoly, on the thoroughbred breeding industry.
And they know that if they were to allow
artificial insemination, then no longer does everybody
have to bring their horses to Kentucky
to be bred by a real horse with a real, you know, thing.
Okay, but how do they police that?
There is a horse penis police force.
No, I know.
Just blocking the artificial insemination.
Yeah, you're, I guess it's,
in the registry. You have to have a, the mother and father need to be physically present at the
same time. Aren't you glad now you know? No, I, hey, but this, honestly, being 20 years old
and reading all this was actually very eye-opening, so I really appreciate it. And like, what else,
I mean, any other lessons you take from this that, I guess, you know, how do we get people to,
I don't know, just read more? Oh, you know, here's my thing. First of all, people are reading more
books now than they were five and ten years ago, which is really interesting.
Oh, that's good.
It's very interesting.
It's a surprise because the trend was not going there.
I will tell you, I mean, this is apropos of nothing other than I'm a fan of this guy.
He's a guy named James Daunt, who's an English bookstore owner.
He opened a store called Daunt in London years ago.
He was so good at running these small, great bookstores that the Barnes & Noble of England hired him to run their stores, Waterstons.
And now the Barnes & Noble of America, which is called Barnes & Noble, hired
him to also run Barnes & Noble here. So this one guy has really changed the way books are being
sold in America. And I think the Amazon model, everybody liked it because it's easy, but it
wasn't really about loving books. And so I think books are coming back with a force. I understand
that that one is available in finer books. Stephen, thanks for writing the book.
Thanks for changing the way I looked at the world. It was really insightful as a young person in college.
I really appreciate it. Freakonomics, 20th anniversary edition, is available now.
You should check out the Freakonomics Radio podcast, Stephen Dubin, everybody.
We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back after this.
No, that's right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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That's our show for tonight.
Now, here it is your moment of then.
We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.
And Denmark is not going to be able to do it, I can tell you.
You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security in Greenland?
They added one more dog's men.
It's true.
They thought that was a great move.
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