The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Trump's Town Hall DJ Set, Lewis Black's Undecided Voter Plea | Stacey Abrams

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Desi Lydic dives into Trump’s wild town hall, which turned into an impromptu listening party. Lewis Black delivers a no-nonsense message to undecided voters in swing states: maybe just sit this one out. Stacey Abrams joins to discuss voter suppression in Georgia and how voters can fight back, along with insights from her latest book on teaching children empathy and advocacy.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election economics ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. Listen to The Weekly Show with John Stewart, wherever you get your podcasts. 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, Desi Lyonis. Welcome to the Daily Show. I'm Desi Lydic. We've got a great show for you tonight. Kamala Harris drops her medical records. Donald Trump throws a one-man dance party. And Lewis Black tells undecided voters where they can shove their ballots. So let's get right into it with another installment of In Decision 2024. With the election just three weeks from today, the latest polls are as close as they can

possibly be without touching, which makes it just that much hotter. And the candidates are doing everything they can to gain an advantage. Kamala Harris just taunted Donald Trump by releasing her medical records, and then Trump tried to turn those records against her. According to her doctor's report, she suffers from urticaria defined as a rash of round red

welts on the skin that itch intensely, sometimes with dangerous swelling. She also has allergic rhinitis and allergic conjunctivitis, a very messy and dangerous situation. These are deeply serious conditions that clearly impact her functioning. Oh, my God. She has allergic rhinitis and conjunctivitis?

The medical term for hay fever? Is there a priest on call? She doesn't have long. That is how healthy Kamala Harris is. Donald Trump is reduced to calling her allergies a very messy and dangerous situation. Although in fairness to Trump, in this case a woman's need It's a woman sneezing. So that makes it more disgusting. A sneeze is the period of the face. Now we all know Donald Trump suffers from epidermal fragility, but we don't know anything more because he's never released his medical records.

Perhaps one of his minions could explain why that's not a problem? I saw that Kamala Harris issued her medical records. Congratulations. Donald Trump's health is on display for the entire country every hour of every day. He has more stamina and mental acumen and strength than any political figure probably

in the history of the country that I can remember. I'm sorry, Donald Trump has more strength and stamina than any politician in history. I'd put a hundred bucks on Jimmy Carter taking Trump in a push-up contest today. Today. Carter taking Trump in a push-up contest today. Today. I don't know, maybe no-Riz Harry Potter over here has a point.

Trump doesn't need to release his medical records because his health is on full display every day. So let's see him whip out that mental acumen and wag it all around this weekend. Also, we have many... ...Azerasians in our room. We have some incredible people in our room. Azerasians? I can't believe Trump is inventing new races.

He doesn't even like the old ones. He doesn't even like the old ones. Man, this is just what we needed. Another chance for Ronnie Chang to be in a movie. Guys in everything. Everything. But obviously, I don't want to hinge Trump's mental health on one word at a rally. He also did a town hall last night. One of the most notable and honestly strange stretches of the campaign we have seen, a Trump town hall that essentially just stopped in the middle with him playing music and dancing

on stage. He had only taken about four questions of what was supposed to be a town hall and instead it was just him on stage requesting various songs to be played and dancing for over half an hour. I don't know if he's on Edibles or if I'm on Edibles. I'm just kidding. I know I'm on Edibles. But let me just take a few minutes to walk you through this town hall, because trust me, it's worth it.

Trump was doing a town hall with puppy shooter Kristi Gnome, and all was well. He took four questions, and then a couple of people passed out from the heat. And Trump stopped the Q&A to make sure everyone was okay, which was great, although he was still very Trumpy about it. They're both okay. They're both in good shape.

That's wonderful. Would anybody else like to faint? ["The White House is a Fart," by The White House of America plays in background.] Anyone else want to pull focus with their medical emergency? Get it out of the way. Calm down, Donald. No one was trying to fake. Trust me.

No one wants to have a medical episode in front of Christine Noem. She's just looking for an excuse to take you to the gravel pit. She cocked her shotgun when she heard Kamala had allergies. But while the staff was attending to the situation, Trump decided to play some music to keep up morale. And this guy, this guy really knows what the people want. So we had a beautiful evening. And I don't know if they could get this song up quickly.

But if they could play Ave Maria, if you can get it, Justin, let's go if you can. ["Ave Maria"] It's so beautiful there, right? Listen to that. We have nice music. We're together. Not bad. Yes.

Not bad. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, everybody, very much. Thank you, everybody. Wow. Ave Maria, huh? You sure you don't want to get the crowd hyped with some Gregorian chants instead? All right.

Warming up the crowd, easing them into it, then you hit them with the banger. A different version of the same song. If my guys can hear me, let's listen to Pavarotti sing Ave Maria. Can you hear that? They gave me the Ave Maria with no voice. Put on Pavarotti singing Ave Maria. Nice and loud.

Turn it up louder. We want a little action here. Turn it up louder. Louder! Trump is just lapping it up. Why does Trump know so much about Ave Maria? Was it used in a McDonald's commercial? And he really loves that song. Who's going to tell him it's about a virgin? And look at poor Kristi Noem.

I gotta say, I gotta say, this is the most I've ever related to her because we have all been in a situation where a guy man splains his Spotify playlist to you. So that was the Pavarotti version. Now let me play you a live version Fish did at Red Rocks. Then poor Christy tries to get things back on track so she can ask more questions, but Trump was just in full DJ mode. Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Let's make it into our music.

Who the hell wants to hear questions, right? I love how everyone's always criticizing Kamala for not being specific with her policies. Meanwhile, Trump's like, shh, shh, shh, no questions, no talking. We're just going to vibe for a while. Just going to let my body do the talking. And if you're wondering, after 40 minutes of this, did they ever actually get back to answering questions? Almost.

So, this has been an honor tonight. We could do another question or two if you'd like, but probably. Do you want to do one? Do you want to do? Let's go. Let's go. You know, it's, but it ends so beautifully. How about this?

We'll play YMCA and we'll go home. ["YMCA & The YMCA Show"] Probably a good idea to shut down questions since I'm pretty sure the next one would have been, hi sir, what the fuck is going on? For more on the state of this race, let's turn to the Daily Show Election Center with Michael Kosta.

Michael, how can Trump be acting this unhinged and not be dropping in all the polls? It's simple, Desi. It's what we in the polling business call the scary to funny ratio. You see, everyone can tell that Trump is clearly losing his mind, which can be scary. But as long as it's more funny than scary, then it's fine. For example, last week Trump lied about FEMA's hurricane response, and now armed men are trying to murder FEMA workers.

Terrifying. But he also jerk-off danced to Ave Maria for 40 minutes, which is pretty funny, so it balances out all the murder. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE CHEERING APPLAUSE That shouldn't balance out. He also threatened to shut down the entire news outlets if he gets elected.

Yeah, yeah, and that's so scary, right? He wants to ban networks like ABC, but then he called that reporter George Slopidopoulos, which is hilarious. So maybe we should ban ABC. See, the ratio works. How can voters think like that? Something can be funny and scary at the same time.

Well, actually, no. Voters can only handle one feeling at a time. We're simple creatures. It's like when I saw baboons at the zoo this weekend. Man, they're scary. But then you see that their butts are red, and that is so funny. Ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! So Trump just gets away with all this? Oh, no, no, no. It works for Biden, too. Remember, for a while, it seemed like he was cognitively impaired, which is super scary for a president, right?

But then he fell off a bike. And not even a moving bike, a parked bike. And that is undeniably hilarious. So we let him keep the nuclear codes. Maybe he'll nuke that bike, right? It's just fun. But then at the debate, Biden stopped being funny. And that threw off the ratio.

And that's when it got scary. OK, OK. So what if Kamala Harris told a few jokes? The ratio doesn't work for women. Voters won't accept that. Yuck. Okay. But last week Trump threatened to use the military

against Americans, calling them the enemy within. I mean, surely that's only scary. Yes, 100%. And our model here showed that that made him lose the swing states and then lose the election. But then he said the word Azureasian. So the model now shows Trump winning the election by 900 electoral votes.

No, no, that model is crazy, Kosta. It is crazy, but in a funny way. I mean, look, I put Greenland in it. That's so funny. I mean, yeah, that is kind of funny. Right? It's like, how did it get there? Anyway, I got to go to the hospital and get my M-Pax vaccine.

I got bitten by a baboon at the zoo. Oh my god, Michael, that's so scary. It is scary, until I saw my big red butt. You're right. That's hilarious. Michael Kosh, everyone. We come back, Lewis Black will be here, so don't go away. Thank you.

Thank you. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday listen to the weekly show John Stewart whatever you get your pocket. Catches it for a segment we call Back in Black. -♪

-♪ I hope you've all registered to vote because like Matt Gaetz at a high school dance, the election is ominously approaching. I for one... high school dance, the election is ominously approaching. I for one, I for one am excited with 21 days to go. We still have no idea who the f*** is gonna win. And that's all thanks to one very special group of morons.

With 21 days until election day, the race to the White House, it is getting tighter and the candidates are putting a laser focus on undecided voters. Undecided voters in battleground states could decide it all. That small sliver of undecided voters, they're gonna make or break this election. Oh yes, undecided voters,

the same people you see at the ice cream shop asking for 12 mini spoon samples. It's a three dollar cone asshole. How is anyone still undecided in this election? At this point choosing a candidate should be easy. Look it's like a lube salesman deciding if he should swing by P. Diddy's house. He has all the information he needs. But after almost two years of campaigning, this election still comes down to winning over a few dozen Pennsylvanians with carbon monoxide poisoning. Now don't get me wrong, maybe these undecided voters aren't stupid. Maybe they have a good reason for being idiots.

Has anyone asked them what the hangup is? I just haven't seen enough of it yet. I need to pay closer attention and kind of do more independent research. I just need to do my own research. I'd have to do more independent research. I just need to do my own research. I'd have to do more research. Oh, good God! They all have the same hair.

Go ahead, do your own research. Hopefully, the library will let you huff paint inside. What are you researching exactly? We've known these candidates forever. One of them has spent the past four years as vice president, and the other has spent the past 40 years as the worst person in America. What the f*** is left for you to learn about them?

How they load a dishwasher? But I still have hope that some of you undecided voters will eventually make a choice. Something has to force your hand. We've just learned that Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris. Okay, will that... Will you vote for Kamala Harris

because of Taylor Swift's endorsement? Anybody? You would? Julian, you would. All right. I'm a musician. I mean, I have to. You're a musician. You have to. I'm going to send it back to you guys in the studio. Well, even the reporter is like,

can I please go cover a mass shooting? This is depressing! Forget the economy or abortion or immigration. He wants to vote with his fellow musicians. Don't tell him about Kid Rock, or his head will explode, and there'll be nothing everywhere. I for one am grateful for all these focus groups of undecided voters. They give us insight into the complex minds of America's most powerful people. Well it is very important that we have expertise when making these decisions in policy, right?

And so him bringing the specifics to say that we need the expertise making these decisions, I believe that was very important. See? Even that vampire magician agrees. Expertise matters and he should know he's voted in the last thousand elections. And for his final trick, he made my hope for Gen Z disappear. But the good news is we don't have to listen to these idiots at all because there's still another option.

I don't know. It still could change. There's still some time left. You never know. I hope so. If I don't have a decision, I probably just won't vote. Finally, someone talking sense. I'm tired of my vote being canceled out by someone whose IQ score only makes sense in

Celsius. So for all you undecided voters, I have a special message. Hi. I'm Lewis Black, beloved comedian. Really? And the only Daily Show employee who works less than John Stewart. I want to talk to you today about democracy. It's a big responsibility, a sacred right, and maybe not for everyone. Because if you're waiting for a Kardashian to tell you who to vote for, go ahead and

sit this one out. Sure people have fought and died for your right to vote, but when those guys were lifting the flag over Iwo Jima, they weren't saying, come on fellas, let's do this so someday a guy can fill out a ballot so the bubbles make the shape of a penis. If you're undecided come election day, do the right thing. Don't get out the boat. Sit out the boat and just focus on picking out that ice cream.

Might I recommend rocky road. Everybody John Stewart here I'm here to tell you about my new podcast the weekly show is going to be coming out. Every Thursday so exciting you'll you'll be saying about my new podcast, The Weekly Show. It's gonna be coming out every Thursday. So exciting. You'll be saying to yourself, TGID. Thank God it's Thursday. We're gonna be talking about all the things

that hopefully obsess you in the same way that they obsess me, the election, economics, earnings calls, what are they talking about on these earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're gonna be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. And I know that I listed that fourth, but in importance, it's probably second.

I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? I mean, talk about innovative. Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guest tonight is a voting rights activist, host of Assembly Required, and bestselling author whose latest children's book is called Stacey Speaks Up. Please welcome Stacey Abrams. Hi. What a pleasure it is to have you on.

I am so happy that you're here. Thank you for having me. Of course. Of course. My course, my pleasure. Our pleasure. You are clearly a powerful force in Georgia politics. You had two historic runs. You're a large part for why Georgia flipped blue in 2020. It feels like there's so much progress that's being made and yet here we are again coming

up on election, on the election, and it's mandated that ballots must be hand counted in Georgia. Is it as f***ed up as it sounds? Yes. So, so let's, let's. Great. Well, that's all the time we have. Okay. So I've got two bits of good-ish kind of news.

Okay. So number one, so when they say hand count, what they mean is count the ballots, not the votes. So they're physically requiring each precinct to physically count each ballot. We've got about five and a half million voters. Oh, is that all? Yeah, and so it's gonna take some time. So the intent is to create chaos in the system.

So when people hear, oh, well, why shouldn't you hand count the vote? They're not counting the vote. They're counting the physical ballots. But today, Robert McBurney, one of the judges, he ruled that this was unethical and irresponsible and that they can't do all of the things they want to do. However, what we have to recognize is that we have a state Supreme Court that is packed with people who are unfortunately sometimes like-minded with the people making the rules that we are not too happy about. And so what we need to watch is not what they're doing but what we do about it. We can't get sucked into the maelstrom of crazy. We've got to go around the maelstrom to the ballot box

and have so many of us turn in our ballots that it doesn't really matter. We'll still fight the fight, but we cannot let them convince us not to get out. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You've been very focused on voter suppression and you on voter suppression. And you define voter suppression as when a state or state actors interfere with the three

parts of voting. Can you walk us through that a little bit? I can. Thank you for remembering. I did my homework. You did. So it's can you register and stay on the roll. So can you register and then can they take you off.

So can you register and stay on the rolls is So can you register and then can they take you off? So can you register and stay on the rolls is one. Second is can you cast your ballot? Do they have hoops and hurdles and ID requirements that can't possibly be met or that are really difficult to meet? And then does your ballot actually get counted? Meaning do they throw out your ballot because the postmark is smudged

or because you can't match your signature or in this case in Georgia because the hand count takes so long that we miss the deadline for our votes to actually be counted. So voter suppression tends to be, people think of it in one way, but it's three different capacities and they often come together for an evil triad. Our job is to pay attention to all three and not get distracted by just one but to do our best to push back against all of them.

And this isn't just... You're working on this not only in Georgia, this is obviously happening on a national level. What advice would you give voters at this point? What can be done? How can voters be sure that their vote is counted? First, show up. And it sounds easy.

But too often, the reason they put these hurdles in place is to convince us it's not worth it. The administrative process becomes so complicated that just not voting seems like an easier choice than showing up. And we can't let them do this. It's the nature. It's like letting the DMV convince you

not to get your license because you have to stand in line for a really, really long time. Don't let them win. Don't let the bad guys get you. So show up. But the other piece is don't vote alone. Too often we think of voting as a personal issue, but we are part of a system.

We're part of a democracy. We need to take people with us and we need to explain what we've learned. We need to tell people, here's why your vote matters, because so many people think, my vote won't count. Yes, Georgia was decided by fewer than 12,000 votes in a state of 11 million people.

Mmm. It counts. It counts more than you can imagine. Please, God, vote. Please, God, vote. Please, God God vote. I do want to talk about your book. Congratulations. This is such a beautiful

children's book. Stacey speaks up. I read this to my son the other night. He was riveted. It's so inspiring. Why focus on a children's book? Have you given up on adults? Look, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm

curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm

curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm break. Yes. Great tactic. Great tactic. The story is about a young Stacey who discovers that a friend of hers can't afford to buy lunch and she decides to do something about it, speak up, and it's really like this beautiful grassroots inspiring story of how children can get involved at even an early age. What inspired you to write this? I wanted to tell a story about advocacy and empathy. Empathy, how do you feel the pain of someone else? And then advocacy, what do you do about it?

But center it around an experience that is universal to childhood, which is school lunch. But it's also because I live in a state that is refusing to offer summer lunches, refusing federal dollars. And it's not the only state, but Georgia's governor has refused to accept taxpayer dollars that have already been paid into the system. Children going hungry is getting worse in this country,

not better, and being able to focus on the issue not only of empathy and advocacy, but making sure that we have the strongest, healthiest children possible is incredibly important to me. And that's why Stacey Speaks Up for me was an opportunity to tell a fun story about a little Stacey who thinks that she can write her way out of the problem and then she realizes she's gonna have to do something more.

Have her friends coming together to help her. And they get to enjoy something that I like to call Taco Pizza Friday. Love this idea, by the way. Thank you, thank you. It's a childhood dream made manifest in this book. Uh. Same. But giving kids the sense that they too have the capacity.

They're seeing a lot of dangerous things. They're seeing a lot of hard things. Your son is watching a world that feels overwhelming. And I wanted a book that acknowledges how they feel and tells them that there's something they can do about it. And using a story that's accessible, which is every one of us knows about lunch. We know about hunger and we need to think about the children who don't get to solve that hunger problem and see what we can do to help them. Thank you so much.

Thank you for all of the work that you do every day. I am so grateful for all that you do. Thank you. And go out and get this book. It is so sweet. Stacey Speaks Up. It's available now. It's available now at the end of the week.

It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the week. It's available now at the end of the work that you do every day. I am so grateful for all that you do. Thank you. And go out and get this book. It is so sweet. Stacey Speaks Up.

It's available now. Stacey Abrams, everyone. We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back after this. Have a pizza Friday. Yeah. Woo! Oh, yes. Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

That's our show for tonight. Now here it is. You know what I'm saying. We're gonna go, we're gonna vote, we're gonna have a good time, we're gonna make our country get, this is gonna be, I want this to be a really important evening.

And those two people that went down are patriots and we love them. Yes. And and because of them we ended up with some good music right right. 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. Paramount Podcasts.

I'm never going to be the person that I was before the 7th of October. The new Paramount Plus original documentary. 3,500 people went to dance for peace and then I heard the first bullet. Perruing firstperson stories of survival. I thought to tell my friends to leave, but it was already too late. From the Nova Music Festival in Israel. Every single person that I lost on that day would have made the hell out of this life. We Will Dance Again, new documentary now streaming on Paramount+.