The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Xi Makes Trump Climb Stairs, Learn Ancient Greek History & Tremble Over Taiwan Talk | Boots Riley

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Jordan Klepper digs into Trump’s media-frenzied visit to China, from Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanting a Chinese robot’s sausage, to President Xi making Trump confront history and stairs, to the closed-door conversations about Taiwan that left Trump shaken. Plus, Ronny Chieng helps Josh Johnson get his Asian references straight. Grace Kuhlenschmidt gets fired up about the latest tech news, including Prego's dinner table listening device, Bebop the Robot's air travel fail, delivery bots bringing the pain to pedestrians, and the rise of robo-Buddhism in South Korea. Filmmaker Boots Riley joins Jordan to break down the absurdist, comedic world of his new film, “I Love Boosters,” and how it uses fashion and shoplifting culture to interrogate capitalism. He is unapologetic about his politics, arguing that working within capitalism is unavoidable, but that the goal should always be to help the working class build the kind of collective power that can actually change policy. Riley believes great art should push people toward action long after the credits roll and reminds the audience that films like this only get made when audiences show up. -- 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 new. This is The Daily Show with your host, Jordan Clever. ...tri-couples therapy. Your Fettuccini Alfredo might be spying on you, and how much does Donald Trump know about ancient Greek history? The answer will not surprise you.

Let's kick things off with Trump's trip to China and another edition of Trump meets worlds. International humiliation, one after another. President Trump is in China right now, and the whole U.S. news, media, has gone along with him, which means we at home are getting a rare look

at some of China's cultural wonders. This is the family-mar convenience store in Beijing. Inside is a gal-bot robot. The dominance of AI. Beijing is trying to lead the way in AI and also in human-order. robots. It's Gwynside. This is the first of its kind for this kind of interaction. If you want to order something, hello, can I get a sausage, please?

A sausage? You went to China, home of one of the most famed cuisines in the world, and ordered a convenience store sausage? Bread, you're making us look weird in front of our future overlords. Although it could be worse. Usually when someone at Fox News asks someone to their sausage, it comes with a $10 million lawsuit. So... By the way, look at that robot just standing there in the back. I love that even in our tech future,

there's still one guy at work that does absolutely nothing. But as for the summit itself, Trump's welcome got off to a nice start when he was greeted by children, upon children, upon children. But then things took a turn for the worst when Trump was confronted by stairs Upon stairs, upon even more stairs. But after all the greeting and the stair climbing,

it was time for the actual summit. A chance for President Xi to explain this position in simple, clear terms Donald Trump could understand. President Xi said that he hoped the two countries could avoid the so-called Thucydides trap. It's a historic reference about a great power being threatened by the rise of another. Damn it, Gee!

You're gonna hit the first. You're gonna hit President Trump with a Thucydides trip? Now you're making his brain go up a flight of stairs. Come on, all right, President Trump, don't let this guy history mog you. Show him you can communicate in equally sophisticated terms. Chinese restaurants in America today outnumber the five largest fast food chains in the United States all combined. That's a pretty big statement. Yeah.

That's my president. Putting his understanding of geopolitics into fast-food terms. He gives a summit speech like a third grader who got assigned China for his geography project. In conclusion, China is a land of contrast. And I brought Panda Express for everyone. I gotta say, it appears to be a good sign to see all this bridge building.

Because I was under the impression that our relationship with China was growing increasingly tense and bitter, especially over Taiwan, which China wants to take back, and we want to keep independent. But I'm sure, all the goodwill between Xi and Trump carried over into their closed-door meeting about Taiwan. During a two-hour closed-door meeting,

Xi reportedly delivering a stark warning to Trump on the issue of Taiwan, which China sees as its territory. She telling Trump that the issue is handled poorly, the two countries will collide or even clash. Ho, ho, ho, ho, tough talk, President Xi. Perhaps you've forgotten that you're talking to America, the country that's just about to start kicking Iran's ass any day now. And if you want to step up to us with all this lucidity's crap,

then why don't you do sit on these nuts? Now, I know Donald Trump's not going to take a tongue lashing like that. Our president's definitely not going to walk out of those talks looking like he's in a hostage video. How are your talks, sir? Wait. Holy shit, what happened? in there.

That was like asking Tiger Woods how the drive home went. All right, D.T. Do you want to expand on that? Maybe, maybe defend Taiwan? Great place. Incredible. China's beautiful. What happened in the meeting that made

him really not want to talk about Taiwan? He's out there like, don't you guys want to talk about anything else? Like Jeffrey Epstein? I got a lot of redactions. I got time. Let's chat. So after day one of this trip, I definitely have way more questions than answers. What does Xi say to Trump behind closed doors?

Can our two nations avoid the famous two centipedes trap? How many Chinese restaurants are there in the U.S.? Hell, I don't even know if Brett Bear ever got his sausage. This is the first of its kind here, and they say there are going to be many different iterations, so there's a real big back and forth. He got his sausage! It's just a loose sausage on a plate.

Yum! The robots are like, I know you are going to eat this with your hands, you American pig. For more help, understanding the summit and the complexities of China, let's go live to Ronnie Chang.

Oh, Ronnie, of course we have to check in with you for this. Yeah, what do you mean? Of course. You're checking in with me. Why, why, of course? Well, I mean, you've got your, you have your expertise.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. In what? You are, when I'm thinking of you, when I'm thinking of you, I think you are, say it, say it, say it. You have, you are, in what?

In what? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But, I know, that doesn't mean I'm the China guy. Okay, I don't assume you're the expert on Slender Man just because of how you look.

Okay. Mean, but accurate. But, as long as you are here, why don't you help with this? I need information. No, no, no. I'm putting my foot down, all right? I'm not your China expert. I'm not even from China.

Hey, Jordan, I think I can help. Wait, who is that? Who is that? What is that? Josh Johnson! Hello, from Beijing, or should I say, Konichi Wah, Jordan. Okay, great. Fantastic.

Josh, you can be our China expert. What can you tell us about the U.S. summit with China? Jordan, to fully understand the China summit, you must first understand China. It's a proud but suspicious culture, driven by the fear that at any moment, Godzilla might show up and tap dance on everybody, all right? I'm talking, stumping out buses like cigarette butts. Oh, I mean, that is truly fascinating. Wait, whoa, whoa, wait.

Wait, wait, hang on. What the fuck? Godzilla is Japanese, you dipshits. That's not Chinese. Okay, I'm sorry, Ronnie. I thought you said you didn't want to be the China expert. Yeah, I didn't want to be. BIV? I mean...

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Then let our China expert file his report. Josh, continue. Thank you, Jordan. Yesterday, Trump and Xi sat down for a dinner of a traditional Chinese dish, pat-tai noodles. These... Those are Thai, pat-tai.

Pat-tai, Thai, like Thailand. You... I mean, I'm so sick of Americans making no effort to differentiate the countries in Asia. Oh, I'm sorry, Rob. That sounds like something a China expert would say. But I was under the impression you weren't one. Yeah. Why don't you leave China to the Chinese experts?

Or, as Mr. Miyagi said in the art of war, Hadduken! That is, don't applaud that. That is so, that is so fucking ignorant. I didn't even know how to reply to that. You know what, if I forget it, I don't give a shit. Thank you. This summit comes at a tense time for President Trump,

who wants China to help with the Iran War, while China wants America to help hunk tricks fight all the demons. Okay, that's K-pop demon hunters. Yes, indeed. It seems that Ronnie's son has learned much from me. His Chinese sensei. Interesting fact, Jordan, the K-in-K-pop is actually an ancient Chinese symbol, which translates to K-Chinese.

Okay. This is very helpful. This is very helpful. I'm learning so much. Thank you, Josh. No, you're not. Everyone is getting dumber. The K in K-pop stands for Korean.

Josh, you don't know shit about China. It's not my fault. I'm the second most Chinese guy in the office. Okay? What the fuck does I even mean? I don't know. But if I wasn't a Chinese expert, how would I know every member of the Wu-Tang clan?

All right? Watch, watch. The Riza, the Jizzah, Ghost Face Killer, Method Man, Rayquant. How many can you name? Okay, well, you took all of them. Anoying U-Tang doesn't mean you know more about China. Capadana, Master Killa, Inspector Deck,

U-Gun, Old Dirty Bastard. Holy shit! I know more about China than I thought. Suck it, Ronnie. Yeah, suck it, Ronnie. Shut up. Shut up, all of you. God damn it, all right, fine. F***. I'll be the China expert. Okay. Okay, yeah.

You want to. Awesome. If you want to. As the China expert, how do you think America should navigate the Taiwanese independence and the threat of war with China? Okay, you know what? I'll pass. I'll pass on this one. And how about you, I let Josh, you fix Taiwan, all right? Happy to. Now, is Taiwan one of the demon hunters? Ronnie Chagin, Josh Johnson, everybody. The latest in tech news, don't go away. At Desjardin Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect from tip to toe. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business

and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at dejerdin.com slash business coverage. Daily show. Technology will one day kill us all. But until then, it's pretty cool.

To find out more, we turn to Grace Koolenschmidt in our ongoing segment, Tech Yeah. To all my computer geeks, AI freaks, and tech companies harvesting my medical data. Can one of y'all tell you, girl, why her stool so pale? I'm Grace Koolenschmidt, and this is Techya, where I tell CPU all about the biggest stories in tech. Let's start our Techscapade with pasta.

It's Italian for noodles. I know when it comes to tech, pasta might. not be the first thing that comes to mind. But if you think Nyoki, can't low-key be techie, you're macaroni. The popular pasta sauce company, Prego, is joining the tech world by officially launching a device

that sits on your table and records dinner conversations. The connection keeper, it will record your dinner chats, and then you can upload them to be preserved the Library of Congress. Mama me, that's a spicy list. Seriously, this is awesome. You know how at dinner your sister's always calling your mom a dumb bitch? Now that will be forever preserved in the library of Congress's sauce aisle.

I can't wait to start using it, although full disclosure, I did drop my Prego thingy into a boiling pasta of spaghetti sauce, but no big deal. I brought it to the Prego Genius Bar where an old Italian woman chase me with a wooden spoon going, what's the matter? You beast of my house. On, as I always say, you've heard of the movie Snakes on a plane. Well, now it's a robot. You've heard of the movie Snakes on a plane.

Well, now it's a robot. The humanoid named Bebop even had his own seat. At first, everyone was delighted as the humanoid entertained them before boarding the Southwest Airlines flight in Oakland. But when he took his seat on the plane, the fun ended. Turns out his lithium battery was too big and had to be removed delaying the flight for an hour. What? Delayed by an hour? That's awesome. These flights are so expensive. You should get more time. Personally, I don't care if this robot delays the flight or if his batteries a fire hazard or that he keeps trying to kick through a window.

If you don't want to sit next to a suicidal maniac, then don't fly Southwest. We'll give them credit for letting Bebop board the plane before everyone else. Listen, military veterans deserve our respect. Just not as much respect as dancing robots. Of course, robots aren't just flying the friendly skies. They're also driving the unfriendly grounds. Delivery robots have been making an appearance in cities across the country, but a man from New Jersey was injured in an accident with one.

Sarah Ahern saw a food delivery robot pull into this street in Jersey City, directly into the path of a man on a bicycle. I saw him go through the intersection, and the next thing I saw he was in the air. She says the cyclist came crashing to the pavement while the robot tried to drive off. Tech incredible! Robots can flee a crime scene just like us! And good luck giving the robot the electric chair! They went to high school together! But these minor incidents are just the cost of the progress.

Imagine the world will soon be living in. An AI assistant orders you lunch. Within minutes, a delivery robot is at your doorstep, covered in cyclist blood. You answer the door in nothing but a towel and invite the robot in. But, oh no, you don't have any cash on you. You ask the robot if there's another way you can pay for your pizza. And the robot says no and drives off. Wow, that's hot.

Now, speaking of desire, this next robot just gave up all its earthly ones. This is Gabby, who's just become the first robot monk to be ordained at a Buddhist temple in South Korea. At a ceremony in Seoul, he pledged to devote himself to the faith. How tacking cool! Being a Buddhist monk is not an easy feat. You need to be bald and have hands. And this fella is doing both in a maze. Oh, this robot will be a good robot monk,

because if not, he'll be reincarnated as Guy Fieri's colonoscopy camera. Now, not to toot my own horn, but I've always known that robots wanted to be religious, but you all said it was inappropriate to put a yarmika on my Roomba and call it a jumba. Well, look who's laughing now. Rivka, my jumba while she watches Seinfeld,

it's her culture. Well, that's a jumbah. Well, that's all for this edition of Tech, yeah. Join us next time when I name drop a bunch of products in the hopes I get some free stuff. Kindle, MacBook, Pringles, Haircuts. Whose latest film is called I Love Boosters. Please welcome Boots Riley.

This is a movie. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is a movie. This movie has everything. I enjoyed this movie so much. There's so much I want to talk about. I don't want to spoil anything because there's a lot of surprises in this movie.

Yeah. But for people who haven't seen this, what is I Love Boosters? Well, boosters are folks that shoplift and sell at a discount price. So it's something that as a broke rapper for many decades, I've definitely had to have around me in order to stay fly, because staying fly is part of the job requirement. Yeah. And so I wanted to write about stuff from the perspective of these folks that kind of hold the community together, right? We have, you know, fashion is, is the big fashion houses are inspired by stuff from the street, by black communities, by people of color, things like that, but

those communities can't afford it, right? So this is, this was a way to talk about fashion that I hadn't seen. I mean, it talks about fashion. I mean, this movie talks about fashion, talks about capitalism. It's super funny. This feels like sort of a peewee's big adventure if it were directed by Carl Marx with a bunch of Molly in the background. With loony tunes. With some loony tunes energy. Honestly, like the playfulness

and the sketch element of this, I thought, was so refreshing and vivid. I'm curious, also knowing that I Love Boosters was a song 20 years ago that you wrote, and now it is a movie. I'm wondering, in taking so many genres, so many ideas, like sort of what is an order of operations for how Boots Riley gets to a film

I love boosters. I'm thinking about feelings. You know, I want to make a visceral impact. I want, and I want that to lead to action afterward, right? Like, I don't, the movie isn't over when the movie's over. The movie, to me, lives on with what it makes you want to do in your life, right? So I'm thinking about stuff from the personal level, what's around my character's world, and how that is connected to the larger world.

And to me, a lot of my stuff is comedy and also absurdist, and all of that is about contradictions. And that's what we're living with. And tragedy and comedy, they both have irony in them. And those contradictions, pointing those out, that's basically what we do when we're talking about politics. You know, I'm telling you, I mean, that's what y'all do here, right? Yeah.

So, uh... Although I find it so fascinating here. Like, you talk about, you start with trying to figure out what you want the audience to do. And is that beyond just like the emotion that you want them to feel? Well, the emotion is the, is the way in. From, from, um, doing music for so many years, uh, and I got known as a lyricist, you could know, like, you could have just the rawest lyrics ever.

And besides, like, the lyric nerds, most people are going to be like, yeah, but what does the beat sound like? Right. Right. What is the be? Can I dance to this? Am I not in my head? What's going on? And it's that visceral feeling. And to me, it's all, I mean, that's what art is connected to being in the moment. But what is the moment and what are we hiding right here, right? So all the art that I've ever made is about trying to help people find the tools to change the world around them. And right now, what we need to change the world around us is a mass militant radical labor movement.

One that uses the withholding of labor as a tactic and strategy to be able to have policy change. We have a world in which you have the U.S. and Israel saying, how dare you say that we're committing genocide and they are? while then the next day saying, f*** that, we're about to commit genocide on some other f***es tomorrow, right? And they can do that and just play in our face because they know we feel powerless. And that feeling of powerlessness

is a material one. It's real. Until we have that kind of movement where we can shut down profit, where we can do the things that we, that affect power, then we're going to be power. And so I'm, you know, I just write with my opinions in there,

but my opinions are also funny, right? Right. Because it has to do with these things. And what I'm thinking is not very far off from what most people think in the world. It's just sometimes struggle, class struggle, is edited out of film. I feel it is amazing watching you make this film

and the skills you have to, to get messages like that across in such digestible, interesting, and also complex way is remarkable. But how do you have a film that critiques the capitalistic system, but also has to exist within the capitalistic system, making a big movie that you want to be seen by a lot of people that is taking aim at capitalism? How do you balance working within that to critique it? There's no such thing as outside of capitalism, right? Right. So if I'm going to work, I'm working inside of capitalism. Everything, every, you know, some small independent company, some big company, they're all part of capitalism.

And my goal is not just to get myself outside of capitalism. It's to have the working class overthrow the ruling class, right? And that, and get to a system in which the people democratically control the wealth that we create with. our labor. So, so, so if we don't have that, I'm not like, oh, okay, let me work with the nicer capitalists, the guy with the friendlier smile, you know, it's, it's about making, helping to make that movement happen because we can't, you know, do anything unless we have that as a, as a backup. Now, you've, you've taken this film out to colleges in the last couple weeks, right? I assume part of that is to have a conversation with younger, thoughtful, energetic people.

I'm curious if that was the intent and also what some of the responses you've gotten in trying to start this conversation. Some of that is the intent, but also colleges have budgets to bring the film out there. So it's extra promotion because we also invited whoever else was around in the community, and we use that as the jump-off point. But it's been, we also, we did community screenings as well that were outside of the colleges. But it's been raucous. It's been like people are laughing through the whole thing and like sometimes laughing over certain lines. And that's good because they got to come back and see it again.

But, yeah, it's been, it's, it's been, I've watched it 35 times since we premiered it at South By. I've watched it with the crowd 35 times since then. And it hasn't got old to me yet. mainly because of the audience. What have you been surprised by? That wasn't necessarily your initial intent, but now you're seeing it in front of an audience and now they're responding. Is there anything that caught your eye?

I mean, you know, a lot of stuff, I'm like patting myself on the back like, yeah, I knew that. But there's a lot of little things, like there's a part where Lakeith Stanfield's character pops up on a phone, and it's just a little thing. And, you know, I thought it would cause a smile, but it causes people to break out. laughing. You know, things like that that you find, but I don't really have anything that

without seeing it, you'd understand what that was. The collaboration, the music in it is great. Yeah. And as a musician, you work with tune yards. What is that process like overseeing? You work with tune yards in your other... So I've worked with tune yards on, for the score on Sorry to Bother You, and for the score on I'm a Virgo. And it's, you know, I start sending them pages when I'm 20 pages in and start talking about this. And for this one, I was originally very inspired by, deep cut, Amir Costa Rica's Black Cat, White Cat, and the score to that. And so we were talking about that.

But as I'm writing, they're making score pieces. A lot of the score are demos that they made while I was writing the script. So it's really good because then we'll use those pieces. while we're shooting, all that sort of stuff. Separately, there is, so that's the score, but there's a soundtrack that Kiki Palmer has out on it, and it's a bunch of songs that my daughter wrote with her. Is that right?

Yeah, and so there's a five-song EP soundtrack that's out for that now, and the tune yard score comes out on the same day as the release of the movie. I'm curious, as somebody who has found a way into the system to articulate true political beliefs that you have. I talk to a lot of young people who want to get to a place like that and don't necessarily see a path for that. Do you have advice for people who hear stories like yours, somebody who is so attached to a movement and being able to articulate?

Well, one, I came out of a disciplined party. I was in a disciplined organization, and I came into doing art because I have this passion. So one thing I'd say for any artists is to have something, thing you're more passionate about than the art itself. Because if the main thing you're passionate about is making art, then that's going to be like talking to someone who's passionate about talking.

You want to get out of that combo real quick. And so with that, that's guided me. But it has also, you know, it has not been working for a, there are a lot of times when it has not been working. But I'm staying in it to do it because I was seeing slight payoffs that weren't in money or weren't in things that were easily able to be registered, but people talking about what, you know, how the music affected them. And then what started to bother you, you know, people messaging me saying how they,

how it made them get involved with things and how it made them get involved with unions and strikes and things like that. So I, and it should be said, From 2020 to 2024, we had the largest strike wave that there had been in the United States since the 70s. Thousands of strikes all over the place. And it was largely underreported. And during that time, that's when I got messages from people being like, oh, we didn't think our workplace was going to go on strike. We didn't think our, you know, or form a union.

but we played Sorry to Bother You and everybody voted for it. Right. So the advice is have something you're more passionate about than making your art as a reason to make your art. Secondly, realize nobody knows what the f*** they're doing. We're all trying to figure it out. The answer to most of your questions to me is really I don't know, right? Oh, Jesus. Why did you just say that, boo?

Which is so much easier for the editors to put together, you know? And we're all here trying to make it, and especially in your art practice. You've got to figure that out. And for me, I've had a lot of iterations of figuring out things. A lot of what I'm doing here on this movie is, I think, pushing cinema in a certain way. Because it's not, you know, in order to make you even care about it, I realize I have to be an artist. It took me a while to admit that I was an artist. And for me, I want to see something new.

I want to see it do something new. And there's so many moments in here where I and the audience is like, I've never seen anything like that before. So for me, I have to keep being inventive to be, you know, because I want to be in the moment, talk about the contradictions that exist right now, and talk about what we can do about it. Well, it is a remarkable film. I truly have never seen anything like it before.

Thank you so much. Yes. I love boosters. And I want to say, look, May 22nd, we're going to be in 2,500 screens across the U.S. That means it's a make it or break it. If you see the trailer and decide you want to see it, I need you to go there, May 22nd. If you see the movie and like it, I need you to tell people about it because we need movies like this to get out there.

I love it. May 22nd, break for you right back after this. As you know, the president just landed in China a few hours ago. I always, you know, you may know that because of Secret Service protocols that I don't travel outside of the country with the President of the United States. So on days today, I sometimes feel like McCauley Calkin and home alone. I walk into the White House and it's very quiet and no one's there.

And it takes me a second to realize exactly what's going on. 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 Cowell. Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.