The Daily Zeitgeist - Tell 'Em Trendrick Did It 1/21: Trump, TikTok, Biden, US Blizzard

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

In this edition of Tell 'Em Trendrick Did It, Jack and special guest co-host Pallavi Gunalan discuss their respective weekends, Trump's inauguration, the TikTok "ban"/publicity stunt, the Biden administration's Gaza apathy, an incipient southern US blizzard and much more! WATCH: Mitchell and Webb: "Are we the baddies?"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What a weekend, guys. How's everybody doing? is my legacy. What a, what a weekend guys. How's everybody doing? I feel like so much stuff happened, right? Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. It's been six weeks since Friday. It feels like, yeah, I went on tick tock for the first time ever willingly not for work. Yeah. Just because it got banned very briefly and I was like, hey, let's see what's going on on TikTok while the Americans are gone.

There was nothing going on on TikTok. I still don't know how to use it. Everybody, it turns out you just had your app store open. Everybody was just posting really fun anti-American content. Like there was somebody who was like dancing to crazy music and it was like centimeters color, just all of the different stuff. Color with a U. Yeah. Yeah, bitch, what?

Oh, the metric system. Remember that? Remember when we were planning to change to the metric system. Remember that? Remember when we were planning to change to the metric system? Now, in so many ways, the US has just been like, bah, fuck it. This is who we are. We don't need to measure our bombs in metric times.

That's right. We are who we are. It's just full on. I wonder if that was a start of the... That's a Kesha lyric. Full on we are who we are. We are who we are. Hello the internet and welcome to this week trend edition of Dirty Lies I C iced. That's how my voice feels. That's how my soul feels.

It's a production by Heart Radio. This is the episode where we come in very early on our first day back after the weekend, in this case the long Martin Luther King weekend, and tell you what was trending over the past three days. I'm thrilled to be joined by today's very special guest co-host, a hilarious stand-up comedian, it's Pallavi Gunali. Hello.

My voice is not sore from being at the inaugural ball, in case anybody's wondering why my voice keeps- Is your arm sore from doing any salutes? My arm is sore from doing some light saluting, just, you know. Roman saluting. It's actually not that sore. I did like kind of rolled my shoulder out a little bit, so feeling pretty good. Jesus Christ.

Pallavi. Usually we're like, how are you doing? This was a wild one. I'm like, let me go read a book. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book.

I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book.

I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. I'm like, I'm going to read a book. but because they're all there, none of them can get through this door. That's what it feels like with chaos in the world right now.

I'm like, let me go read a book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really does. It's just a giant sustained ball of shit that is kind of all holding itself together, kind of. Not really though. It's just, it really, a thing that we kept coming back to. I forget who the historical quote was from, but during the first Trump administration on the show, we would repeatedly say, you know, things can get worse.

It's hard to imagine at the time that things could get worse. And they are, they are worse. This is worse. It's like the straight, you know how like the gay campaign was like, it gets better, but this is like the hetero agenda. It's getting worse, guys. Yeah. As promised, it's getting worse. So we're going to talk about some of the details from to talk about some of the details from Trump's inauguration, TikTok, like kind of throat in the boot, just all sorts of Elon Musk doing an actual Nazi salute. But before we get into that, we do like to let the listeners, and you're welcome for this listeners, let the listeners get to know us a little bit better by telling them some stuff we think is overrated, some stuff we think is underrated. Paul, do you

want us to, you want to kick us off with these things overrated? Oh my God. Speaking of this weekend, you know what's overrated? History. We're not learning from it. Why are we studying it still? What's the point? We are history. What's the point? If he can do a Nazi salute in the middle of everything and the ADL is like, well, he's just enthusiastic. Well, our breaking points. It's just an awkward gesture done very enthusiastically.

Yeah, so I'm like, everybody's like, we gotta learn from the mistakes of history. I'm like, I feel like just current empathy isn't working. So like, how are we trying to outsmart history? Sorry, history heads. I'm getting dumber as we speak. Yeah. Fuck history.

Fuck history. Who cares about where I came from or what happened or why we have the values we care about? Yeah, I feel that. My overrated is giving apps five stars. Like every time, it feels like every time I encounter an app, like I'm using Microsoft Outlook as an email client because it is mandated by my workplace. And they ask if I want to rate them them and out of curiosity, I was like, check. I was like, what, what kind of ratings are is Microsoft Outlook kind of ratings is

Instagram getting so funny? It's five stars like across the board, like this industry that we are now aware is trying to take away our free will, is successfully taking away our free will, and is now openly in league with the Trump administration. They're like on the veranda as he's getting sworn in. Like we're just giving them default five stars. Like I feel like we need to recalibrate our grading curve when it comes to the apps that these massive companies are putting out.

Like start with a baseline of zero. And if they do something that suggests that they're not going to try to rob you of free will or like destroy democracy in order to gain power, they like get up to one, one star, you know? I think there should be multiple like axes on which you can rate it. So you could be like, okay, yeah, it's super fascist, but also I'm still addicted to it. So like, Right.

You know what I mean? Don't take it away, but like change it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was trying to figure. Like, is this just because it's the equivalent of like a drug dealer being like, hey, could you rate and review drugs before I give you your next drug? That is so funny. They're like, let me cater this algorithm to you

in this meth. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Twenty seven million people have rated Instagram and the average rating is an A. It's four point seven out of five. That's 94 percent. What if every standing meeting Mark Zuckerberg walks in and he's like, how are we doing with folks and they're like, well, the ratings are still at five. Keep going. Yeah. Zuckerberg walks in and he's like, how are we doing folks? And they're like, well, the ratings are still at five. Keep going. Yeah.

I mean, I think it got started out at a really high level, I guess, like when people were just like, gee, with apps. What can't the tech industry do? And now they're just like still there. Like Microsoft Outlook, a fucking email client that like most people who use it are like, this is really frustrating and like doesn't work that well. Is that 4.8 out of five? That's like almost an A plus. Like what, why are we, why do we grade like we're the hotel management department at like Alabama giving like all the football players just like good

grades to like get their eligibility up it's just yeah I don't know if it's good will left over from the tech industry from like 2008 but I feel like we need to just say enough is enough and start like giving these apps, zero stars. They aren't immigrant Uber drivers, okay? We need to really judge them. Right. By the way, Brian the editor has gone to the Google Play Store to check out the reviews for the app Covenant Eyes, which is actually earning a meager 4.6, which is like an A minus actually.

Coveted Eyes. Are you aware, Pallavi, of Coveted Eyes? This is the app. So this is the app that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson uses to keep him, himself, and his teenage son from jacking off to internet porn. And we covered it when it was first announced. Oh my God. It's a chastity belt for internet porn. Yeah, it's a chastity belt for internet porn. You essentially have spyware installed on your phone that will tell on you the second you look at porn to another like partner, another like accountability partner. And it's, it's apparently working for these 10 point like basically 11,000 people who

have reviewed it as getting an A minus. You'd think that there would be more people being like, fuck, this thing just told my dad that I was jacking off. I know. We hope it wouldn't work. I feel like if you have a problem like that, going to another app isolation thing isn't the best solution. I feel like amidst all of these issues that you're having, maybe like connect with people who could help like human beings who could help you rather than being like punish me. That might be a kink.

What if they're like into getting punished by Covenant Eyes? They're like, yeah, I've been a bad boy. I do feel like in the popular consciousness, at least people who are obsessed with sexual purity also tend to be the people who are like in a dark room on their knees, like whipping their own back, you know? Yeah.

Brian the editor. The question does not work. Brian the editor has pulled this quote from the reviews. This was very helpful in my pursuit of sexual purity. That was it? Yeah. You know. Okay, virgin. No, I'm kidding. It's fine to be a virgin. You're fine if you're a virgin. It's fine. It's fine.

Weird times. I say we stop giving the tech industry the benefit of the doubt and start grading them. Taking into account what they're doing to human civilization. Okay, this is how I feel about comedians. I was going to have a conversation with someone about comedians and I'm like, people think this person is funny despite everything about them, despite their politics or whatever. And for me, when people have shitty politics or are bad to women and then have a voice of authority on stage, it really takes the wind out for me.

Where I'm like, I see through, like the Emperor has no clothes sort of thing. So it makes it not funny for me. And then you kind of are like, oh, like you reanalyze their jokes and you're like, oh, this is like hack. And it can be independent of that too. Like they could just not be funny on the front,

but you're not fooled by it or whatever. But that's how I feel about that too. I'm like, why are we, like, all of this is tied together. Like you can't separate the app from the artist or whatever, you know what I mean? Like you can't separate these things because it does affect everything. And it does affect my perception of things, too.

I think I've done it in the past. Like I've given something like a five stars just to get them to leave me alone. And like, I think I assume that if I give it one star, they're going to keep bothering me and be like, what's up, man? Yeah, the next thing you're talking. Why? Bro? Yeah, dude, what's your problem? Which is similar to the difficulty of critiquing a male comedian.

And it's just gonna be exhausting. Are you gay, dude? Yeah, the pushback's gonna be incredibly exhausting. And the internet is now a place where fascist ideals and, you know, bullies reign supreme. So... Do you want to know something crazy?

Like I fully did not mean to shift into this, but it's a perfect transition to something crazy that happened to me yesterday. I'm in an Instagram fight with Eliza Schlesinger. Are you really? Because she posted something like super racist against the Palestinian prisoners. She was like, when will the world see that they're all terrorists and we're exchanging like innocent people for terrorists? I'm like, they're children. And so I posted on her Instagram, because this has bothered me for a while. I was like, the last time I saw you live,

you were talking about homeless people. Her words were an inconvenience to her day. And I was like, also this post is racist AF, like hope this helps. And then she wrote this whole thing. And then she said something racist towards me. She was like, your people actually murdered innocent Muslims. Cause she like went to my page.

She like, and she referenced my comedy career as though she was trying to like scare me. You know what I mean? Like it was just, it was so like spinning out, crashing out. And I was like, I spent the day like rescuing a dog and going to a kid's birthday party and getting dessert handmade by my boyfriend.

And he brought me flowers. I was like, she's sitting there replying to all of these comments on this racist as hell post. And I responded to it one time, but she wouldn't let me tag her. But it's crazy that comedians in that position can just be racist as hell. And there no repercussion. Like Amy Schumer is thriving right now, you know? Like. It's, that seems to be the entire country at this moment is just in a place of, yeah, they're like,

everybody's on board. But like any time, any one of those, I think about that person's life and I'm like, I would a million times be like where I am in society and just Like prefer to not be racist. Like right, you know what I mean? Like I would never want to switch positions with you like you seem so miserable. Yeah. Yeah It's been a while since they've been able to like take the racism out for a public walk without any shame, you know, I mean take the racism out for a public walk without any shame, you know? I mean, without getting at least like full pushback from everybody. All right,

that's wild. Also, there's this quote in the New York Times, the Daily from Monday, where they were just doing the update on the ceasefire and the hostage exchange that they referred to them as, you know, the Israeli hostages and then the Palestinian prisoners, comma, mostly women and minors. So yeah, yeah, it's an interesting difference in the words you use there. They're just being held captive and like swept up without any, you know, due process or being even really accused of anything. But they're prisoners. I think the amount of like the benefit of the doubt people give to any state sanctioned

activity or institutions is insane. Like they're always like, oh, think for yourself, conspiracy theories, woke mind virus. And it's like, I know so many people that are like, oh, they wouldn't do it. Israel or the US wouldn't do these operations if they were bad. I'm like, do you have any ethical compass of your own? Like, do you have, like, think critically about it. It's just insane. It's just insane how people are willing to hand wave things because it's just easier for them to not think about it. Yeah. It's, I don't know.

And they are very good at propaganda. I will give them that. Yeah. I actually give the United States government five stars in this app rating. Leave me alone. Thank you. I know. Yeah.

All right. Do you have something you think's underrated? Probably well, I was gonna do I think I've done well, okay, I'll do this speaking of apps I think it's I think it's underrated how we used to be able to like get tickets in email form Just a PDF to our emails now I have to fucking download an app for Intuit dome and it takes my facial Fucking download an app for Intuit Dome and it takes my facial recognition features like What why are that? Why am I giving them my data? Like I just want to go see wrestling and like and would you mind just giving the Intuit Dome app a quick rating?

I Hate I hate that. We have to download app. It made the capturing of your facial features really easy and seamless though. You have to admit. I know. I'm like, what happened? Let's bring masks back. Because like this is, I know for some people it hasn't gone, but like for a lot of people it has. But I don't want people taking my like facial structure.

Like I don't even want a plastic surgeon looking at that. I'm sensitive. Okay? Yeah. I'm just a little lady. But it's, I'm so mad, because, like, we went to a WNBA game, and they're, like, 40 minutes, and, like, I had to re-download, like, different, like, things to even just get into my Ticketmaster account,

and, like, I sound so old and I don't care. Like I don't want to download another app for a thing that's very simple. Like get the fuck off my phone. Get off my phone. I don't care how much storage I have. Get out of here. It's getting so much worse. Like we have given these people who run, and I know I'm going to get blowback for calling tech billionaires these people, but we've given them like so much power and they with it, they have just made the product. The only thing that they have extensively like given like created value for an exchange for their massive amounts of money and just like made it so much worse for users.

Like there's nobody little hamster wheels like go outside, plant a tree. You don't have to do tech all the time. You don't have to make another app. It does feel like there would be an amazing opportunity for anyone to come through and be like this generation's Ralph Nader, who's like, I speak on behalf of the users and this all sucks shit. Like everything you've been doing is bad. But I don't know, like it just feels like there's no way for a person like that to get their message out other than the daily zeitgeist. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, that's that's bad.

There's so many of these apps are so fucking bad. Underrated real quick, just apropos of almost nothing. I want to say the Hollywood, the Hollywood sign. Um, I think the Hollywood sign is underrated. So I was just as researching places to see in Japan and I was like checking out whether like one of the, you know, you know, that intersection where everybody like crosses in Tokyo and I was checking out whether one of the, you know that intersection where everybody crosses in Tokyo in movies?

It's like the establishing shot to be like, you're in Tokyo. Yeah, in Shibuya. Yeah, yeah, and I was just trying to get a sense of, is that worth seeing or not? Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, that's what I've heard. I've heard that one's really cool.

But that's kinda how I think about these things. Like the establishing shot thing that a movie will use to be like, this is where you are. Is it worth seeing? And like sometimes it is. So the Miami sign that they always show as an establishing shot in movies to say, it's usually like a jet landing

and then a sign that says welcome to Miami. You're like, that doesn't exist a sign that says welcome to Miami. That doesn't exist. It was invented for establishing shots. Like that sign doesn't actually exist. I always hear in Will Smith voice, welcome to Miami. Yeah, the Will Smith sign. Yeah. But the Hollywood sign, I've always thought, like, I think before I moved here, I was like, oh, that's probably just like a zero thing. And like, you sometimes do see influencers taking pictures, like in the middle of the street with the Hollywood sign in the background, like 10 miles away. And it's like, yeah, that sucks. Like, that's stupid to, you know, just like get a picture from like way far away of the

Hollywood sign. It's like taking a picture of the moon. You know it's gonna look like shit It's gonna be tiny, but you can like hike up near the Hollywood sign There's like I'm there's a huge reservoir right by the sign There's so many cool hiking paths up there, and it's just like it's giant the hike Yeah, it's an awesome like area of town where like nature meets these big Hollywood movie star asshole mansions. And it's, uh, I don't know. And you know,

I thought we had lost it when that extremely believable AI image started making the rounds. And I don't blame them because it's so confusing what's real and what's not right now. But yeah, we did not lose the Hollywood sign. But yeah, I guess it just hit me that it's kind of a cool sign, kind of a cool landmark for a city that doesn't,

we don't have a lot of good, like the Hollywood Boulevard with like the stars on the sidewalk, not great. The Walk of Fame. The Walk of Fame is not great. But the Hollywood sign like has its angles, but it's worth going up. I will say two things about the Hollywood sign.

Yes, that's all very true. And I also think it's okay for like tourists and influencers to get excited about these things, because that's like what makes this, you know what I mean? Like I think it's fine and we need to find more joy and stuff like that. And if it's something that's so prominent, like the minion brings people so much joy

from the universal, peeking over. We have the Hollywood sign and the minion. And that's LA and I love it. And then also a fun fact, my undergrad pranked the Holly, I think it was, was it the Hollywood sign? And made it spell out, like, hold on, I need to look this up.

Holly weird? No, it spelled out like our Caltech name. And it was in, they like changed it to make it say Caltech. And there's a picture of it. Wow. Yeah. So they added like- That's an impressive prank. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Well, like it's a bunch of it. Yeah. So they added like... That's an impressive prank. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

Well, like it's a bunch of engineers who were like, where do I put all my sexual tension? But yeah, they changed it. Changed the words. The lettering. Yeah, to say Caltech. They like blacked out the H and the D and changed the middle to say Caltech. And I thought that was pretty fun and cool. Yeah, because Caltech and Hollywood are not very close to one another.

Like those words, there's a lot of work to be done there. There is a lot of work. That's and cool. Yeah. Cause cow tech and Hollywood are not very close to one. Like those words. There's, there's a lot of work to be done there. There is a lot of work. That's pretty cool. You do fun pranks. You could, you could be in a romantic movie and be taken up there and get to sit on the Hollywood side. All those engineers by the way, are still in prison for that prank. They will never get out. January six or is on the other hand. Um, all right, let's take a quick break.

We'll come back and we'll talk about, um, all the crazy shit that's happening in the news. We'll be right back. Catch John Stewart back in action on the daily show and in your ears with the daily show years edition podcast from his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers.

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You know, I'm a very spiritual person, so I'm like, I'm ready and open. That was amazing. I feel so grateful right now. I got to speak to my great-grandmother, Abuela, and she gave me a lot of really good advice that I'm going to have to really think about. Wow, okay. That's crazy. Yes, that is accurate. Listen to the Ghost Therapy Podcast

as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And so over the long weekend, a lot of events, a lot of news stories that could broadly be interpreted as both Donald Trump winning and America just doing a full like heel turn. Like not, not that America hasn't been like bad for a long, long time, but like America has also always wanted so desperately to be good.

We would like delude ourselves into believing we were the good guys. And it just feels like that shit is over. Like it's a non-black person, I would like to just assert myself here and say Martin Luther King Jr. would not have approved of the events of this weekend. Of this weekend. That's such a good point because I think a lot of people were wondering. But yeah, I don't know. Donald Trump has won.

Everyone from tech billionaires to like Mike Tyson were at the inaugural ball, which is a bummer. Snoop Dogg and Nelly performing there and stuff. I don't know. I couldn't even keep track of all the disappointing details of the inauguration. Everybody's fine with it now. They're all just fine. I feel like I'm living in crazy land all over again. Yeah, this feels so much further gone. I feel like I'm living in crazy land all over again.

Yeah, this feels so much further gone. Like America seems so much further gone. We're cooked. We are so cooked, like irrevocably cooked. Like you can't unpickle the cucumber. Like this is a bad place that we seem to be embracing. Some things that happened over the weekend that I just wanted to... Because they're like... The fact that Donald Trump introduced a meme coin over the weekend and is now $58 billion

richer because of it, he didn't do anything. He just like made it clear that he's going to be corrupt and then partook in some corruption that allowed people to just be like, we'll put our money into that so that he does things for us. I still feel bad. I don't know. For Donald Trump? No, not for him at all,

but for like the people who buy these coins. I know there's so many people that are so dumb and so enthusiastic and so racist and so whatever, but I'm also like, he's still grifting off of Americans. You know what I mean? I'm still like, Oh God, sweetie. Oh, sweaty. Oh no. Yeah. I don't know who the money is primarily coming from. If it's the same people who like typically buy, you know, Reagan library commemorative plates who are like putting their money into this. I can't imagine there's $58 billion worth of that money. So I think it's all, it also has to be like... Princess Diana plate superiority, okay?

Right. The best plates. That's where most of my savings are, are in Princess Diana plates. Hell yeah. Similarly, like this all feels like it's all part of the same story, which is that Donald Trump is taking power, has announced that he's going to be enormously corrupt. And rather than anyone pumping the brakes on that in any effective way, everyone is just clearing the decks for that corruption or getting involved with it. Yeah, they just want to be on the side of capital.

It's crazy. On the way. Just America loves a winner so much that we just like have a hard time dealing with something like this. Like I feel like Americans are going to have a hard time not getting pulled into this shit, unfortunately. I mean, they already have. That's why he won.

Yeah. And that's why everybody was cool with it. And people, even at shows, honestly, sometimes I'll try to read the crowd and be like, how did you feel about the election? And it is so, people are so much more proud to say they're happy that he won now than they were in 2016. Yeah. Yeah. In LA.

In LA. Right. That's the thing. It just seems to be very little shame about it at this point. I think people are more likely to feel shame about being for social justice at this point than- With the woke mind virus. Yeah. To be sick with the woke mind virus. Called in sick to work because I have the woke mind virus. That is true. I wonder, that would be a cool thing, a cool consequence is if he gets that recognized

because he did pull out of the World Health Organization. So America may soon be out on their own island of what is recognized as healthy or actual pathologies. Maybe we can start getting off work recognized as healthy or like actual pathologies, maybe we can start getting off work for having the woke mind virus. I am an overseas citizen of India and I'm ready to become a non-overseas citizen of India. I'm ready to go back to where I came from, you guys.

I'm so close. Texas, no. I feel like everybody who has dual citizenship is, you know, a lot of people who don't are feeling pretty... I wouldn't leave. We have mutual aid to do. Yes. So TikTok did a publicity stunt.

I feel like, I don't know, it seems like it was a publicity stunt. Like heading into it, they were like, maybe Donald Trump can save us. Then they went dark for 14 hours and then came back with like a pop-up that essentially said, thanks to dear leader Donald Trump, we have a second chance at life. Again, like he didn't do anything other than make it clear that he is corrupt and, you know, that's all he needs to do. He's corrupt and like the system is going to be like, he's going to be able to do whatever the fuck he wants. And so all of these self-interested actors are just like, OK,

like how do we get on board with this? It's it's just amazing how quickly everything has crumbled. Like if you're willing to say you love him unconditionally and will do his bidding, you will profit in some capacity. The first time around, a lot of those people went to jail but got book deals or whatever, or like, you know, maybe not went to jail but were kicked out pretty quickly but got book deals or longevity in their pseudo careers that they

never would have without him. But now this time around, people are going to monetarily benefit in a real way and they're all in, they're just all in on it. And if they're committed to him, then it's fine. And that includes companies like TikTok. Right. Yeah. And so there's like the self-interested aspect of like people at that level.

Like, I don't know, it feels like there's a lot of things that used to be like taken people took relatively seriously, like the idea that like corporate goodwill was an okay thing to rely on or that like voting for the lesser of two evils was an okay strategy or that it was okay for like the media to, you know, adopt that strategy. And like, uh, it's just like all these things are just crumbling. Like it's making like he right away, his second administration is just like, yeah, none of those things actually are protecting anything. And I am, I am God emperor. Like in his inauguration speech, he was like, God saved me from the assassin's bullet. And that, yeah.

God, that was like the worst thing that could have happened for the campaign at that point. Looking back, he just gained like momentum from that. But yeah, it's, you know, he's in power, corruption favors those in power, everyone in America is like bad winner takes all systems, gonna be tripping over each other to praise him and give him the things he wants because that will give them the things they want. I do want to say that now is now more than ever is the time to bully people. And I think it's fine. Anything that you... Listen, you're leftist, okay? The people that I'm talking to, you care about people. You wanna say the right things. You don't wanna use terms and slurs and bad things. Now direct any animosity you have in

you towards people who think it's okay to do those things and bully them. I think that's fine. I think it's fine to bully people so that they know that we don't agree with them. And I think that's our obligation now is to make people get roasted. Get roasted, bitches. Yeah. Get roasted, asshole. Assholes. It's a good action movie line. I saw a tweet that was like, I wish I knew who,

they were like, this made me laugh nonstop. It was a cyber truck in New York and somebody had written very clearly in Sharpie on a piece of paper and stuck it under their windshield. Dork. And I'm like, just do shit like that. Ruin their day, you know? Yeah.

That is the correct label to that. Yeah. Fucking nerd in a bad way. But yeah, I don't know. Like the TikTok canceling themselves and then claiming Donald Trump save them. Like yes, we should be making fun of TikTok for being fucking losers and throwing the boot in a way that is both pathetic and also guaranteed to fail them since anybody who gives Trump that much power over them always gets fucked over.

But you know, they're going all in on this strategy that everybody else seems to be adopting despite years and years of evidence that everybody who pays fealty to Trump ultimately ends up getting fucked over. But I also, so like one of the reactions to this, which I like at the time I was like, this is funny. Like people started say like started a meme that said Kendrick Lamar saved TikTok instead of Donald Trump. That's so fun.

I love that. Yeah. It's like how people were like, JK Rowling didn't write Harry Potter. Somebody else did. Right. Did you see the thing where she like did, she was like, I'm going to show everybody like all these people who politically attacked me that I'm actually a superior writer and then like wrote under a pen name and the book that she wrote, like nobody even noticed.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone was just like, I mean, that was a while ago, but somebody did a thread about that over the weekend that I quite enjoyed. But I don't know. I just feel like we need to accept like the Kendrick Lamar thing is also feels like Americans like being unwilling to admit we're fucking loose, that we lost, that we're losers, that like, I don't know. I feel like people still want to believe that we live in a country where you can be

right and win and we don't. I don't know if the Kendrick Lamar thing is the most clear evidence of that, but it just, it feels like that's a thing we're going to be dealing with. Is everybody in America wanting to be on the winning side? And in that case, it's just like we're making something up so that we don't have to admit what's actually going on. In this case, the fantasy where Kendrick Lamar saved it instead of TikTok claiming that Donald Trump did. I think we're like, that's also trolling. Like I do think that people want to take the wind out of

his sails or whatever. But I also think we have like such an identity crisis because we are a country of like individualism, the American dream winning, but simultaneously we like root for the underdog. We enjoy like aesthetics of the working class without actually backing any of their policies. So we have such a contradictory view of ourselves and what we want, or even the right does, you know? And so I think it's really hard to have a clear voice and a clear path on what winning even means when you don't know who you are. Like we're so confused because we're like, like, fuck the British, but we want to look like them, you know?

We're like, fuck, fuck all of these people. We started this country on our own and we threw the tea in and whatever, but also we want to be like you. And I think a lot of the colonial aftermath is that. Like, that's how like a lot of Indian people are, is like they're, they are very like striving to be like white adjacent or whatever in aesthetic, despite like the harms that colonization have like done to us, you know? So it's like kind of like Stockholm syndrome, if that were real. to us, you know? So it's like kind of like Stockholm syndrome, if that were real. But but for like the things that never served you in the first place that you rebelled against, we all have daddy issues is what I'm saying. We don't know what we're doing.

It seems like we're it's a mess out here. Yeah. All right. Let's let's take a quick break. We'll come back. We'll keep talking about the inauguration and other horrible things. We'll be right back. And that's called a tease, folks. and in your ears with the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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accurate. Listen to the Ghost Therapy Podcast as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And okay. So Trump's inauguration, first day in office, he started doing, like signing executive orders in a way that seemed like it was like designed to be a sporting event At the end of signing some of them He like threw the markers out into the crowd like it was like a pair of batting gloves after somebody hit a home run And everybody like went went wild for it. So bad feels feels very

Dictator II He like I said, he mentioned in his speech that God saved his life from the assassin's bullet. So this entire administration is mandated by God. And with that mandate, the entire tone just seems to be like, I was right, and you're all need to admit it. And so he's pulling the US out

of the World Health Organization. Talk about- Okay, but do executive orders really work if I can't read? Maybe they're not real at all. Who knows? That's right. There's actually no way to tell. There's no way to know.

Because it's being reported by a lot of people who make you read to check out their reporting. So I think we're, I think we're okay to disregard most of the talk about ending the weaponization of government, like, and while like, it was a weird statement that's basically like the department of justice and FBI are like going to be full-time investigating people in the Biden White House. Um, so like Biden on his way out preemptively, like pardoned everyone. He can think of like

Trump going after including his brothers and yeah just like his whole family. So Liz Cheney of course because the Democrats owe her a huge debt and but not Jack Smith though which sucks for Jack Smith. Not you my man. You're gonna you're gonna take this one for Jack Smith. That is so wild. Not you, my man. You're gonna take this one for the team. Trump pulled America out of the climate accord and he pardoned basically every January 6th person. I think it's worth noting, prior to this, it's been pulled as very unpopular to just be like, these people are all getting out.

It just feels like such on its face corruption overturning Roe v. Wade. They don't give a fuck. Yeah, they just don't give a fuck. I also just feel like these people getting out like, I don't know that that that one feels like more to come in the worst, most foreboding way possible. Like, you know, these people are going to be the brown shirts for whatever he's doing here. I literally mean this with my whole heart. Like, I was joking about the, like, not breeding the executive orders, but if it goes against

your ethics, it doesn't exist to me. I'm sorry, trans and non-binary people exist, and I'm going to help them in any fucking way possible that I can. If the law of the land is wrong, protect yourself and be safe. And the people who can do it, work on more, but I'm just like, we can't pay attention to it. We cannot give into it. Yeah, we definitely cannot give into it. There's also like an intriguing level he's working at now where he's doubling down on like 18th century expansionist rhetoric, like Napoleonic type shit where like the US is going to take new territory, including Greenland and Mars.

And of course, rename the Gulf of America, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. So really fucking weird of him to support Napoleonic policies when Baron is so tall. You know what I mean? Yeah, fucked up. That's right. All right. On the other hand, like there's just been a lot of reporting in the past week about what we're learning about the Biden administration and how they handled the siege of Gaza. So in many ways, it's pretty straightforward. They just didn't actually care enough to stop Israel.

They weren't willing to stop them. Israel knew it. For instance, one of the details that jumped out to me, Biden in an exit interview last week admitted that on the ninth day of the war Netanyahu said he wanted to do to Gaza what the US did to Hiroshima in World War II. So literally every time Blinken or a state official got up and said, well, we're looking into it and Israel is investigating in good faith, they knew that shit was a lie. I think we knew that at the time, but it's like the ninth day after they started committing

war crimes, they knew what their intent was fully. They knew that Israel was bent on full scale destruction of Gaza from day one. It's so fucking evil. It is so evil. Like now that the ceasefires happened, people are posting videos of like all of the martyrs of Gaza and like the people that,

the stories that reached us that we, and like there's so many that I remember and those people are gone. And it's because of these fucking assholes. Yeah. So evil. Yeah. Like another detail from behind the scenes, like you needed to go through tons of red

tape to use the word condemn around like Israeli settlers demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. Like they, they're officials who are're officials who were trying to just say that the US condemns that and it took them weeks. They're doing it because it's a horrible war crime, but also from a self-interested perspective being like, this is a terrible look. All the stuff that people were saying during the election, this is going to be bad for you and just getting ignored. We're told it's too late to change a decision. Yeah, it's just- They're so bad at their jobs in addition to being bad people. They're just bad at their

jobs. Also, a side note, even though the ceasefire has happened, and I'm still concerned, but I want Gazans to be happy, the West Bank is still getting violated. So keep that in mind. Yeah, the West Bank seems like it's the next phase of the plan for Israel is to try and take that over. And they don't allow concrete into Gaza. So how are they going to rebuild? Yeah. That's insane.

But yeah, it's just the Democratic Party, it's very frustrating because they were so incompetent and passive and weak and also just evil. It's not just that they were insufficiently good at getting Israel to stop. They were on board with this vision. Yeah. And so now it makes Trump look like he's a genius because he just says, actually, I don't want this because it's a bad look for me and is able to make more progress than Biden was. But also, he was also helping set up the conditions

that led to October 7th, through everything he did while he was president. Like, they're all just playing a game. That's why they sat together. That's why it was, if they really thought he was a fascist, would they be like, glad-hamming him? Would him and Obama be chatting it up? You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Yeah. When your two options are people who fund an arm,

a genocide and person who like made it possible in the first place, but then like temporarily stops it because it's a good PR look for them, it might be time to like take a step back from like strategic thinking about how we win the next election and have the like, maybe we're the bad guys conversation. Are we the baddies? I love that sketch so much. I reference it all the time. Yeah.

And it is more relevant now than ever. Like the good guys who people were rooting for in the last election that we were rooting for in the last election that we were rooting for in the last election. They were the ones who heard Ninya who say he wanted to do a Hiroshima in Gaza and were just like, all right, how do we get people off our back while he does that? So I don't know. Yeah, you can't watch children reacting to news of the ceasefire and celebrating without feeling a swelling. But I don't know. Yeah. Even if we want to temper our hope with knowledge of how America always lets Israel do whatever it wants. I don't know if it gives people some hope. They certainly fucking deserve it at this point.

Yeah. All right. And finally, there is a historic blizzard warning happening in Texas and Louisiana right now, which is abnormal. Hear that, Ted Cruz? You might want to buy your tickets out now. Get to Cancun stat, my man. But this is yet another sort of... We've talked about the disruption of patterns that have held for hundreds hundreds of years in the global, you know, weather systems that are now being disrupted by global and feminism, mainly feminism, but these feminists got jobs and now there's blizzards in the south. Yeah. Like, so a lot of the climate reporting on the LA fires is pointing to this like thing they're calling the whiplash effect that happens.

Like, so first of all, climate scientists seem to be the people to be listening to in all cases, but especially when it comes to these like natural disasters that are harming us and, you know, burning people's homes down. But like there's a climate scientist, Daniel Swain of UCLA, who wrote a blog post on January 4th at the beginning of the week warning that a high-end offshore wind fire event may unfold in SoCal this week. And people like him have been writing about this kind of whiplash effect where the warmer weather makes it so that more and more precipitation is dumped on, like when there's a rainy season in the winter, like it gets really super rainy.

And so there's tons of plants that grow. And then when it's dry, like it gets much drier, like super dry. And so that's what, like this kind of whiplash thing where it's like the extremes are more extreme is caused by climate and it is like what is causing these fire conditions. And I feel like we're seeing that now with this polar vortex going down to the south, which in a way that like I didn't totally understand, but kind of doing research into it, I guess the explanation is that there's like a spinning polar vortex on the, at the very top of the globe that keeps like all the Arctic air up

there. But as it gets warmer, it like, it's like a spinning figure skater who like, if you like put your arms out, you slow down, like it slows down, it starts letting cold air out further and further. And so cold air starts shooting down to Texas and places that didn't used to have it. And again, it's a direct result that has been predicted by climate scientists. It's just nobody's really been listening. But anyways, now we're going to see see more weird apocalyptic shit, but like also like fun, in some cases, like the Atlanta getting snow was was cute. It was I mean, what people were doing on social media was cute. Yeah, for sure.

There was like somebody who took their dog for a walk and the dog just like climbed into their hoodie because they were like, what the fuck is this? Or like people like try like seeing snow for the first time, which was really sweet. But also in general, this is not what's supposed to happen. Right. It's so scary. This doesn't happen here. Yeah. Put a dog crawling into a hoodie. We'll take it. We need some comfort.

We'll take any. This is our Kendrick Lamar on Band TikTok. The dog crawling into the hoodie is what we're latching onto. That's right. All right. Paula Viganallem, what a pleasure having you. As always, where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Okay. Listen up, folks.

This is what I need. I am on two shows at SketchFest in San Francisco this weekend. If you live there, please buy tickets. If you don't live there, tell someone you know who lives there to buy tickets. I'm on facial recognition comedy on Saturday, and I'm also on comedian clash on Saturday, hosted by Zeitgang member, Jackie Sneal. So it's going to be a really great show. It's gonna be great. Facial recognition is gonna be an amazing lineup. We got a Parna Nancharla on there. I'm really excited. So please buy tickets so we can sell out.

So then next year we can have like bigger venues, more people, bigger things, you know? Yeah, yeah. All we need, comedians only need tickets sold. That's what we need. We do the social media thing because we're mentally ill and we need tickets sold. That's it. There you go. So just buy tickets. Make us continue doing this

despite not having insurance. Okay. Just buy tickets. But thank you. Pay area is like gang step up. Hope to see you out there. That would be dope. All right. Those are some of the things that are trending on this Tuesday morning. We are back tomorrow with a whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get your vaccines. Get your flu shots while they still while they still exist. Don't do nothing about white supremacy.

And we will talk to you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. See you next time. Bye. John Stewart is back at The Daily Show and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors. And with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups,

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Man, we've got some amazing guests lined up to close out the season, but you know, I don't want any of you guys to miss all the incredible conversations we've had so far. I mean, we talked to A. Marie, Johnny Marr, E, Jonathan Schechter, Billy Porter, and so many more. Look, if you haven't heard these episodes yet, hey, now's your chance. You gotta check them out. Listen to Questlove Supreme on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to My Legacy.

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