The Problem With Jon Stewart - Trump Vance And The Republican Anti Worker Playbook

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

The right-wing talks a big economic populist game, claiming that the working class is their chief concern. But their pro-worker words don’t translate into pro-worker actions. During the first Trump administration, for instance, Republicans killed raising the minimum wage and created a higher threshold for workers to be eligible for overtime pay. Plus, Trump’s Supreme Court justice selections represent the most anti-worker judges in a century. This week, we’re joined by Steven Greenhouse, the labor and workplace reporter at the New York Times for 19 years, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, and author of the book, Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor, as well as Heather Cox Richardson, author of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Together, they examine the history of labor in the US and explore what populist rhetoric offers Americans when it's accompanied by policies that undermine workers. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:   > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher/AP – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Welcome once again to the weekly show. My name is John Stewart. Once again, joined by our top-notch, A-list, elite. I'm going through the fessaurus right now. Brittany Mamedevick and Lauren Walker, producer team extraordinaire. I can't even remember the last time we talked. I don't know. I think Eisenhower was president at that time. Things are moving quickly. Kamala Harris is now a freight. Did you see any of the footage of the rally in Atlanta? that she held. Yeah. Megastalian.

And it's the one thing I think that would, I almost think more than any policy or any discrepancy on economics or anything else, the thing that would bother Donald Trump the most is a giant arena filled with enthusiastic supporters having a party. Fun. Right?

Yeah. I almost think he'd be like, what? Popularity is my thing. Like I think he doesn't even give a shit about the election anymore. He just wants to be like, my crowd was bigger. Kamala's getting the good music. She's, come on. I mean, they're pulling up people.

I don't even know what they, Megan the Stalian and Cuevo's coming on stage and Trump's backstage with, you know, kid rock and half of big and rich. Just like, wow, what are we, what are we doing now? But yeah, it's, it's a totally, it's a totally. it's a totally different thing. How did the people feel about last way? Everybody's good, the viewers, the listeners. One thing that did happen this week, John,

that we wanted to ask you about was you were back down in D.C. on Friday with some K-2 veteran stuff. Yes. What's going on? Well, it's, so the PACT Act, for those who don't know, the PACT Act changed for veterans,

not just of global war on terror, but Vietnam and all that. It changed the presumptions for toxic exposures for a lot of veterans. It does a great job. And they really are working hard to implement it, and they've done a lot of great work. The Biden administration, Secretary McDone at the VA, they really have worked hard. There are loopholes within it.

One particular one is this base K2, which was kind of the tip of the spear of the global war on terror in 2001. It was this old Soviet base in Uzbekistan that had housed chemical weapons. there was talk that it was a traffic station for yellow cake smuggling. Like there's all kinds of shit there. So when the troops first landed, they found radiation levels in the soil 44,000 times higher than what it should be. They found a chemical contamination site. They found, you know, Phaas and dioxins, all the general shit that's like this toxic goo. But K2 was a unicorn of toxicity.

It was a superfunds, superfund site. And almost immediately, I mean, people were nauseous, vomiting, like that started right away. And then the health problems, you know, snowballed and persisted. A lot of them were helped by PACT Act. But there are a few with these what are considered multi-symptom, weird, neurological, osteo. It's less easy to categorize. Much harder to categorize. We went down to D.C.

Because the VA secretary has the statutory authority to, with the stroke of a pen say, along with PACD Act, which only covers, you know, certain cancers and certain pulmonary conditions, we will presume your exposure to there is a radiation statute within VA. And there is also, because of Gulf War syndrome, a multi-symptom statute that they could also enact. and it would acknowledge that they had been exposed to those things. I think the holdup is DOD doesn't want to acknowledge that they were exposed to yellow cake. DoD keeps wanting to say that it's depleted uranium or they don't want to acknowledge multi-symptom. And so I think that's where the rub is. But that was the original rub too, right?

Like not wanting to recognize. By the way, always the rub. Like I'm not sure DOD has acknowledged Agent Orange yet. Like, DOD is always like, what? There was, it was a soda fountain. They were exposed to vanilla extract. It was nothing. So all that stuff is, you know, look, those guys are the K2 group Stronghold Foundation.

You know, Mark Jackson has been on top of this doing that, Matt Eppardling. Like these guys have been working on it for years. We've been trying to get them in to get this resolved. We thought we had it. We went down. They were called back down to DC for a meeting with the secretary. And what he said was, we've looked into it.

I do have the authority, but I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to use it. I think what the VA secretary said, well, there may be more data that's coming along and we're like, it's 23 years. Like, don't make this group victims of the lack of data that you will never have. Yeah.

So you can imagine everybody walked out of the meeting pretty crestfallen. And now it's, you know, you can't give up. So we keep on. I'm trying to get that group into, there is a White House Veterans Task Force, trying to get them in with that group. So, you know, look, I always remain frustrated but hopeful. And the group that's working on it, they're so dedicated and wonderful.

And there's this fellow Nick Nichols who was there. and who did the testing, and it was his whistleblower testimony, I think a year and a half ago, that reopened all this. Wow. I mean, we've been lucky. There been, the AP has been on it, a reporter named Catherine Harage, who did like four years of reporting at CBS, and she's been remarkable in terms of dedication to it,

but also with getting the reports from DOD. I mean, these FOIA reports from DOD, show that Department of Defense knew that there was enriched uranium there. If you look at the surveillance photos, which Catherine had gotten a hold of, it says there's a giant sign that says, danger, radiation, and it was, they had to rope it off, danger chemical weapons, and they had to rope it off. The problem was they had earth movers that were moving all of that soil into berms that they were all sleeping on. So they've all been exposed to radon coming up through the ground and all

kinds of other shit. And it's, I mean, they have the pictures. But yet more data is coming, John. And they're looking for data. Like a lot of these folks, unfortunately, have already died. And their families are left without the DIC benefits that come through VA. So any support that we can give to the K2 folks, you know, call your, I don't know who to call, Congress people, White House, VA secretary, whatever you need to do, let's get it done. But thank you for asking about that because it's, yeah, of course. Yeah, it's, it's been wild to watch. But we're, we're getting there. But meanwhile, we've got two great guests that are going to talk about this sort of pivot to economic populism that somehow the Republicans have taken on, even though they forgot to tell their judges

and their think tanks and their legislators and everybody else. So let's let's get to them. And so we welcome our guests for this discussion. Stephen Greenhouse, labor and workplace reporter at the New York Times for 19 years, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, author of the book, Beaten Down, Worked Up, the past president and future of American Labor. And Heather Cox Richardson, author of Democracy Awakening Notes on the State of America. Guys, thank you, first of all, so much for joining us. There's so much to talk about.

the Republicans nominated as their vice president, a populist hero. He has a beard and a ma-maw. So clearly, he is for the working man. And he has said, this is, I'm going to read you a quick quote, we're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street will commit to the working man. That was the Republicans at their convention. I want to ask. you first, Stephen, and then we'll go to Heather, have the Republicans told their judges or legislatures or think tanks of this new switch to economic populism? Because it doesn't seem that the policies and court decisions that have been rendered these past, I'm going to go with 50 years, have gone along with the populist route. So, Stephen, what are your thoughts? First, great to be here,

John. So Donald Trump and J.D. Vance talk a good ballgame. They, they, they talk. talk to talk, but they don't walk the walk. Their Republican Party doesn't walk the walk. The judges they've appointed to the Supreme Court and other courts are quite anti-worker, very anti-union. And, you know, the Supreme Court, there's a recent study saying that the three Trump appointed to the Supreme Court are the most pro-business justices over the last century of 57 judges surveyed. And Donald Trump... And when we say pro-business, we would assume the counterfactual, which is anti- Labor. Yes, anti-labor. You know, there was this crazy decision where Amazon workers have to wait 15, 20, 25 minutes at the end of their shift to have their bags checked to see whether they've taken anything improperly. And the Supreme Court ruled that they're not to be paid for that 15, 20, 25 minutes. That's not part of their workday, which I think is just one of many anti-worker decisions that comes out of Supreme Court.

So at Amazon, you got that half hour cool-off period where they're scanning. you like at the airport, like a TSA person, but you're not paid for that. You just have to wait until they discover. Some of the warehouses where the contractor, subcontractors play that thing. You know, Donald Trump, you know, says, I'm for the nation's forgotten men and women, but he didn't raise a finger to increase the minimum wage. He says he's all for coal miners, but his administration actually weakened, you know, standards for safety. Right. Keeping them safe. He, you know, he said, I'm fighting hard for coal miners yet the number of coal miners. He had the number of coal mining jobs dropped by 25% when he was president. He wants to kill Obamacare,

which would be a major, major drag for many working families, throw them off of health coverage, it would raise prices. The rhetoric is not matching the reality. Heather, what's your feeling about this disconnect? Well, I would love to talk about what populism actually means, but one of the things that I would love to hear Stephen talk about is the links between, you know, those mom-and-pop organizations in Silicon Valley and J.D. Vance. Because, that seems to me to be flying largely under the radar screen in a lot of places. And it's very hard to call yourself a populist when your major backer is, well, two major backers are both billionaires. Right. So Heather, you're very kind to ask me. So we're on Heather's

podcast. What the hell happened here? Do you know, honestly? I got to be honest. It's so much more interesting to hear what other people have to say than it is to hear what I have. No, Heather. Go ahead. Just even. So he wrote this supposedly popular book, Populist book, also popular Hillbilly Elogy, where he really, I hate to say, like, craps on, you know, the working class saying the reason you haven't gone to Yale law school like me, the reason you're not billionaires like my friend Peter Thiel is that you're lazy, you're shiftless. And it's really kind of ugly in terms of showing so little solidarity for the people he grew up with. So, as you said, Heather, Van says, I'm a friend of workers,

yet he's backed by billionaires, Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal, now all these cryptocurrency billionaires are backing Vance. You know, Donald Trump says he's a friend of the working man, and yes, he's doing everything he can to kiss the behind of Elon Musk and Musk will contribute 45 million a month, supposedly, over $100 million. Well, he says that's not true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I get it.

But look, in politics, everybody's got their billionaires. It's not like the Republicans are the only one that are backed by billionaires. I think I'm more interested in this idea of, well, what are the policies? What are the things? You know, everybody's talking about Project 2025 and what that's going to mean to the country and what are the things that the Republicans might institute. I want to talk about Project 1980, 1980 to 1984. Reagan comes in.

We had a labor economy. Reagan came in and deregulated Wall Street and many of the other corporate entities, and we have since shifted to an investment economy. The labor economy is now an investment economy, and people that invested, people that are in finance, people that are in equities, did really well over these last 50 years, but labor has been left behind. So I want to ask, Heather, that switchover of the Republican Party from sort of more labor with the Democrats to a more investment economy, and Trump has vowed to continue that. He wants to cut corporate tax rates to 15% from 20%, he had already cut it. So what direction are we going in here,

Heather? Well, there's a couple of really interesting different questions in all this. And one of them is, of course, yes, it was very deliberate under the Reagan administration to switch away from the economy that had propped up the ability of people who were starting out or her ordinary Americans to, you know, work hard and to prosper and have a decent standard of living. And to switch from that to the idea that if you put all the money at the top of the economy, what you would get is better. Trickle down. They call the supply side economics. And one of the things that is really dramatic about that is, of course, it transferred about 50 to 53 trillion dollars from the bottom 90% to the top about one-tenth of 1%. So it was pretty clear that that was never really intended

to help individuals. But that's actually something a little different, I think, than both labor, which is what Stephen does so well, and populism, which is something a little bit different in the sense that if you have labor having a seat at the table, what you have is everybody having a stake in the political economy that is going to shape the country. But what populism does, I think, and of course I'm a specialist only in the United States, but in the United States, populism seems to me to be the moment when a number of people recognize, usually for economic reasons, that they are not being served in any way by the leading political classes. And when that happens, they begin to talk about what they would like to see in American society.

And so what I think is so interesting when you bring up the 1980s is that if you have this disaffected group of people, how do you know which way they're going to jump? That is, in the 1890s, they jumped in part to anti-Semitism, but also in part to economic reform. And I think one of the things that's really important about the 1980s and the period since then is the control of the rhetoric and the language around which politicians steer that populist disaffection. And what the Republicans have done so enormously effectively is to say, hey, you might have a problem, but it's not us rich, it's the, you know, the minority taking your job. Undocumented immigrants coming in here taking your job. That's really fascinating.

All right, we'll be right back. Let's get back into it. So you're suggesting that the difficulty here, and Stephen will get to you in terms of separating populism from economic populism, is that it seems like the lever, right, of populism is oftentimes nationalism. This fervor of, all right, we're going to draw the wagons in, America first, you had that in the 1920s as well, where you look for scapegoats that allow maybe the ruling class to avoid any kind of suspicion, find a scapegoat at the lower end of the table, put all the

problems on them and still get away with it. So, Stephen, are we making a mistake when we talk about populism to not focus on really economic populism and how do we separate what is best for workers? Because even when you think about unionizing, You also have to recognize unions can become corrupt too, and sometimes they can be anti-worker. So how do we draw those distinctions, Stephen? Great question, John. So Heather put very well what populism is. And generally, what do American workers want?

What do American families want? You know, they want stability in their lives. You know, if they get laid off, God forbid, they want a good safety net. They want to be able to afford housing. They want to be able to afford to send their kids to college. They want work-family balance. not working 80 hours a week and that, you know, one of the crazy things about the United States is we are the only, you know, wealthy country in the world that doesn't have laws guaranteeing

every worker paid family and medical leave. So if, you know, some people, if they give birth, you know, they don't get six weeks or 10 weeks of paid leave. So Trump says, I'm a great populist. I'm a friend of the worker. I hear your grievances. But he doesn't deliver the things that will really help workers or help American families. He says, you know, blame the immigrants. You know, he bashes the Chinese. He bashes, you know, elitist like you, Heather and me. And it makes people feel good. Like, oh, I like that. I could blame all my problems on those bad guys, the Chinese, the immigrants. But it's really doing nothing to help workers. And it ticks me off that, you know, Trump poses as a friend of workers. I remember, you know, when he was running for president in 2016, you know, he

would tell auto workers in Michigan and Ohio, don't worry if I'm elected, no plants will close on my watch. And then, you know, this huge General Motors plant closed in Lourgetown in 2019 when he was president on his watch. And what does he do? He doesn't blame General Motors. He blames the United Order Workers Union and Dave Green, the president of the local, who fought his behind off to try to save the plant. So, you know, part of that shows that Trump is... is very anti-union. He, you know, time it again, he like kicks unions. Well, not just kicks unions. I mean, he lowers the amount of money that you need to earn to get overtime so that workers have a tougher time getting overtime. He strips the national

labor relations. I mean, there are so many different things that he's done, but it's clearly a very effective message to the working class. I think to Heather's point, where you combine this kind of nationalist zeal, this protectionist. zeal. And I want to ask you, Heather, because when you think about, so when he goes into tariff mode and protection mode and Mexico is stealing our factories and China is stealing our IP and all these different things, but they never address the idea of right to work states. So this idea that, you know, Mexico is to the United States as Texas is to New York. New York has a lot more worker protections in line. It's a lot easier to form unions. It has a lot of

more of those safety nets in place for people. Why isn't right to work seen as anti-worker? Because if you look at the data, I think if you work the same job in a right-to-work state, you earn three to three and a half percent less than a worker would in a state that's not right to work. Well, and the right-to-work states are really took off in the 1950s and the 1960s, but that has a much longer history in the country of the idea that by God, you can do it all on your own. You know, any kind of government intervention in the way that you interact with your workplace is socialism. That actually comes in the United States from the 1870s, not from after the Bolshev revolution in 1917. Really? Why now why so early in the 18th? I would have thought that

would be a 1917, you know, post-revolution in Russia. Everybody thinks that. But you know what? It's really cool, actually, what happens is that after the Civil War, when the United States, under the Republicans, for the first time, had federal taxation, so taxes are very much in the news in a way that they had not been before. You also get first a government that is protecting black rights in the American South and then the right of black men to vote in the American South. And at the same time, you get... Pre-Reconstruction Jim Crow. Well, this is pre-Reconstruction. So in 1870, in 1868, you get the 14th Amendment saying you can't mess with people based on race. And in 1870, you get the 15th Amendment saying black men can vote. And you also in 1870 get the establishment of the Department of Justice,

which goes after the KKK. It goes after people who are attacking their black neighbors based on issues of race. So in 1871, white Southerners, white unconstructed Southerners, there are a number of white Southerners who are like, we just want to get rid of the rich guys. This is cool with us. But the unconstructed ones say, hey, we never had a problem with race. That was never an issue. Oh, really? Same people, same people, by the way. But they say this was never a problem.

What we don't want is these poor, uneducated people voting because the poor, uneducated black men will vote for leaders. And at this point, they weren't really concerned about black people sitting in legislatures, although that's going to come by the early 1870s. They're going to use their political power to get. leaders elected who are going to vote for things like roads and schools and hospitals. And the only way you can pay for that is through taxes. And who has all the money in the American South is white guys. And you can see this thread through American history. Think of the way that the Republicans

turned against Brown versus Board of Education and Eisenhower sending troops into Little Rock. They said, they didn't say, there was plenty of racist stuff too, but their arguments in places like the National Review, where this is your tax dollars that are there trying to get these undeserving black people into these schools. So they're always tying it into the money that you're going to pay back into the government. This is so interesting, is going to go to projects that are going to undercut you. Your hard-earned money. It's the exact same argument they're making right now.

Your hard-earned money is actually going to the social safety net for undocumented people and homeless and people that that haven't earned it. Stephen, does that, is there a vulnerability there for Democrats because what do the Democrats say? We got to tax the billionaires. We've got to make people pay their fair share. But if you can't connect the tax dollars that are being raised to value for taxpayers, right? So if you do have a bunch of working class people that are paying into the tax system, but they're not realizing, to your point earlier, Stephen, about the things that they would need in their lives, child care, health care, elder care, those types of things. If they don't see the value coming back from their dollars, then what good is raising taxes on

corporations? What good is raising taxes on billionaires? If you don't think the return on that is going to be any good. And is that a place where the Democrats have to shore up their position? John, I think that, you know, if you look at surveys, you know, majority of Republicans, Republicans want to increase taxes on corporations, the rich. And they agree with the Democrats on that. They feel that, you know, the ultra-rich, the 1%, these huge corporations that pay no-income taxes, are getting away with murder. And they say it's unfair. And they, you know, Americans always feel they're paying too much in taxes. So they figured, let the rich, let the corporations pay far more, and maybe I can pay less. But, you know, when Trump and the Republicans say, we want to have tax cuts and we're going to help you,

You know, the tax cuts that were enacted by Trump, you know, they gave the average American household less than $500, yet the top 1% get a $60,000 tax cut as if they needed a, you know, needed all that money. And exploded the deficit at the same time. And exploded the deficit by over trillion dollars. And the top one-tenth of one percent got $175,000. And I guess those people making $100 million a year really needed that extra $175,000. And getting to write to work for second, John, when Joe Biden says, you know, the middle class

built America and unions built the middle class, that is correct. So the national right to work was an effort by right-wing ideologues and corporations to weaken unions. And right-to-work means that if you are in a unionized workplace, you could opt out of paying one penny. You don't have to pay a cent to the union that's- But you still get the benefits of whatever is collectively bargain. Yeah, it's winning the raises for you and one health coverage for you. And Donald Trump, when he was running for president in 2016, said, if Congress passes a national right to work, I will happily sign it. And, you know, many worker advocates say, it's only fair that people who receive the benefits of unions pay something to it. It says, like, all for one and one for all,

you shouldn't be receiving labor's benefits and being a free rider. And talking about changes, right-wing changes in the Supreme Court, John, back in 1977, there was a case where some teachers in Detroit, Michigan, said, we don't want to pay any dues to our union, you know, because it violates our First Amendment rights and we want to be free riders. We want to get union benefits without paying. And the Supreme Court voted unanimously with many conservative members. So that shows how unanimously against them. Unanimously saying union members, public sector union members could be required to pay union dues. Fast forward, after Samuel Alito was appointed to the Supreme Court, he really had a bug up his ass to really go vigorously after union.

So there was a Supreme Court decision in 2017, 5 to 4 ruling that a public sector work in California could opt out of paying dues to his union. And that created right to work for all government employees across the nation. And sometimes I think it's crazy that a 5-4 vote can overturn a 9-0 vote. And that shows, you know, how conservative the Supreme Court has. And since Alito has arrived on the court has gone, far more conservative, far more anti-union, far more pro-business. But it kind of, you know, Heather, this points to so we're sort of approaching it

a different ways because it does seem that the parties define economic populism in different ways. Does the left view pro-worker policies differently than the right does? And are they sincerely believing that as long as big corporations do well, that will trickle down, even though there doesn't appear to be any conceivable evidence that that does? And the example I'll give you is this, and then you can go. In 2008, the housing crisis, we saved the economy through trickle down. We gave billions back to the banks to make them whole again.

People got foreclosed on our economy tank. We went into a huge recession. In the pandemic, we chose demand-side stimulus. We gave everybody money. We recovered better than any other country did. The economy snapback. Doesn't it show that demand-side stimulus is, at the very least, more efficient? Well, this is one of the reasons I think that there has been such fury among the right about President Joe Biden because he has proved that, in fact, the system that we had in place between 1933 and 1981 works.

I mean, one of the things that the radical right has been able to do is rise on the idea that, in fact, the way you stimulated the economy was to cut taxes. And that's what they always go back to is cutting taxes. And we know it doesn't work. You know, it transfers money upward and not downward. But I think people want services. People demand certain things. People actually like the government that Biden has put in place. And I think Tim Walts, the governor of Minnesota, has been really articulate about this in the last couple of weeks on, you know, his round of the talk shows. But I think there's a really important piece here that is different than what you two are talking about and which I agree with, which is the way the parties are talking about economic populism, which tends to focus in the Democratic side on economics and on the Republican side on culture. So there are two different things going on there. But the thing that fascinates me is why do people follow certain parties when they talk about populism? That is not so much what are the, the leaders talking about, but what do the followers accept? And this, I think, is central to a much larger conversation about the United States, because of course for right to work laws, although they

really take off in the 1950s, they tap into the idea that if, in fact, you want wage protections and our protections and all the sorts of things that really were being decimated in states like Arizona, they tapped into this longer history of Americans wanting to believe that by God, they were doing it all on their own, even though they never have. So one of the things that really- Everybody needs roads, for God's sakes. Yes, in schools and hospitals, right? But one of the things that is, I think, so interesting about the moment we're in is that

you, the three of us can sit here and argue at great length about different economic programs and different approaches of the different parties based on either economics or in culture. But the people who really, it seems to me, hold the power. When we talk about populism are the people who are telling the story. about why those people have been held back. So the Republicans have a story that says it's the, you know, it's the undocumented immigrant. The people like me have a story that says, no, no, no, no, it's the rich guys.

But if you look right now, you're seeing the rise of people like Sean Fane of the UAW, the president of the UAW, who is talking, he is both incorporating the idea of Christianness, if you will. He talks about Christian values, almost a social Christian value, and the need to protect the ability of workers to have the kind of economic security that Steve's talking about. And also says, wait a minute, we've skewed this entire system. So I think one of the things we're seeing, you asked where we were going, is we are definitely seeing the breaking apart of the Republican project from between 1980 until 2021. But we're also seeing a new kind of language.

And it's taken a while for people like Biden to get to the point where, they're not just saying, hey, we're going to help the little guy, but also saying, and we're going to tax those people at the very top. And you saw FDR do a similar shift, and you're seeing a lot of Americans, I think, who were in the group of people who were in trouble in the 1980s and forward, getting to find their own voices in part thanks to the rise of the internet and the ability to go around the gatekeepers that really managed to highlight the Republican story about America for 40 years and to silence the populist story. Now you're seeing the populist story. And on the one hand, some people have become viriantly sexist and racist. And that's the story that they're clinging to.

And some people are saying, no, we can rebuild this country in a new, exciting way. Now, that speaks to Stephen in terms of rebuilding it in a new exciting way. So what are the ways that labor can, in some ways, reinvent itself, not just through unions, unions? being an important tent pole of it. But in terms of getting a seat at the table, now we talked earlier about the tech billionaires that are funding a lot of this Republican resurgence, one thing that tech has done really well is, in general,

they've given their workers shares. Is that a model that can be taken on through these other corporations? Yes and no, John. It's good. Stephen. I mean, so on one hand, yes, it's good when, you know, workers, you know,

to share of corporate profits and that all the profits don't go to management. On the other hand, the no is, which not enough because, you know, workers don't have a voice. It's so important over history in the United States and elsewhere, you know, to assure greater economic justice for workers, you know, not to be stepped on, for workers to have a voice at work. And that's why, you know, laws that encourage the formation of unions, that laws that encourage collective bargaining have made such a difference. And Heather's the historian. I'm not, but, you know, after World War II, you know, American companies were going like gangbusters. You know, Europe was

flying back, Japanese industry was flying us back, and the United States Steel and General Motors and Ford and Chrysler. They were doing amazingly well. And workers, you know, we didn't have a middle class yet. Workers were really doing poorly. And workers unionized and went on strike and pressured the capitalists and said, it ain't fair. You know, you're making so much money and we're struggling and we're the folks who make your profits, who make your cars, who make your steel. And they won these amazing contracts that created them real class. And unions now, you know, Sean Fain is basically saying the same thing with union leaders were saying in, you know, after we're a world or two, that we're not getting our fair share. Companies are making record profits, the stock

stock markets at record levels, productivity has risen to record levels, yet wages are flat. And labor is really standing up again more than it has in a long time. And Sean Fain, you know, led this historic, Victoria Strike last fall by the United Order workers against GM Ford and Stalantis, which owns Chrysler. And labor is saying, not only do we need a seat at the table, not only do more workers need to seat at the table, whether it's Starbucks or Amazon or Trader Joe's or Apple, but this old idea that all we deserve is a 2% a year raise is BS. You know, inflation was 10% we deserve our fair sure. And what are the crazy things?

And we don't have the social safety net. I mean, you have people that, you know, we have a working class economy of people that still have to avail themselves of the social safety net. It's a part of the story that has never talked about. All right. We've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We're back.

I mean, these are pendulum swings, right? You have the robber barons, and then you have the new deal that creates a safety net, and then you have this post-World War II boom, and now you've got this Reagan era deregulation and all these things, and it swings back and forth in terms of workers, and then it goes more pro-business. What brings it back to the, how does the pendulum swing back now, Heather? Well, can I just add to what Steve said? Please. And that is in the 1950s and the 1950s.

1960s, one of the things that really helped workers was the recognition that, you know, people in the United States were very concerned about the rise, both of fascism and of communism and of the idea of countries being taken over by religious leaders. And so one of the things that you see with the construction of a strong middle class in the United States and the support of a strong middle class in European countries and other countries as well is a determination to protect democracy, that they recognize that if they don't do that, if they don't do that, if you're If they don't give workers something, they're going to turn. In that case, they're really worried about communism, but there are plenty of people who were also

concerned about fascism, people like Eisenhower, for example. So once you got the fall of the Berlin Wall and you got the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a sense that you no longer had to worry about that. That as long as you spread capitalism, you would also be spreading democracy. And of course, where that's ended us up is a place where authoritarian are on the rise all over the country. So one of the things that I think- And all over the world.

I'm sorry, I meant that all over the world. And the right is cozying up to, I mean, to think that the right would be admiring of Putin and Orban would be utterly unrecognizable to anybody that or on the left. I mean, it's just, it's a bizarre. And it makes me think that maybe the fight now around the world isn't capitalism versus communism or democracy versus authoritarianism. They found it to be woke versus unwoke. They've just found a different axis by which.

to cleave everybody. And maybe capitalism requires that entrenched poor working class to function the way they want it to function. And maybe that's the thing we have to address. Well, certainly, I think unregulated capitalism does. And capitalism itself is another discussion. You know, you gotta love a historian, right? I'm gonna split hairs on all these words.

But here's a big piece that I think I would love to hear what Stephen has to say about this. I mean, one of the things that you're seeing in the United States is the first generation of American women who have had jobs, professional jobs outside the home. We've always worked outside the home, but professional jobs outside the home. They have good educations. They have skills. Many of them have money. They also have for the first time in our history, 20 to 30 years after their children have left or they've gotten as far as they want to in their careers to get

involved in the public sphere. And that at the same time that they're recognizing that their daughters and granddaughters have fewer rights than they did. And I think that throws a monkey wrench into both populism and also into how we will reconstruct a future, because I don't think, at least in the United States, and no other country is jumping to mind, I think that changes the entire way we're going to be looking at the issues of the American story, for example, or the issue of who should have a say, or the issue of equal rights going forward. And I think it's one of the things driving the extraordinary fury on the American right right now against things like childless cat ladies. Stephen, what do you make of that, that idea that this generation of women is really, as

Heather was saying, they were professional. And now they're seeing those gains slip. Heather's absolutely right. And it is terrible. You're worse and terrifying. You know, I'm in my early 70s. You're in your early 70s? I've got to start your regimen.

Whatever you're doing. I got to start juicing. I'm sorry. I have children. I have grandchildren. children, and I speak to friends. They're horrified that, you know, things are moving backwards for their daughters and for their granddaughters. And I think that's one reason why women have become so active in politics and so active, you know, in unions. And that's one of the reasons they're so

much enthusing about Kamala Harris. She's been leading the fight. Right. You know, one of the things that really gets me is, you know, when I really have to rack my brains to think of what exactly did Trump do for workers. And I could like think of one and a half things. Yes, the North American Free Trade Agreement was way too friendly to corporations and didn't do enough to protect workers. And people blamed Bill Clinton for all this, blame the Democrats. It was negotiated by a Republican, you know, first President Bush. You know, Bill Clinton wanted to be a good bipartisan guy and he got it passed through the Senate overwhelmingly. It was Republicans who voted for it in Congress, not Democrats, but the Democrats get all the blame. But,

You know, Trump, the one thing I will most play is for is that he renegotiated NAFTA, so it's, you know, much friendlier to unions, much friendlier to workers. And the half a thing where I say Trump has, you know, Trump did absolutely nothing to raise the minimum wage. I think he's such a chicken because he's worried if I call for a higher minimum wage, I'm going to piss off my business supporters. And if I oppose a higher minimum wage, then I'm going to. So, like, he's been mummed. The great courageous Donald Trump is just too scared to. So, but he has, he was campaigning in Nevada the other day, right? And he said, I have this great idea.

No, no taxes on tips. Yeah, no taxes on tips. Like, where did that come from? He says, he got it from speaking to a waiter. No, I'm sure one of his, someone in the brain trust said, this would be a great way to win votes of the tens of thousands of hotel housekeepers and waiters in Nevada. Right. And, and, you know, but of course, you know, I say it's only half a pro worker thing because

So many, you know, waiters and housekeepers, they don't earn enough of money to even pay income taxes. Right. And still have to have a social safety net behind them. Yeah. So if Trump really wanted them to earn my money, he should, you know, support them unionizing and he should raise them on wage. But right, he's too pro-corporate.

That's not going to happen. I will give them credit, though, for this. And Heather, I want to ask you about this. Globalization and automation decimated, I think, the American. middle class, the factory workers, it really did have a terribly corrosive effect on people's ability to have stable manufacturing jobs or stable, you know, and all the support jobs that go along with those sorts of things. So the changes in whether it was Amazon or factories being able to go overseas and all those other things was devastating. And I don't think the Democrats

recognized the devastation fast enough or with enough empathy because, you know, because they would always say things like, we'll send you back to school and you could be a coder. We'll teach you how to be a coder. And they'd be like, well, I kind of dug what I was doing. And I don't think I want to be a coder. And I think that was a real weakness and one that they've had a really tough time overcoming. Heather? Yeah, I think that's right, except I would say that one of the things that always jumps out to me,

you know, I am from a rural area. I am from a place where there are an awful lot of Republican voters and a lot of Trump voters. And, you know, we always do this thing where we examine rural people like their zoo animals, like, you know, what's wrong with the rural Americans? And I'm telling you, there's nothing wrong with the rural Americans, except you can see the line between those people who are Trumpers and those who are not Trumpers because one group watches the Fox News channel and one does not. And the fact that the Democrats felt that they were unable to make the sorts of protections

for the workers, but also, I mean, it sounds like we're just talking about unionized workers. And of course, that's not at all what we're talking about. We're talking about people who have been left behind. And the gig economy, the gig economy, all these workers are unprotected. Which, by the way, is much more reflective of the way American history has always been. The idea that you have a single job and it's going to carry you through for your entire career is very post-World War II. And the Democrats, I think, wanted to protect those people. But they seemed to have this idea that they had to go along at the top level with the sorts of market-based reforms or market-based legislation that was blanketing our media space. And there weren't the options to talk about other

ideas because those people didn't get returned to office and they didn't get time on the talk shows and so on. And that locking up, I think, of the public conversation looks very much like the locking up at the public conversation in the 1880s and the 1890s when it was just like, you know, Ander Carnegie is the best thing since sliced bread. Anybody who stands against him is an anarchist, right? This mirrors the sort of robber barren era in your mind? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's in many interesting ways. But part of what has been a problem for the Democrats is the fact that if you didn't go along with the market-based economy, you know, the idea that neoliberalism was going to be the answer to everything, you simply got purged out of the lawmaking, the lawmakers so that you didn't get to say, hey, wait a minute here. And you can see in some universities there will be a holdover from the 1960s or the 1970s in the economics department. And, you know, the guy is sort of like

back behind his desk with long hair going, that's not how the world works. And every time something goes wrong, you can watch this. They pull them out. And they're like, hey, look, we found one from the past. She's going to tell us what. But so I think that that has limited options. And again, the breakdown of Fox News because of the lawsuit against it, the fact that Rush Limbaugh died in 2021 and didn't give those talking points to everybody on the right and the rest of the media didn't follow suit with those talking points, I think has opened up the ability for us to have a larger conversation. And then, of course, with Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinkins saying very upfront that the loss of our supply chains to other countries is a national security.

issue. The loss of our manufacturing to other countries is a national security issue. You know, the fact that we've had a very few people, very few corporations being able to monopolize baby formula, for example, but ever so many other things is a national security issue. That's happened, that's made them able to resure manufacturing and to resure supply chains, which Buttigieg has done really, really well. And also to launch lawsuits against people like Amazon to say, you know, the idea that as long as prices are getting lower, it's good for the American people is not the case. We've got to make sure it's good for workers and good for national security and good for consumers as well. So it seems like there's a lot of things breaking apart right now. And one of the

things I'm really interested in is trying to make sure that the conversation that we engage going forward is much fairer and that doesn't have this sort of cookie cutter smashed down onto it so that for 40 years we're locked into something. pushes things away. That's an excellent summation. Heather, Steve. Can I just jump in? Sorry. So I agree with everything Heather said. So one of the crazy things is like jobs were leaving Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and heading to China and Taiwan and Bangladesh, you know, for years, not just under Democratic administrations, but somehow the Republicans are great at blaming the Democrats for everything. And you're right, John, that the Democrats, most notably Barack Obama was saying,

Yeah, these jobs are disappearing, but go to college. Everyone should go to college and then, you know, you live happily ever after. And, you know, there are many, you know, only one third, 40 percent of Americans go to college. And a lot of working class families said, I can't afford to send my kids to college. You know, Barack Obama is really aloof. And I think that was one of Obama's biggest mistakes. You know, the Democrats did try very hard to provide much more money for retraining, much money for unemployment insurance for people who lost job to foreign trade.

and the Republicans kept blocking it, but the Democrats get blamed for not doing enough. Now, as Heather said, Joe Biden got the message. You know, he wants... Right, these infrastructure acts, the Chips Act, all these things. So, like, for people who aren't going to college, he's emphasized manufacturing. You know, the Infrastructure Act is going to create hundreds of thousands of great construction jobs, many of them for people who don't go to college. Plus, he has really tried very hard to make it easier for.

with people to go to college. Cancelling student debt, he wants community colleges to be free. He borrowed Bernie Sanders idea for a while to make the first two years of college free. I mean, Biden gets that there isn't enough economic opportunity for the typical American family. Maybe this is the inflection point. Maybe, and we'll kind of, I'll give you both a chance to sum up, but we'll end it there. Maybe the inflection point is the recognition that the globalization and the ill effects that it had on so many of these workers must be addressed with a real urgency, and there has to be a great deal of money and intention behind it to try and rebuild the things that were hollowed out during that time. And obviously, it gives us a portent to what AI may offer

the country, but, you know, and how devastating that might be as well. But in your guy's mind, is the pendulum swinging back? And do both of these parties offer anything positive? to labor and the working people in the country at this point, Heather. I don't think that the Republicans, dominated as they currently are by the Magas, offer anything to anybody who is not extraordinarily rich, except those undereducated evangelical Christians who simply want to be able to impose their Christian nationalism on the rest of us. And that's only about 6% of Americans who actually want Christian nationalism.

The Democrats right now, under Biden and Z, soon to be under Harris, I think, have recognized not only what you were talking about with the offshore shoring of manufacturing, for example, but one of the key parts that Biden went forward with and has not really succeeded to the degree he would like is the shoring up at the service economy. And the service economy for child care, elder care, and so on, really, again, speaks to women being involved in the economy, as they always have been, but they've always done it on their own hook and at their own peril. So that, I think, is a reshaping of the entire issue of populism.

And as I say, what really matters, I think to me is watching how those conversations take shape and who gets to drive the conversations to say, hey, wait a minute, we really need a country that's based on the good of everybody, especially those people who are hardworking and trying just to put food on the table and have their kids safe and educated, rather than saying, you know, we can turn it all over to the Silicon Valley billionaire. and they will treat us little people well. They will design it and they'll put us in a crisper and change the genetic. But you're right, the economic system cannot, by its definition,

rely on an entrenched underclass and entrenched poverty. Stephen, for you, what's the one hopeful thought that you hold in your head moving this forward? So young people are much more concerned about, you know, how hard it is for them to rise up. they're told that they're the first generation in an American history that might not do as well as their parents. A lot of young people have taken to the streets for the B2 movement for the Black Lives Matter movement. And so much of the energy of the union movement to raise wages is younger people. And I agree with Heather that when you look at the Republican Party, they're really not doing, you know, anything to help workers.

Like if you try to pass a paid leave bill, which so many of which American families, support 80% to 20% overwhelmingly, you know, the billionaires, the corporations will block it. They'll say it's a horrible employer mandate. It's going to get in the way of the free market. We can't have that. We can't raise the minimum wage. That will gum up the works for corporations, which already make, you know, have, have maximum profits. And just the simple act of, if we removed health care from your job, if we just gave that to people, that would free up everybody to be able to take more chances in their lives. Corporations would no longer be on the hook for. I mean, There's so many different things that we could do.

But I appreciate you both coming on and having the conversation. Stephen Greenhouse, labor and work price reporter at New York Times for 19 years, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, author of the book, Beaten Down, Worked Up, the past, present and future of American labor. And Heather Cox Richardson, author of Democracy Awakening, notes on the state of America. Really interesting stuff. So I appreciate it.

Thanks, John. Thank you. I got to tell you guys something. I think there should be a historian. In every conversation, I don't, can we use historians as like mods as moderators? Just in every conversation that occurs, because there's so much history that echoes the current state of affairs and it gives you so much context and so much knowledge into it. When Heather started bringing up, well, in the 1870s, you know, before these movements. and it goes back to Jim Crow South

and the way that economically, nobody wanted to grant and then black people, they didn't want them to vote. Like, it so brings into focus how we get to this current moment and how we can get out of it. No, definitely. I think that historians really add to this

and it does all come back to slavery. That's what it has to be. It all comes back to slavery. You're like, oh, right, there was a group of people, in the country that got labor for free. And that was the default. And so anything off of that is going to be seen as a concession. And it just informs everything moving forward. And I really feel like sometimes I wish I had like a pocket historian. Like that's what they should do. A pocket Doris Kearns Goodwin, a pocket Heather Cox Richardson, like Siri. And it just, and whenever you're

talking about something, it can be like, you know, they used to say the same thing about Andrew Carnegie. They said he couldn't be stopped. He was the bad. And you're like, who? You're like, the robber barons. And then they bring that, like, just adding context, the news organizations should have a pocket historian at all times so they could just a context Siri. I'd pay for it. Right? Totally. Along with fact checking maybe. Well, let's not get crazy. that's context and fact checking but it can be done in real the if these historians can do it in real time it can be done anyway very very i thought it was very very fascinating uh conversation there and boy do they know their shit when stephen starts throwing out supreme court cases and quote

the thing i was just like i'm just going to go to drink of water this guy's killing he's killing it yeah uh the news keeps coming fast and furious yeah so that's that uh Brittany the socials are are going Oh yeah, we are there. We're getting some really good responses, John. Actually, do you want to hear some of the questions we've got? Sure. Yeah, I'll pull up the first one. What do you got? So this question is, how do you keep your composure when debating someone with drastically different views on politics? It's an excellent question. And I think if you've watched me do that, you would see, I don't. I don't keep my composure. I often lose my shit, which is why I make, you know, people always say, like, you should get into politics. And I'm like, ah, I really think that would be like, I'd last like 20 minutes. And then all of a sudden, I'd be like, you're fucked up. You don't know what you're talking about.

Shut up. You know, it's it's so hard. Contrary to what it may look like, I'm not a huge fan of conflict. I think you guys know me probably in a different context. So you would be like, yeah, I get that. Yeah. But so when you're doing those things, I find it very discomforting. I don't, I don't care for it. But, but I do it because, uh, I think I should

suffer. I think I've earned that. I think we've both seen you do it. Is it, is it, is it uncomfortable for you guys to watch? Um, Brittany, you've seen it a lot. You've seen it a lot. I've seen, like, I've personally hid behind polls as it was happening because I'm like, I don't want to make contact. I contact with anybody. definitely like the grimace emoji during some of the moments where I know you're like dying inside but not really showing it. Here's what's so terrible too because Brittany, so in order to book guests, you know, you've got it's, there's a process that is somewhat of a sales job, you know, come on the show.

It'll be great. You'll have a robust discussion. But always friendly, always professional, always doing that. Like with Larry Summers and Larry Summers, you know, he did a little research on me. It was like, you know, in 2011, John Stewart called me The Devil Incarnate. Is he going to do that on the show? And Brittany has to be like, I don't think so. Probably not.

He may call you that, but ingest. So Brittany had to put me on the phone with Larry Summers. Yeah. Before he came on the show to allay his concerns. And I generally do the Costanza in those situations, which is what is the opposite of what you're supposed to do. So he said, you know, are those your feelings? And I was like, yeah, they are.

But, you know, I still don't, I don't mind having the conversation. I really disagree with you on almost everything. But I'm certainly, I'd be open to talking about it. And he was like, okay, that's all I wanted to know. And then he was like, great, let's do it. Yeah. My favorite part is you've had to do those calls a couple of times throughout our time working together. And the best is when John calls after and will be like, I don't know if I just helped or

hurt the situation. I don't think they're coming. But for Larry Summers, that conversation was unfortunately very uncomfortable, but I thought pretty great. Yeah. I think a lot of people did. Well, not Apple. Not the people we were working for, but the other people who were not.

They didn't think it was particularly great. But that's fantastic. Okay. Next question. Yes. How can I start performing? stand-up comedy if I have terrible social anxiety. Oh, I don't know. So, you know, I don't know enough about social anxiety to know if stand-up comedy would trigger that. Because in truth,

stand-up is not that social. Like, I'm very introverted. So one of the reasons I like doing stand-up was that. It's one of the reasons I like bartending. I didn't have, it's like you can be out-ish, but you're not actually out. You have a job to do, and you can focus on that, and you don't really have to talk to anybody other than taking orders, giving orders. So it's not...

And stand-up is, oddly enough, very similar. Like, Friday and Saturday night, what are you doing? You go into that party, you're doing those things. I got to go do a gig. I got to work. You're social with the other comics, but you don't really have much to do with the audience other than in a performative way.

So I actually think for social anxiety, stand-up's not a terrible business to be in, even though it may seem like a paradox. Does that make sense? No, I think totally. I think there's a difference between having a one-on-one conversation with someone and being amongst it or putting on a show in a way. And, you know, it's a character, even if it is you. And a performance.

Yeah. And you're not like, like you, okay, you remember how like at the show we would have parties? Yes. And remember how like you guys would go? Yes. And you guys would drink and have a great time. Yeah. And then you guys would be like, John, are you coming?

And I'd be like, sure. But then I wouldn't. Yeah. Sure. That's social anxiety. That's me. But all, all done. But tell people to keep going with the social.

What are the socials? What are the things? Definitely. We are Twitter at Weekly Show Pod, Instagram and threads. our weekly show podcast. TikTok, we are weekly show podcast and the weekly show with John Stewart on YouTube. Come on. As always, thank you so much. This has been the weekly show. Thanks to lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mehmedevic, video editor and engineer Rob Vatolo, who by the way is just kicking crazy as like everything is so locked in when we jump in.

Same with audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce. You guys are killing it. Research and associate producer Gillian Spear has always arming me with the best information known to man. And our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray, couldn't do it without all you guys. So thank you again. And we will see you next week. The weekly show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast.

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