The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Rails Against Communism at Georgia Rally & Don Jr. Swears He Doesn’t Do Coke | Karolina Wydra

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Desi Lydic breaks down Trump’s underwhelming rally in Georgia where he presented his plans to tackle affordability (a term he claims was invented by Democrats) and declared that communism is the worst thing to happen to America--including 9/11. Plus, Don Jr. profits from daddy’s presidency but SWEARS he’s not the “cokehead” the internet thinks he is, and Ronny Chieng affirms the two have never done a line together. Is racism nonexistent in 2026 America? That's what gaslighters in conservative media would have you believe, and they're touting their supposed "Black friends" as proof. In this edition of In My Opinion, Leslie Jones takes apart the absurdity of that claim by drawing on her own experiences as a Black American, explaining that being a good white friend means standing up for Black people, and examining what the tragic death of Mississippi teenager Nolan Wells says about the myth of a post-racist America. Catch Leslie Jones on HGTV's "Roast My Rental." Actor Karolina Wydra tells Desi Lydic the crazy story behind landing her Emmy-nominated role in the hit Apple TV show, “Pluribus,” and marking her return to acting. Plus, Wydra shares how meditation and dream work helped her play Zosia, a character who lives in a hive-mind consciousness with no ego and no fear. -- 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

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, Desi Linens. Don Jr. searches his name on Twitter, and my very, very, very good friend, Leslie Jones, sounds off on white people bragging about having black friends. Shit.

Let's get into the headlines. Trump was down in Georgia yesterday, where he campaigned for Republican Mike Collins, and the GOP desperately needs Trump to give Collins a boost if they have any chance of keeping the Senate. So of course, Trump talked about himself. When I inherited this thing on January 20th,

I walk into office, I have a press conference first or second day, and they're screaming at me, what are you gonna know about high prices? Right? What are you gonna do? I said, I just got here. What are we talking about? Tell me. Eggs, eggs have gone up. four times. Four times?

I said, I just got here. Give me a break. Give me a break. I didn't expect to jump into work right away. I just ran to stay out of prison. What do you mean you just got here? You already had the job for four years. You probably still

had old pens in the desk. The guy's acting like he was expecting an onboarding. This is Joe B. You're going to spend the day shadowing him. Look, I do get it. He just wanted to spend his first day settling in, putting

his stuff down, pardoning January Sixers. But the Democrats were just throwing all these new words at him. And they said, they used the word, first time I heard it, it was a word, you know, made up by the Democrats. Affordability. They said,

affordability. Affordability. Why is the word you're best at saying the one you're worst at doing? And by the way, Democrats didn't invent the word affordability. Costco did. If you're going to buy a container of mustard, shouldn't you be able to bathe in it? After 10 years of Trump rallies, you can kind of tell that he's not moving crowds like he used to.

The people there were yawning. They were bored, not even looking at him. This one kid was just on his phone half the time. Playing Roblox, the president is talking about affordability. Come on, Donald, you got to win this crowd back. You were so great at nicknames. Why don't you just announce a new cool policy with a snappy nickname, like old times. We'll pass the Great Healthcare Plan. It's called Our Great Healthcare Plan. That's the name of it. Wow, thanks for putting in all that thought.

Such a lazy name. That's like making a daily show and calling it The Daily Show. But look, the president wasn't just there to lie about health care. He was there to warn us about a terrible danger. The radical left is actively trying to destroy our children's future with the disaster known as communism. Production. Don't tell me it's communism.

Communism is the single greatest threat to our country in its history, including even World War I and World War II, Pearl Harbor, 9-11. I think it's the greatest threat that I've ever seen to our country. That's right. That's right. Communism is the greatest threat to our country, even more than the looming threat of World War I. This is what the president believes, although I think someone else might disagree with him.

The threat that we have, the biggest threat is nuclear war. I think that the border is the biggest threat to this country. Our biggest threat remains the sick, sinister, and evil people from within our country. The weaponization of law enforcement is the greatest threat. Our biggest threat to democracy is stupid people. Last one. But let's move on from Donald Trump to his son, Don George. Jr., a New York 5, but a solid Trump 8. The rest of us are suffering.

He wants us to know he's doing great. CNN investigation has found that an investment firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner has skyrocketed during his father's presidency. Trump Jr. announced he joined that firm 1789 Capitol days after his father's reelection in 2024. Since that time, assets the firm manages have more than tripled. What? Lucky.

How did he manage a triple? his firm's assets in the two years his dad's been in office. He must be so good at business and only that. Businesses the firm invested in have been awarded more than $1.6 billion from federal contracts and grants. Unbelievable. What a flagrant abuse of power and access. This just screams corruption and greed. His dad must be so proud. This looks so bad. And Dom Jr. isn't rushing to set the record straight, but There is something else he'd like to clear up. You know, according to Twitter, I'm the biggest cocaine in the world. Shockingly, there's never been a photo or a video

or anyone with any credibility actually saying that they've seen me do this. So I don't. If I look tired this week, it's actually because I had foot surgery a couple days ago. But the rumor that you do cocaine is the coolest thing about you. You want to keep that going, or we're going to have to start talking about what you look like without a beard. For more on Trump, rallying the nation against communism. Let's go live to our senior political correspondent, Ronnie Chang.

I'll tell you the latest, Desi. Communism is on the march. Once these Democrats take power, bread lines will be around the block. So enjoy bread while you can, America. Desi, you want the butt part of this? No, you eat the butt part of it. No, it's gross. The inside bread is the good bread.

It's all the same bread. That's what a communist would say. But then God, President Trump won't let Americans suffer under a system where we all just live off of government handouts. But isn't living off of government handouts exactly what Don Jr. is doing? Okay. Hey, hey, I did not do cocaine with Don Jr. I didn't say you did. Good, because I'm sick of all these accusations.

Don Jr. worked hard to get to where he is. But communists won't let anyone earn a living by being the son of a rich guy. I don't know. That doesn't sound that bad. to me. Oh, really? Because communists also want to blow up Mount Rushmore, okay? They want to blow up Nakatomi Plaza. They want to defeat Rocky. They want Godzilla

to win. They want free buses, but the bus explodes if it goes above and then under 50 miles an hour. Okay. All right. That's not communism. Those are just action movies. Okay. Well, I wouldn't know because I haven't read the communist manifesto. What I do know is that Trump

wants Americans to be rewarded for hard work, not for corrupt connections to the ruling party. Again, sounds a lot like Don Jr. Okay, we were not doing cocaine in the men's bathroom at Penn Station, all right? For the last time, we were in the men's bathroom doing foot surgery.

That Trump is doing the kind of communist rule he's accusing the Democrats of. This is so lame. Okay, are you honestly suggesting that Donald Trump is ruling America with an unaccountable kleptocracy? Yes. Okay, well, I suppose

he's sending mass goons to disappear people off the streets. Yes! Oh, yeah, I bet you believe he's pursuing forever wars against phantom enemies while dividing us with constant double-think and two minutes of hate? Yes, yes, all of that.

Oh, yeah, and he's enriching his family with kickbacks with Don Jr. and I celebrated by having a total rager that ended with us in the backroom of a club at 2 a.m., getting tricked into a threesome where they promised there would be a girl who was just... It was just another dude,

and none of us are really into that, but nobody wants me the one that backs out, so we all just went ahead with it, but now it's awkward, and I haven't talked to John Jr. since that night, and I really miss hanging out with him. Is that what you're suggesting? Oh, Brani, I'm so sorry.

I know how hard it is for men to connect at your age. I just miss him so much. Ronnie, is there anything I can do? Maybe. Do you have any cocaine? My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also... Spider-Man. This Thursday, we're faced with a threat.

That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big.

Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters Thursday. Great opinions, but I'm not the only one. Studies show that other people also have opinions. So here with another installment of, in my opinion, is our good friend, Leslie Jones. Leslie Jones, and I'm here to talk about racism. Stop! Don't you click away!

Put that... Because the white-wing media, I mean, the right-wing media, is doing its damnedest to gaslight us and to thinking racism is not a problem anymore. There's no more division. There's no more bigotry. There's no more racism. These propagated groups that talk about racism as if it was still a problem.

We've moved past this. Stop trying to put us back into a racist society. America is not racist. America is the least racist country in the world. Racism is fake. It doesn't exist. I think you're a little confused. Harry Potter is the thing that is fake and doesn't exist.

Racism is the reason there's only one black kid at Hoggworks. If they ignore racism, it'll go away like those gay thoughts they be having. Doesn't work like that. And these people who say racism doesn't exist? What's the other thing they always say? I don't see color. I don't see color, and that's what we're supposed to do. White people are the only people who do not see color.

We don't see color. Whatever happened to a colorblind society? I don't see race color. Okay. Hold on, hold on. If you don't see color, how am I supposed to pick up foundation when I go to Sephora?

Do you just point to the bottles and say, good luck, nigger? I hate when people say they don't see color. Not only do people see color, they hear color. That's why when I call my bank, I go, hi. My name is Leslie.

I'm calling about my account. All these people who say they never see color, guess when they're not. they can suddenly see color. To play Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson is played by an African American. I mean, everything is reversed. I want you to hear this loud and clear. Santa Claus is not black.

Helen of Troy is not a black woman, and you pick like a real, like the blackest black woman you ever saw. Too sensitive. Why not listen, why listen to me an actual black person? When you can listen to a white person who's friends with a black person. My oldest son went to middle school in Harlem. many, many of our friends are black and brown. We have dear black friends. Some of my best friends are Afro-American.

In fact, some of my best friends are black women. I have so many African-American friends. Do you... Why do I never see these black friends? Show me proof of life. White people will always tell you they have black friends and then you meet the one black friend and it's Jack Harlow.

Ew. Every white racist likes to brag about their black friends, and I mean, everyone. Do you hate black people? No, I have friends who are black. But you're an Imperial Wizard of a Ku Klux Klan group? Well, I mean, he didn't say he was a good friend.

Listen, I never thought I'd say this, but Kusklaan, you did a shitty job of hiring your Grand Wizard. Do you have a black friend should have been the first question? at the job interview. Ask them, where do you see yourself in five years and they say probably on vacation with my best friend, Jamal? Isn't a good fit for the Ku Klux Klan.

But even if these black friends are real, that don't mean shit. Because white people don't always treat their black friends the way they treat their white friends. When you are the only black friend out of the friend group, you almost always are going to be the one. When the police come, you don't want to catch the charge. There's usually a white person that's going to come up and start saying some dumb shit.

And if I respond back to them, the other white people and you will try to work together to keep me in check. One of my old friends, their friend had called me the N-word. And my old friend just kept telling me after that, oh, he didn't mean it in that way. He meant it as a joke. Oh! Someone a nigger is a joke. Then you're going to love this next joke where I hit you with my car. About these jokes is that white people only say them when they're surrounded by other white people or roasting Kevin Hart.

Friends with black people means looking out for us, sticking up for us, understanding us. You have to put in the work. I put in the work for my white friends. Do you think I knew how to pronounce Chappelle Rohn? No. But I learned and I practiced. And then I decided she's pronouncing it wrong. Look, white friends, please.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I treasure our friendships. I love how happy you get when someone puts on Sweet Caroline. Sweet Caroline. Where Aspen is. It was in America the whole time. Same. Seeing another black person in the room is like when you find an M&M in the trail mix.

Thank God you saved me from all those nuts and nuts and reasons. Like, if I go out and I see no black people, I'm on high alert. If I see two or three black people, I'm comfortable. If I see four or five black people, hey, now it's a party. But if I see six or 12, I'm leaving because that's entirely too many niggas. If you know, you know. Listen, listen, listen, I'm a comic and I'm having fun. But the point that I'm trying to make is that there's power and community. I can't think of any better power, better proof of that than the greatest day in American black history. Captured on video, a violent brawl in Alabama that appeared to involve a group of white boaters attacking a black dock worker.

After the initial altercation, members of the crew and community jumping in to defend the river votes co-captain, as you can see from this new footage, a man even swinging a folding chair. When a black person's therapist tell them to close their eyes and imagine something that brings them joy. That's what's playing in their head. White people, that's how you look out for your black friends. If your friendship doesn't involve you swimming across a channel to whoop somebody's ass with lawn furniture, We don't want... So why am I talking about this now? Because three weeks ago, a young black man

went out with his all-white friend group and did not return home. Questions are growing over how a black Mississippi teen died after he went on a boating trip with a group of friends who were all-white. Nolan Wells went to the island in a boat with friends on July 4th. Authorities at Wells' friends left the island

and he stayed behind and was supposed to take a different boat back to the mainland Saturday, but never did. Well's family says that does not sound like their son and that their son's friends have not fully cooperated. Do you think that race may be involved in what happened to your son? I don't want to believe it is, but unfortunately, there's patterns, right? Unfortunately, there's pattern.

Nolan Wells' life was just getting started. And after what should have been a fun, carefree afternoon, It was cut tragically short. And while we don't yet understand exactly what occurred, we do know stuff like this happens all the time. And Nolan Wells, sadly, is not the only black child we've lost. When there's a lone black person anywhere, all these questions come up. Is it because white people weren't looking out for us?

Do they think it's a joke? It's keeping quiet just easier than telling the truth. Y'all need to realize that, unlike Mitch McConnell, racism is still alive and well. You know we can't solve every problem overnight, but what we can do today in memory of Nolan Wells and all of the black youth we've lost is stop indulging in your own ignorance.

If you believe in equality, show up. If you believe black people aren't second-class citizens, then don't treat us like sex. second class friends. But hey, that's just my opinion. A great actor who stars in the hit Apple TV series, Plurbus.

Please welcome Carolina Weedra! We are so excited to have you. Congratulations on your well-deserved Emmy nomination. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations to you guys. Yeah, it's wild. I still, like, when you

said that Emmy nominate, I go, wait, that's me. Are they talking about me? That's you. What is happening? It is so well deserved. You're nominated for supporting actress, but also the show itself got 18 nominations. It's incredible. Now, you play Zosha, who's one of the joined, one of the hive minds. So does that mean if you win the Emmy that you have to accept on everyone's behalf? Yeah, basically. So basically the whole world got nominated. Hey, this is good news for all of us.

All of you guys. I wish everyone luck. The story of how you got this role is wild. You were working steadily shows like true blood and justified and sneaky Pete, and then you decided to kind of step back for a bit and raise your children. That's right. Have a family. And I heard your agent and manager took that super well.

Yeah, they took it very, very well. They said, thank you very much. We don't want to work with you anymore. So, yeah, that was very disappointing. Isn't that that's... It was very... Name names. Name names right now.

You know, sometimes I want to be like, so and so and so, I'm not going to do that, but it was, you know, I think it was scary because I was 39 going on 40 when I decided to have kids. And also I decided when the pandemic happened, what the shutdown happened in March. And in July, my husband, I were like, I think we need to procreate. I think we need to have... I think it's a really good thing.

good time to have children. Right. And so, yeah, and it was important for me to be stay-at-home mom for the first two years because I grew up in communist country. So I know communism very well, because I know there was a lot very well. And so, you know, my parents would travel to different countries to bring a better life for us. And so they weren't around, and so it was important for me to be there for my kids because

I missed them. And so when that happened, you know, you feel so disappointed in the people that they make that choice where they say, I don't, you know, I don't want to work with you anymore. And so then I had my second son, and after he was 18 months, I really want to start acting again. And I got out of nowhere, I got an email with an audition for the show. And, you know, I didn't know how I was ever going to come back to acting. And so when that came through, it came from someone that I didn't know. It was a commercial agency.

I was on their roster, but I didn't work with them. And if it wasn't for casting that remembered me from years prior, that I would have never had the opportunity for them, which is so wild to me. And their side of the story is that they were running out of resources. They had over 5,000 submissions for this role worldwide. They couldn't find Zosha. They went through their digital files.

They, you know, and they were running out of resources, and they had to go through their old cabinet, handwritten notes of all the actresses they've ever seen. And they stumbled upon my photo. And they went, whatever happened to this girl? And that's how I was able to audition for this. And clearly, you left an impression. I feel like I'm still pinching myself

because I can't believe that, and now being, I mean, it's just, I literally feel like I'm dreaming, and I'm waiting for somebody to go, okay, kid, you're just, you're just, had a fun run. That was great, wasn't it? Now, back to reality. It's all real and so deserved. Thank you. I am such a fan of the show. I'm always telling Pia, I'll say, you'll say you have to watch. I try to explain it and then realize there's no way to explain this show. So I just say, watch it, trust me. How do you explain the premise of the show

to people? I mean, I do love the log line, the most miserable person in the world trying to save the world from happiness. Someone's got to. Someone has to. Someone has to. So I think. And Ray Sehorne does an incredible job as Carol Circa. So she really does. She's phenomenal. Yeah, it's a wild concept. I mean, you know, a virus breaks out and everyone becomes happy and content and joyous. Except a few, a dozen people.

A dozen people that are immune to the virus. And also the world becomes one consciousness. And they communicate telepathically. and anybody can perform anything, and they're the best at it, which is so interesting. It's such a wild concept, especially with the AI,

with the conversation of AI today. Exactly. And I want to talk about your character because Zosha is, on one hand, you're sort of playing this slight detachment, this heightened intelligence, almost AI quality, and yet you play her with so much warmth and texture. How do you prepare for,

for something like that? How do you even approach a role like that where you're having to play that dichotomy? Thank you for saying that. Well, when I first read it, I was definitely, you know, the concept of who the others are was overwhelming, exciting and overwhelming, because you're like, oh my God, how am I going to approach this?

And I'm a big dreamer where I do dream work for my characters to tap into the subconscious, which started with Carl Young. You know, he wrote the red book. He used dreams to do. to heal himself and you can use that for your characters, which is quite fascinating. What is this wild concept dreams? I gave up on those long ago.

Dreams. What are dreams? What are the dreams? Dreams mean? Before you go to sleep, you write to you write a letter to your subconscious asking to reveal to you whatever it is that you want answers to. And what's fascinating is that things come up

and you get kind of, you know, some people are like, this is so woo, but it's not. It's like, it's we all dream at night, you know, And our subconscious talks to us through images. And so that you can use that for your characters. And so whatever comes up, there's a process that you go and you can talk to the images or certain things come up. You're like, oh, I could use that.

This relates to my character. And meditation came up for me. Because ego gets lifted when we meditate a lot. And when you meditate daily for a long time, what happens is that you know you're your body, but you do feel this connection to the world energetically in a different way. You do become one collective, but energetically,

and you feel unconditional love for the world. And there's no ego. And there's more and more studies talking about that. So meditation, I was meditating a lot for this character to tap into that energy, because she lives in a different frequency. Right. I mean, there's a lot of different layers to her.

And when I ask Vince about who the others are, He says, you know, he's very simple. So his response was they're happy, content, unflappable. And they don't have a full spectrum of emotions, but they are fully-fledged human beings, right? So they're not robots. So they experience feelings, only limited amount of feelings, where are the positive feelings, I would say,

and anger and grief and sadness is a memory that they experience and doesn't live in their body. They don't have nerves. They're not afraid. They're not even afraid of dying. because their memories uploaded into the system, into the hive mind. So it's so interesting.

It's truly fascinating. Do you think that this kind of dream work and meditation could work for our administration? I would be highly recommended, yes. I think I should have a meeting with them and be like, hey guys, so I have a cure. A quick master class for them? I think it would be, the world would greatly appreciate it.

I should take him through a dream class. I'm curious. What do you think Zosha was like as an individual before she became part of the hive? What did her individuality look like? Did you discuss that with Vince? I didn't because, and normally that's something that I do. I do back-surfing my characters because I think it's important because we have, you know, we all have our ticks, our trauma and everything. We come from that place and behavior comes from that place. And with her, because she's not who she was prior to the joining, I didn't want it to come. color my performance. I wanted to build who she is today. So I didn't ask Vince any of those questions, but you do see in episode eight, the monologue that I have about mango ice cream. Yes. And so there is a moment where you get to see a little bit, and this is another

fascinating thing. When I talk about the mango ice cream, I pause because I don't have the memory of it and I have to tap into the collective to bring out the memory of who she was. because it doesn't live in me anymore. Right. So we talked about that. And you know that she was born in Poland and that she came from no money. She didn't have any money.

So that's the only thing I know, but I haven't built her backstory, which I'm very curious about. This is why you're Emmy nominated, though. You made the right choice. It's working for you. It's definitely working. Thank you.

So from here, what would your dream role be next? Do you want to play a woman who's just completely unhinged. Oh, yeah. Goes nuts. Just mental. Just utterly mental. Yeah.

Ugly does like the ugly cries. I want to like go full on out. Let it all out. Because think about it when you have to suppress your feeling so much on a daily basis when, you know, when Carol, played by Ray Seahorn, when she beautifully has these big emotions and you just got to hold that in all the time. You know what it made me, it made me a better mom. Oh. You know why? I mean, I know it's cute, but like, you know, I have two little boys, and, you know, they're beautiful and a lot.

And as you know, you have, yeah, it's like you're the punching bag and you just like you love them through it all. Of course. But it made me less reactionary. Oh, which is wild. You tapped into your collective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to try that. I'm going to try this dream thing.

Yeah, yeah. I'll take you through it. Well, listen, if you ever, if you end up getting a totally unhinged character to play, Come over to the Daily Show. You can do your research by watching cable news all day. That'll send you into a pure rage, panic. You are such a joy. And congratulations on everything.

Thank you for being. It's always politicians. I've watched great politicians. We will lower your taxes. They will always say, even if they didn't mean it, they'd say, we will lower your taxes. These people say, we're going to raise your taxes. I've never heard it before.

It's a new phenomenon. It's a phenomenon. 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.