The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump Throws Gatsby Party as SNAP Funding Expires, Makes It Rain on Argentina | Former Sen. Joe Manchin

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Between Trump throwing a lavish "Great Gatsby"-themed party on the night that SNAP benefits ran out for millions of Americans, dragging his feet to open court-ordered emergency funding for food stamps while throwing billions of bailout dollars at Argentina, and the GOP's general racism-tinged disdain for SNAP recipients, Jon Stewart seriously doubts that the president's "big heart" goes out to anyone but himself and the toadies on his VIP list. Former U.S. senator and West Virginia governor Joe Manchin sits down with Jon to discuss his memoir, “Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense.” They talk about whether centrism exists in the Trump era, Manchin’s experience working across partisan lines in the Senate, the state of the Democratic Party in West Virginia, why he never voted for a government shutdown, and how he thinks the country can move forward. Make the switch at https://mintmobile.com/DAILY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Like NCIS, Tony and Ziva. We'd like to make up our own rules. Tulsa King. to take out the competition. The substance. This balance is not working. And the naked gun. That was awesome.

Now that's a mountain of entertainment. Paramoose. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This. is the Daily Show with your host, John Doer! The Daily Show. My name is John Stewart.

We got a great one for you tonight. A great show for you tonight. Later on, we'll be joined by former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. We will discuss with him how his position as a centrist has given him the unique ability to disappoint everybody. Lots of news to discuss, including apparently, is something I read today. The Daily Show will be coming back for another year. It is our 30th year. When we come back, it'll be our 30th year.

And like most 30-year-olds, we're still thinking about going back to law school. We're still thinking about it. Maybe being a video director. I don't know. Sorry by here. But, you know, listen, we do want to thank everybody. We don't take for granted in any way how much your support means

so that we get a chance to keep making the best show that we can make for you. So we truly appreciate that. Thank you. But, by the way, there was also great news for America this weekend. We finally defeated our worst enemy, Canada. Yeah.

How's it taste, Canada? Try us again, motherfuckers. Think about that next time you run an ad that accurately quotes one of our former presidents. You know what? A million percent tariffs on Canada. But congratulations to Los Angeles. I hope that you are celebrating safely

and responsibly as you enjoy this very... No, what do you do? God, no! No! Fire? Really? Your whole fucking city is kindling. What are we doing? Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned, wholesome water balloon celebration?

But obviously, the World Series morale boosts was short-lived because America is still in the throes of the government shutdown. So let's get into it with our eyes. ongoing coverage of Shutdown, Showdown, 2025. Locked up, locked down, and closed the business. This past weekend, the shutdown took its worst turn yet. As notices began to go out for health insurance premium hikes, and millions of Americans also lost their.

snap or food snap benefits. It's heartbreaking as it is infuriating, but there's one American who's taking this harder than anyone else. The president is desperate for snap benefits to flow to the American citizens who desperately rely upon it. He is a big-hearted president. Is he? Big-hearted? Loves us. Because again, and maybe I'm misinterpreting it, but He did just recently dump diarrhea on all of us. I don't know if you remember that, yeah. He just, he cares a lot about the American people. Obviously, he does have a diarrhea plane.

Maybe that is out of love. I don't know. It feels somewhat dismissive. But of course, I'm only seeing the small portion of the day he spends dumping diarrhea from a plane on the American people. I'm sure that's not the entirety of his efforts on our behalf. He is so resolutely focused on delivering for the American people all day, every day, seven days a week, 20 hours a day. Did we miss an executive order? About how long days are?

How far did you guys set your clocks back? But okay, seven days a week, 20 hours a day, four hours for diarrhea plane training. But point taken, Donald Trump is a big heart of caring man who works 20 hours a day, seven days a week to deliver for the American people. So I imagine if I were to randomly turn on the camera at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump was on the very night that the poorest of American people lost their food benefits, we would see images that reflect Trump's concern and dedication.

Is that correct? You know what? In fact, let's turn on that camera. Yeah. Yeah. That's what he was doing this weekend. He wasn't working for the American people. That was just some Hollywood Babylon shit.

That once and for all shows that Donald Trump doesn't give a fuck about even looking like he gives a fuck. That's a good. at all. Also, honestly, how uncomfortable is the seating in Mar-a-Lago? On the very night,

Snap Benefits ended. Trump, through a great Gatsby-themed, owed to decadence and hedonism that even Jeffrey Epstein would have thought was a little over the top. There were dancers, Champagne, a wonderful celebration, where the theme was apparently gross income inequality. The slogan of the party, as people were losing their food benefits, was, I shit you not,

a little party never killed nobody. Did you even read the Great Gatsby? Spoiler alert. The party killed somebody. Two buddies. How do you not know that? I knew that. And I've only read the cliff notes.

The Great Gatsby is a cautionary tale. And it's the theme for your... What did you just think? Oh, it's a great book about a rich guy who bangs married ladies. No! Partially, yes, but the subtext. You see, usually in a time of national suffering,

there's a generally accepted principle in leadership that you at least pretend to feel the pain of the people that you represent. But this president seems to go out of his way to let struggling Americans know that he is doing very well. Your premiums may be going up. Tariffs may be shutting down your small businesses. You may be losing your food assistance,

but it'll all be okay. Donald Trump is building a ballroom that looks like the inside of Marie Antoinette's vagina. Yeah. I don't actually know that. That was rude. I've heard. And I know what you're thinking as your electricity bill skyrockets and they're shutting off your heat. Will guests of this ballroom be able to shit in marbled rooms? Well, the answer is yes.

President Trump revealed photos of a newly renovated Lincoln bathroom. He posted six times today about it. He uploaded a total of 25 detailed photographs of the gold and marble upgrades, including the view from his new toilet. You know, I'm not an architect. Who designs a bathroom with ass-level windows? I mean, is that? Isn't that... Aren't you going to fucking frost the glass a little bit there?

Throw some shutters up? You're going to have tour groups walking by I'm just like, go. Oh, no, that's not good. So with all this, it's kind of hard to argue that Trump has been laser focused on, you know, needy Americans and funding SNAP benefits during the shutdown, especially when the notorious

power-grabbing unitary executive that is Trump pleads that his bruised hands are tied. The president has lamented this. He has informed USDA and everybody. Do as best you can, but the money doesn't exist to do it. The truth is, there's no legal mechanism to do it. President Trump can't just wave some magic wand and fix the mess. There's nothing we can do at this point.

There's not much more we can do because the rules of the road by which we have to play. The rules? Did you just say you can't do it because of the rules? The rules of the road? When have you followed the road? Well, you follow the road rules. But when have the administration, when has this administration followed the rule?

You guys have been grand theft fucking auto this entire presidency. The whole time. But now, oh, no, no, there's... Hey, everybody, we're just going to take a quick break from unauthorized Caribbean boat bombing and sending hairdressers to El Salvadorian prisons to remind everybody,

No passing on the right. Got to respect the rules of the road. How disingenuous has this gotten? You'll never guess which branch of government that the Trump administration is deferring to for guidance on these food assistant payments. When can we expect the Trump administration to make these payments?

Well, President Trump just truthed out that he needs to hear from the courts how this is going to be done. The rules of the road and the courts? Are you kidding me, right? You, you, you, Donald Trump, are now waiting for the activist, radical, left, lunatic, Trump-hating, biased, hardly partisan, unchange, agitator judges to give you the okey-doke? Is that what I'm hearing?

President Trump just truthed out that he's very anxious to get this done, and it's got to go through the courts. nonsense and stop trying to make truth out happen okay like it's a real verb he just well it's an excellent question he just truthed out like what just said the president said and the president truth talked you're you're you're a grown man you're a grown man act like it secretary of the Hey, yo, did you see what Trump truth out? Like six, seven, bussing. Whoa, hey. I'm busing.

I was told that means something. So the courts ruled Friday that the administration does have to continue some snap benefits. And the administration has finally agreed to at least partially funded. But even then, they're so weird about it. We have a little rainy day fund for food stamps in case there's a disaster, which is about half as much as you need for a month of food. And they're saying, oh, just release that. Yeah. That's exactly what we are...

It's a rainy day fund. This qualifies. But also, as you've seen with a hurricane in Jamaica, that, you know, if our rainy day fund is gone, then what happens if we have a rainy day? It doesn't have to literally be a rainy day to be a rainy day fund. What is wrong?

We have the money and I see you're hungry, but you're not hungry and wet. So get doused and then get If you really want to know why the administration seems reluctant to push the issue, you have to burrow a little deeper into the MAG hive as they begin to express their subtle reservations about a program that feeds 40-some million people, including 16 million children. On Amazon, you can use SNAP benefits to buy an ounce of caviar for 70 bucks.

I mean, like, I don't think I've even had caviar myself. Like, why should this be a... Who signed off on this? Relax. I know you're upset. Put down the Panera charged a lemonade and calm down. My guess is, and I can't back this up, is that the majority of food stamps are not spent on Amazon caviar. What is it about these people that get these benefits that bothers you so much? And please, feel free to make me read between the lines. Food stamp money will be cut off. And the reaction for many, SNAP recipients online has been threats, of course,

of stealing and violently assaulting anyone who tries to stop them. Why are people who weigh 300 pounds on SNAP? Is there no weight limit for a free food program? People are selling their benefits. People are using them to get their nails done, to get their weaves and their hair. Subtle.

With the B-roll you used, and the verbiage. I mean, you guys could be referring to any one of the 40-some million who were using food stamps to get weaves or subscribe to BET Plus or people, I don't know, just people who have a people history month.

I don't know who you're referring to. It's as though there's people in this country who deserve a break and then people who don't. And we all know who those people are. It was really the centerpiece of Trump's campaign. Kamala's for they-them, President Trump is for you.

Simple and effective. Might have gotten them elected. And the real brilliance of it is Trump never actually told America who you were. Are you, you? Or are you, they, them? Who's they? Who's who? You?

I don't know. I'm sure it's apparent in the Trump Children's book. you know who you are. Now, as the they-them suffered through the shutdown and Trump pretends his hands are tied, who are the U's U's use that do get the benefit of Trump's largesse? President Trump has announced a $20 billion bailout

for Argentina. Whoa, they're you? Or the more formal Ustead? Wow, $20 billion to bail out Argentina. No offense, Mr. President, but it seems kind of weird that when people are going hungry at home to hand out that much cash to another country. Argentina is fighting for its life, young lady. You don't know anything about it.

They're fighting for their life. Nothing is benefiting Argentina. They're fighting for their life. You understand what that means? They have no money. They have no anything. They're fighting so hard to survive. Oh, my God.

I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that Argentina was struggling and I'm sure that they are using our bailout money in a responsible way that doesn't take for... A weave! Damn you, Argentina!

I'm just curious. Is that a weave or is that literally just Al Yankovic? What are we doing? I'm just curious, you know, there's a lot of countries suffering, including the one that you run. What makes their suffering more urgent? I happen to like the president of Argentina. I think he's trying to do the best he can.

How nice for Argentina. If only our president had an inn with Donald Trump. We live in bizarro world. The president of the United States is no longer even trying to justify random foreign aid or blatant cryptocurrency corruption. or let them eat cake optics. All because he loves us. He claims it's America first. And it creates moments of such blatant irony

that words almost fail. Do you know what some of the billions going to Argentina are being used for in the midst of what may be a burgeoning hunger crisis in America? President Donald Trump buying beef from Argentina. Beef! What the fuck?

Trump is for you, Argentinian beef cattle ranch. Did you think you were American cattle ranchers? No. You're they, them. They're you and your thing. Along with the people on food stamps who will not be able to partake in this new Argentinian beef glut.

Wrap your head around that. You know, in a different time on this program, we would illustrate this disparity with a short play. Probably would have had John Oliver come out dressed, perhaps like Oliver twist. We would do a whole thing. where he's begging the president, please, sir, I like some old beef.

Argentinian beef, yes. And John would be using his fake English accent. John is from Fort Lee. But obviously we can't do that. John and I work on different one days a week. But you know what? This delicious irony is still playworthy, so I will do the Oliver part, albeit with my own cultural stereotypes. I give you, oh, yeah, don't get ahead of me.

I give you, hungry fiddler too weak to climb to the roof. So hungry. I dream of sustenance. Unfortunately, because the Tsarist government is shut down, I have nothing to eat. Excuse me, boy. Would you like some freshly imported Argentinian beef? Was I supposed to be important? This is the first I'm seeing the script, but I mean, you're pulling it off great.

But sir, no, I'm just going to go back to old Jew. I'm so hungry. Oh, well, we happen to have this delicious Argentinian meat that's undercutting the prices of the meat that you normally get. Bless you. Bless you. Bless you, boy chick. I'm so hungry.

No. No beef for you. We don't take food stamps, because you'll just spend them on, do Jews get weaves? No. And seen. Well done so. Nice to go. Really good. Well done. Yes. Why not? So for those of you who were wondering during this delightful first year of the presidency, who the you was that he was going to work so tirelessly for, it turns out he is for you if you are a personal friend, or if you donated a lot of money, or if you enriched his meme coin businesses, or you enriched his son's crypto coin businesses, or if you beat up police

officers on his behalf, or if you bought him a plane, or if you probably promised not to reveal anything incriminating about him. Those are the U. It turns out that he was four. And if you're one of those ewes, life's pretty sweet.

But for the rest of us, we're on the outside, and I can only guess what the view is that we're going to enjoy. When we come back, we'll be talking to Senator Joe Manchin. Don't go away. If you are still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mitt Mobile, their favorite word is no.

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Welcome, I guess tonight, a former governor, U.S. Senator from West Virginia, whose new memoir is called Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense. Please welcome to the program, Joe Manchin, sir. Thank you. Thank you. For being here. We're inviting me. Thank you for being here.

First of all, forward by Nick Saban? We grew up together. You and Nick Saban. Three miles apart in two cold camps, Worthington and Farmington. I grew up in Farmington, and my dad had a little furniture store. My grandfather had a little grocery store. Right. He grew up three miles over two hills in Worthington, and his dad had a little golf filling station.

Mother had a little dairy queen. That's wild. It is. And was he a baller when he was a kid? Was he a great football player? Allstate. He was Allstate. Did you play?

I played. I went to W.U. on a football scholarship. That's how I got to college. Wow. So then I got hurt in college, and we've just been good friends all of our life. And his dad, I played for his dad in Little League. Like a little, and his dad was tough. Both of our dads always had one saying, not good enough. He's never bought a black car. He's never bought a black car because every time a black car came in to get washed and waxed, he had to wax it twice because his dad didn't like the streaks in it. So he never had a black car since. And my dad just, they were tough.

Yeah. Tough cold. That doesn't sound like a fun story. that sounds terrible it's real no no no no we learned yeah yeah no you did just yeah we had to get yeah wash the car you had to work you know and sure we my grandmother she had three rules we lived between the railroad tracks and buffalo creek we had a three-room garage apartment and we live beside my grandparents had a little house and for some reason they all knew that when they jumped the train to go to mama k's my grandmother she would feed anybody she'd keep anybody And she made us, there's 20 little grandkids.

We all lived real close together. Right. And she made us whitewashed the basement every year to keep it clean and neat because someone needed a place to stay. Did anyone ever stay there? Hold on. Oh, we had Will bar Willie. Oh, sure.

Will bar, sure, yeah. Pegg, like Peggy. De Lloyd. We had them all. And every six weeks. I lose them in Mama Kay. I said, hey, Mama Kay, where did they go? They're on a tooth, honey.

They'll be back in six weeks. But she took care everybody. There was no social services. So I learned that you had to have rules. They come down and she lined them up. She said, okay, here's what we're going to do. Right. You can stay with Mama Kay.

I'm going to feed you and take care of you. Nice place to stay. And they would do. But you have to, you have to, you can't cuss. You can't drink and you have to work. So those are the rules. I grew up with those rules thinking everybody had to work. You can't drink and you can't cuss.

Not with 20 little kids running around. Right. I don't think I would have made it. We still learn how. You definitely wouldn't have stayed overnight. I'd have been. They didn't find I'd be stuck head first into a sump pump. I'd be done.

They'd be all down. And that's so that upbringing, it's such an interesting background, you know, because the book is called dead center. Right. And you could look at it as this is, I'm dead center or the center is dead. Which in your mind is the correct interpretation. My mind is dead center. but you're not wrong on the center's dead. It's not a crowd of place in the political world today.

Would there be a place for Joe Manchin? Well, certainly in West Virginia. If you were going to run today in West Virginia, you would run as a Republican, I'm assuming. No. You would not. I said this. The Democrats were upset with me.

Yes. But the Republicans wouldn't like me any better. Because I just couldn't conform to, you know, the other side's evil. The other sides are enemies. and we hate them, we got to defeat them. I didn't get involved in public service. I wanted to do things.

And I looked at everyone being my friends with different ideas. Right. And I tried to get in the middle and make things happen. So I probably signed on more pieces of legislation that have been passed in 15 years because I was always in that middle. You were the guy. You were the bell of the ball. You were the one that if they could get to you, they could make this happen.

Well, say you're the bell of the ball. Say it. It wasn't a pretty ball. No. Here's the thing. They would come to me. If a friend would come from the Republican side. Oh, he's Ted Cruz.

Okay. Ted. I know Ted. Sure. Okay. That would come over. Ted's very smart and very articulate. And he said, Joe, I got something I want you to be with.

I think it's a perfect bill for you. And I'd say, Ted, I'm happy to work with you. I'm happy to work with everybody. Then I look at the bill and I'd say, well, it needs some, it's just not right. It's not everything you said it was, Ted. Right. And I said, Ted, if you can let me make some edits to it and addendums to it, and then it'd be fine. I'm happy to sign on to it and we'll try to pass it.

And if I got two answers from anybody on the other side, two actions would be this way. I can't change anything. It is what it is. That's a political statement. I don't get upset about that. At least I know where they're coming from. They want to make a political statement. Let them do it.

Or he says, yeah, Joe, go ahead and make something. You want to get something passed. Let's do it. So once you get to read the language, just can't, you know, you've got to be friends. talk you got to understand each other you've got to want to get things done but there's a conundrum here okay you know what you represented what the democrats wanted to pass in their in the audacity of hope right they couldn't pass because you represented someone who wanted to temper maybe some of their legislation but they needed you because they didn't have the numbers that's isn't that the

conundrum of a Joe Manchin, is that we need him to be on our team, but we don't need him to interfere with our design. Correct. But, you know, they get upset and got frustrated with me, and I said, let me tell you something. I have been voting this way all my life. I've been involved since 1982 in public service. And I've always looked for how do you get things done?

You can't do them from the extreme right and extreme left. You don't run your life that way. You don't run your businesses that way. You've got to find a way to maneuver to get to the next. But so that, in 1982, maybe that's the case. But as it plays out, you know, the idea of moderation, Donald Trump didn't win on moderation. And he's certainly not governing from, let alone a coherent place. You know, his is, you know, I'm going to put on tariffs.

It's volatile. It's mercurial. It's impulsive. It goes against a certain... It's not normal, John. This is not normal what we're seeing today. But that's my point. Is the antidote to this, these last, I don't know how many years, it feels like 100,

this idea that you're talking about the sort of the gentleman senator. Is that even alive in this time? My state of West Virginia, wonderful, beautiful state and great people, and I'm so thankful I was born and raised. raised there, they were 100% Democrat, 75% registered Democrats from the Great Depression from the 30s. And I guess they said, why are you Democrat Joe? I said, well, I guess my grandfather was very thankful that FDR gave him a chance to feed their children and live. So that's who we were. And John Kennedy, West Virginia, was a stomping ground without West Virginia. He'd

never became president. He had, I never forget John one time, they were all campaigned. All the Kennes were there. And my mother... How old are you? I was a baby. These stories. My pappy was with FDR, and we were washing a basement. Well, I was 12 years old. When Kennedy came? When 1960,

I was turned 13. I was born in 47. Right. Okay. So, and so here's the Kennedy family and my parents are all excited. We're a Catholic family, ethnic Catholic family. My father's from my father's Italian. My mother was Czechoslovakian. Okay. So they're all from East New York and here we were. So they got all excited. I never seen him get that excited about politics before. And they said this young Catholic and Irish persons would have come and ethnic. It's coming and they all got excited. So I got excited. You know what heck. And that got you into it. No, that got me thinking. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you could do for your country. I always thought that public service is the noblest of all professions. And if you got involved, you had to do, you had to do. do something. Right.

And correct. So I'll never forget. We're watching television, we're little black and white television. Right. And it had to be Walter Cronkite saying, it's been said that if John Kennedy becomes president, the Pope will run the country.

And I looked at my mom and I said, boy, mom, they don't know the Catholics. We know. Because I never, you couldn't tell Catholic anything. Right. So, anyway. I've had a real, a real unbelievable childhood with, I was a privileged child. Right.

Three-room garage apartment, why are you privileged? Not a big house. Right. Between the tracks and the railroad and the creek. Not a fancy neighborhood. Well, why? I had unconditional love. Right.

There was not a day in my life that I knew that my parents and my grandparents didn't love me unconditionally. But they expected me to return that. And basically, by being accountable and responsible. Right. They always said, words have meaning. and those meaning sometimes have actions and reactions and you'll be responsible for both right so in your mind so those are man grounding lessons and common sense yeah but doesn't everybody think that their sense is common sense sure you know i'll look at my background and i'll come up with the same sort of foundational reasoning that you are

you know i was raised in a house we struggled my parents got divorced they worked hard but i learned i had to work hard and i had to you know get what i wanted and all that that. But those are, how you translate that into policy is where government comes in. My concern sometimes with these sort of ideas that common sense is moderation, is that sometimes policy, like FDRs, like Social Security, like Medicare, like Medicaid, that's not moderation. It's solving a problem as directly as you can, that the art of compromise sometimes dilutes the solutions that you want to bring to people's lives because you're in it for public service. And I worry that that ethos dilutes things to where we get unsatisfactory outcome. Well, the shutdown right now.

That's like, you know, yeah. I've never voted for a shutdown. A shutdown saying that you can't do your job so we're just going to close the doors right that's first so anybody that votes for a shutdown is not willing to put the time and effort to reach across the out of what's our big differences this shutdown is based all around pre-covid 20 20 and before where were we at that time COVID comes i'll never forget when we first were told uh we're told uh dr fauchy fausty came and told us in all hundred senators what was coming we weren't sure about this The only thing I knew about a pandemic, I heard my grandparents talking about, my grandmother was talking about her father died in the 1918 influenza. That's all I knew about a pandemic.

How old are you? All I know about the Civil War is what my uncle said. So that's what happened. Right. I understand that. But do you get my point up? So in your book, you go through a lot of legislation. And the choices that you made in defense of moderation, I would say to you, I don't know that West Virginia is a moderate state.

It voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, who is not a moderate president. Three times. Three times. Over 40, he beat Hillary by 40, 41 points. Right. He beat Joe, he lost Joe Biden. But not in West Virginia. No, he still won about 40 points.

Right. And he won again in 2024. And I've told my Democrat friends, they said, Joe, what happened to the West Virginia Democrats? And I said, nothing. They want to know what happened to the Washington Democrats. And they said, what do you mean? I said, I can tell you why the union coal miners and all the factory workers that I grew up with where they are today, why they switched and started voting Republican.

They believe that the Democrat. party in Washington basically spends more resources, effort, and time on able-bodied people that don't work or won't work than you do those who do. Right. It makes sense. It's just not true. I mean, I'm only saying, like, that's just not, like, even, and I feel you think, but, like, that's the caricature of social programs.

And this really gets into the thing that bothers my mind. government is there to step in on market failures. And even food stamps or EBT is kind of a subsidy to Kraft and Obisco and all kinds of other companies. But our health care system, the market has failed in these areas. And when people say they spend more money on welfare queens and all that than they do on people, that's just not true. And the percentage of children and elderly and people on disabilities and people that work their asses off for a living that don't make enough money that still have to apply for government programs to help them just to get by is astronomically larger than this so-called mooture class.

So if that's their conventional wisdom, they're just wrong. No, I've said that. So how do we... How do you do politics on a failed premise? Let's take the welfare system. I've tried for the last five years. I had one person who's as bright as could be. I said, I want to change the cliff to a slope.

That's all. Cliff is this. I'll use $25,000. You make $1,000 over $25,000. You lose all your benefits. Right. Okay. So you stop working right there.

Or you work under the table so it doesn't show up. Do whatever you can. Right. Why can't we make that into a slope and let them work into a livable wage and give them assistance all the way up? It's the cheapest thing we could ever do. Pride and dignity back in a person's life.

Child care. I got eviscerated on child care and I said, I'm all for child care. Give it to the people that need it. And most of them are in the income bracket right above welfare, 26, 25, 30, 35 up to 50, 60, 70,000. Most of them are household, single households. Most of them are female and they're trying to raise a child. They're working. We should be dedicating our resources trying to help them lift themselves up. We were giving it to $400,000 income. But they'll call you a socialist. And then, you know what hasn't stopped? But you know what I mean? I know what you say. In this country, if you subsidize corporations or if you take out and capital gains are taxed less than regular income, that's just standard common sense capitalist, but the taker class must be penalized.

All the fraud is apparently in food stamps and welfare and not in a trillion-dollar defense budget and subsidies that go down welcome. So I don't, I'm just trying to find common ground, right? If we're working off a flawed premise, does the idea of moderation and common sense, to my mind, common sense isn't the ACA. Common sense is health care, like directly, single-payer.

That feels moderate to me. And in the rest of the world, it's moderate. So how do you square that? I don't mean, this is not aimed at you. It's a frustration with what I hear back from. It blames people for their own poverty. Let me tell your audience about the working conditions in the United States Congress. Okay.

It's the most hostile environment you've ever encountered. You go to work. You go to work every day. and the person on the other side of the aisle is trying to get you defeated. So you're going to work every day and have a co-worker trying to get you defeated or fired. So it'd be like your other host coming on saying bad things about the other one, trying to get the other one thrown off. Yeah.

Or it's called show business. That's what we're in show business. I think you're right. And so the only thing I said when I first got there, I told Harriet Reed, I said, I'm not going to raise money to be used against friends of mine on the Republican side or Democrat. side or whether I like him or not. I try to like everybody. But I can tell you where I come from, if you try to get me fired every day at work, we're going to have a little talk after work tonight. Okay. It just doesn't work that way. And that's just the way things are back home. We settle our

differences. But here I said, I can't genuinely go to a person and say, will you help me with this piece of legislation? It really would help people in my state. They're going to say, what the hell, Joe? I'm not going to do that. You've just been out, you come out campaigned against me. You gave money to an opponent that was running when I got reelected. You were out against me. Why am I going to work with you now? So it gets divided deeper and deeper. So both sides are blaming everybody, and they want you to hate the other side. Don't just fear them, but hate them. And you've got to defeat them. Don't just beat them, but defeat them. Everything they're doing, they're breaking down, anyone participating. The hardest thing I've got today

is to get good quality people involved in public service. I'm not going to go through that. They tell me, I say it's a small price to pay for the quality and opportunity of a life we have here in this great country. But as we look for a way out politically, the answer feels like it can't lie in if Washington was, if they were nicer to each other. It feels like the answer has to lie outside of Washington in a battle of ideas, this consent of the governed. And that's how Trump is governing.

Does the way he governs give you. pause in that, in that that's not how he's governing. Not at all. No. The thing that I've said to, to again, to my Democrat friends, the mistake was made on the border. We, the asylum should have never been done. We've never done asylum at the border. Now, the Democrats can say, well, you know, we're compassionate. We wanted to do that because the world was in a flux. People were leaving, going everywhere, trying to find some reprieve. But so we made a mistake and say, we want to work with President Trump. We want to have a secured border. And please, will he work with us and have a legal immigration program? That people can

come for the right reason. People can stay here that have worked here. No crime. They're doing it for the same reason our grandparents came. They wanted a better life. We can make that work. In 2013, we had a bill bipartisan. You would not have an immigration problem today. We passed it in the Senate. 68 senators voted for, Democrat and Republican. It went to the House. My good friend John Boehner couldn't put it on the floor. I kept banging. John, please put it on. it'll pass. He was a Republican from Ohio. Eric Cantor was a Republican from Richmond just got beat. That's right.

By a tea party and surgeon. By a tea party that said he's for amnesty. He doesn't want, he wants to let people stay here that came here illegally. Well, people are coming here to the type of life trying to find a place. Have a proper way to get him here. And how about the dreamers, babies that were brought here and don't know how they got here. There's any country they know. They fight in our wars force.

They're educated. They're educating other Americans. and they're not legal. That's ridiculous. We can fix that. And we had it fixed. Can we? Well, we had it fixed.

We had it fixed. You talk about 2013, right before the election, Lankford comes up with a compromise with all of the Senate. They ate him alive. They ate him alive. Trump didn't want to do it. So that's my point is the way, because we keep talking about what's the way for Democrats.

Is it Mom Donnie? Is it being more center-left? Is it being more moderate? And isn't the way to just be honestly more responsive to what the real problems and needs are of the people you purport to represent and then fight like a mother, fight like you were brought up to fight and don't.

When I was governor, I asked for waiver on my welfare program. And I told Mike Levitt in that time, George W., okay, and I said, compassionate conservatives. I said, give me a waiver. I says, I don't have enough money. to take care of healthy poor people that could be working if I could help them get back to work as I do have a moral responsibility and compassion to help those who can't. I've got a lot of poor

people that depend on us. He gave me a waiver. I had that waiver and I tried it. I put mountain choices in teaching people how to work, how to get skill sets back, boom, get back into society. It was going good, but there was resistance because when you're giving things away, it's hard to take them back. It's hard. Like today, the health system, the health system is broken. That's why they're fighting right now. These subsidies help people an awful lot of people. But what happened, the subsidies weren't that great before COVID. We've expanded, try to take them back.

It doesn't work that well. You've got to change the system. But anyway, they took it away from me when Obama came in. And I said, well, why? I said, all I'm asking for is let me have the money I need to take care of the people that need it the most. And I'll help the other people help themselves. And I got chastised for that one. Do you still, with your experience, believe in the design of our government as currently constituted as being a productive avenue to which to address the things that you are?

I do. I protect the filibuster with my every breath in my body because it's the only thing that makes you and I in the Senate, if you're in the majority, you give me a voice. I'm a minority. Right. The House has no measures for its strict majoritarian. And George Washington was trying to explain to Thomas Jefferson. How old are you? I love history.

I like history. I like history. Dead Center, with a forward by Nick Saban, a fascinating conversation, and I really appreciate you having it. Come back and see us again. Thanks, John. Thank you. I really appreciate it. We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back. every day. You don't have to leave. You can stay. Before we go, we're going to check it with your host for the rest of the week. Mr. Jordan, come for Jordan. Jordan. What are we looking at this week? Well, John, election day is tomorrow in New York City,

and I am fired up for our next mayor, Curtis Slewa. Yeah. Now, it's funny that you said. I did not know that you were a Slewa fan. Oh, I am, but only because of his strong pro-Barray agenda. Jordan Klepper is a single-issue voter, and that single issue is 17th century French hatwear. Your number one issue is,

is berets. That's right, John. The only thing I care about more than that is government-run grocery stores and free buses. That then sounds like you're a Mamdani guy. Yeah, you know, I looked at him,

but wasn't crazy about his whole lack of beret thing. Why do you care so much about berets? Why don't you care more about berets? It's like a Yamaha on steroids. Can I say that? Yeah, I think you can. Jordan Clap for all this week. Here it is the moment of the play.

It is a Yamacar on steroids. We're day 29 of the shutdown. It's a soap opera. If I were naming the soap opera, I'd call it as the stomach turns. is a lot of melodrama. It's not going to end until enough senators take their egos out back and shoot them.

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