George Clooney Wants Biden To Step Down | Elizabeth Dias & Lisa Lerer
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You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your hosts Desi Lydic and Jordan Leber. Thank you.

Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm Jordan Klepper. And I'm Jessie Leining. We've missed you so much. What's it been? 24 hours? I barely recognize you at all. That's because it's a different audience than last night. Oh my God, you're right. Nothing gets past me. We've got so much to talk about tonight, so let's get right into our continuing coverage of Indecision 2024. Woo!

Let's kick things off with America's happiest felon, Donald Trump. He's ahead in the polls, but he's not resting on his laurels. He's at rallies talking about the issues that matter. The other day I got very angry. Some man called Chris Christie fat. And I said, sir?

And then he said he was a pig. I said, sir, Chris Christie is not a fat pig. Please remember that. A waitress came over, beautiful waitress. And I never like talking about physics. She's beautiful inside. I don't even order bacon anymore. You know, bacon's gone up like five. I said, it's too expensive. I don't want it. I don't want it. Byron likes bacon. Sleepy Joe also declared that he wanted to test his skills and stamina.

against mine on the golf course. And I will even give Joe Biden 10 strokes aside. 10 strokes, that's a lot. Joke's on you, Donald Trump. Joe Biden's already had 10 strokes. But

Yes, if you missed Donald Trump's rally yesterday, he had very important things to say, like Biden sucks at golf, Chris Christie is fat, and once I saw a hot waitress. I have to say, this was the first time I ever heard Trump talk about a woman's inner beauty. Maybe he's maturing. Either that or he thinks there's more boobs to find on the inside. All boobs and bacon, which coincidentally is the title of my memoir coming out this Christmas.

Trump did touch on some important issues in a very dramatic way. And to be clear, we did not add this music. We are a nation where fentanyl and all other forms of illegal drugs are easier to get than groceries to feed our beautiful families and babies. Mothers will never again be forced to watch their children overdosing and hospitalizing.

And we will never allow mothers to watch their child hopelessly dying in their arms, screaming, what can I do? What can I do? Help me, God. What can I do? Never thought I'd say this, but I miss him talking about the hot waitress.

Help me, God, what can I do? I mean, what chilling words about the opioid crisis were slightly undercut by the crisis he moved on to in the very next sentence. What can I do? What can I do? Help me, God, what can I do? We are a nation whose once revered airports are a dirty, crowded mess. You sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane won't leave.

That they have no idea when they will. Wow. Wow. Wow. What a smooth transition from there's blood in the streets to and why do I have to check my bags at the gates? They're killing us with that. I'm in boarding group six.

Now the reason why Trump is having a blast on the campaign trail is because his opponent Joe Biden, whose poll numbers are hovering somewhere between uh-oh and oh shit. But worry not, Biden's team has a plan. Tomorrow he'll hold a press conference to show that he's fully in charge of all his faculties. Unfortunately, their branding isn't helping.

The next test is what the White House says will be some kind of a big boy press conference. He'll have a press conference, a big boy press conference, his big boy press conference, a big boy press conference. I guess a big boy press conference is what we're calling it. Oh, my God. Stop saying big boy press conference. It sounds like he's going to show everyone that he can tie his own shoes.

Although, at this point, it would be reassuring to see him do that. But some Democrats aren't waiting to see whether Biden can get through his big boy presser without a binky. Now, every day brings new lawmakers openly questioning whether Biden should remain as the nominee. And today, one of the party's biggest names weighed in. Nancy Pelosi passed up a golden opportunity.

an opportunity to say President Biden should stay in the race. Does he have your support to be the head of the Democrats again? As long as the president had the president, it's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to to make that decision because time is running short. He's beloved. He is respected. And people want him to make that decision.

Keep in mind, Biden has said about 50 times that he's staying in the race. He's like, I'm not going anywhere. The Lord Almighty couldn't get me out of this race. And Pelosi's going, yep, great. Just let us know when you decide. Clock's ticking. Tick tock. I mean, I mean, that's the same energy my mom had when I told her I was going into comedy. She still calls me up today like, have you made a decision about medical school yet? Yeah.

By the way, it probably doesn't help that as she was speaking, I kept thinking, man, I wish that Biden could channel the youth and vigor of Nancy Pelosi. But Pelosi wasn't the biggest name to come out against Biden today because while she was gently nudging him out of the race, an even more powerful Democrat was running him over with a steamroller.

All right. This just in the CNN, a big Democratic donor, George Clooney. Of course, the actor has just called for President Biden to step aside. The actor writes, it's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big effing deal Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. In short, Clooney says this is about

age nothing more he adds we are not going to win in november with this president yeah you know you're in trouble when even danny ocean is saying we can't pull this one off of course i will say it's easy for him to say biden's too old clooney doesn't age he doesn't know what it's like for us mortals to slowly decline while he becomes more and more just saltier

And more peppery, the glint in his eyes glowing ever more brightly. And the smile, the supple lips. He's just so supple. Jordan, you're doing the Clooney thing again. I'm doing the Clooney thing. I'm sorry. I'm doing the Clooney thing again. Jesus, get it together. It's so beautiful. God.

Keep it in your pants. The point is, Clooney isn't just a random celebrity. He's a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party. Last month, he helped raise $30 million for Joe Biden. Wait, while we were all distracted by this op-ed, who was watching the money? Oh, it's a heist to hold! I'm Clooney!

Cloney's such a clever, sexy, silver fox of a man who's just got those lips. Those lips you could lose yourself in. I'm sorry. It's just, he's a lot.

But you know what? It's important to remember that as of now, only eight House Democrats have called on Joe Biden to step down. And the dissenters might get all the headlines, but there are hundreds of other Democrats who are still with Joe Biden. But with a skeptical public, now is the time for them to make their case to the people. So let's hear their enthusiasm. What do you say, Congressman Jim Clyburn? We're riding with Biden.

We are riding with Biden. Did anyone mention Harris? We are riding with Biden. Was there a conversation about Vice President Kamala Harris in there? We are riding with Biden.

Okay, I wouldn't say that was enthusiasm I was hearing there. I'm riding with Biden. Sounds like you're in a Thelma and Louise situation. Yeah, that's the same tone of voice you use when you don't like the man your best friend is marrying, but you're a bridesmaid. So congratulations, Becky and Mark. He hit on me at the rehearsal dinner, but Mark's our man. Mark's our man. We don't talk anymore. Okay, all right. You know what?

Maybe we don't need enthusiasm. We just need an argument, a good, strong argument for supporting him as the nominee. Sell us on him. You know, if President Biden declines to leave voluntarily, then we have no choice but to, you know, support him as our nominee. I am fully behind him as our nominee until he's not our nominee. Yep.

again less an argument in Morris statement of fact it's it's like if your mother-in-law asked you if you like the dinner she made and you say you made a dinner.

And it was food. And I will eat the food until there is other food. I mean, if Trump is an existential threat to democracy and you're not making the case for Biden to drop out, then you got to explain why you keep supporting him. Go. Do you support keeping Biden as your nominee? Do you support keeping Biden at the top of the ticket? Do you think that Biden just stays your nominee? I love that time.

I love that tie. Do you mind if I hang myself with it instead of answering your question? Actually, you know what? Actually, I wonder what it was he liked about that tie. Can we have another angle on that? Oh, okay, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Look, Democrats, listen. We're not going to sit here and tell you what to do.

But whatever you do, actually do it. This indecisive waffling only makes you look like you don't have the courage of your convictions. Either tell Joe that he needs to go or stand by him and really make the case for him. Yeah, or don't. Spend the next four months running around saying, I don't know, I don't know. But when November comes, the only thing you're going to be saying is this. What can I do? What can I do? Help me, God. What can I do?

When we come back, Ronny Chieng discovers one of Trump's incredible success stories. Stay tuned. Donald Trump will accept the Republican nomination for a second term in Wisconsin. But while he's in the state, there's one town he may want to avoid. Ronny Chieng tells us why. Trump's promise in 2016 to bring back manufacturing jobs was a major appeal in the upper Midwest. And in Trump's first year in office, the artist of deals delivered them a masterpiece. Oxconn will invest...

In southeast Wisconsin. Electronics manufacturer Foxconn is opening its first major U.S. factory in Wisconsin, investing $10 billion of their own money to do so. That's right, Foxconn, the Taiwan-based company that's good at making iPhones and great at making their employees jump off buildings. The Foxconn deal in Mount Pleasant was as golden as the shovels Trump brought to the groundbreaking.

I think we can say this is, we can say, the eighth wonder of the world. So to learn more about this eighth wonder of the world, I spoke with Alan Young, the business genius responsible for bringing Foxconn to WizCon. Sing. Love business. Love big business. I love great businessmen. You brought manufacturing technology

to Mount Pleasant. What do you love most about Wisconsin? The cheese or the high rate of alcoholism? It turns out Wisconsin actually, to our benefit, was the right choice. And the vision really was to create what we call Wiscon Valley, the $10 billion project slated to create up to 13,000 jobs. All right, high-tech job creation. Local country bumpkin Kelly Gallaher must be ecstatic. Foxconn came to town. They promised us the world. Then that...

us because our village officials are morons. - Look lady, I came here to do a feel good puff piece about foreign corporations creating jobs for farmers or whatever, okay? Are you telling me that's not happening? - They promised us 13,000 jobs and a $10 billion investment. We got a few hundred crappy jobs,

We bulldozed 100 homes, moved people out, used eminent domain against them, and except for a few buildings that Foxconn has put there, it's basically empty. Well, you can't fault Foxconn for...

putting money into this town and trying to make something happen. But they didn't put money in on it. Unfortunately, the village of Mount Pleasant decided instead of making Foxconn buy the land that they wanted for their factory, our part-time village trustees, they said,

We'll do it for you. We borrowed nearly a billion dollars. So a bunch of village idiots borrowed a billion dollars to get Foxconn to come in. Foxconn comes in and goes, hey, we can give you guys civilization, take you out of the farms. Well, we like our farms. What was Foxconn promising to build?

Well, first they said they were going to build large screen LCD TVs. Amazing. I love those. A few weeks later, they changed it that they were going to build small LCD screens, the kinds that you get in the car. That's cool. I love those too. I love all screens. Then they announced that they were going to build coffee robots. Okay, but you know what? Who doesn't like coffee? That didn't happen either. And right now, nobody knows what they do inside that building.

Okay. It's 3,000 square acres of land. Do you know how much 3,000 square acres of land is? Of course not. I'm not a dumb farmer. You should really go check it out. Fine, I will. This simple villager wasn't making any sense. Alan and Foxconn assured the residents of Mount Pleasant they would be bringing a state-of-the-art tech hub to its barren farmland.

But instead, all Foxconn built was a bunch of roads to nowhere. What the hell? Two empty warehouses and a lame disco ball in the middle of an empty field? F***ing hell.

I needed answers. Where the hell is everybody? I was told there's 13,000 jobs. Yeah. Sorry, sir. Just wondering, where are the jobs at? The jobs. There's 13,000 jobs. This can't be right. And even if there aren't any jobs or products or transparency, surely Foxconn has a plan.

- I would say that over the past few years, everybody learned a few lessons. I think the storyline is happening, and story is a good one. It really is trailblazing and making pioneering decisions, even though it might not make sense. - Even though it makes absolutely no sense. - Well, okay, absolutely no sense. But right now, I think we're in the chapter two or chapter three of the whole thing. - Chapter 11 of the-- - Well, you don't wanna get there.

- Well, the outcome was job creation. You really shouldn't care if you build potato chips or microchips. - Potato chips or microchips, who cares? Just make something. That's what people want, for Foxconn to make something in this factory. - It takes a village. - It takes a village to build a factory that makes nothing. - You got me there. - Alan did a great job at showing the very thin line between genius business plan and scam. - Okay, I think I see why you're so upset.

You got catfished. You know what catfishing is? Yes, I do. But what-- who benef-- what-- why did they do this? If it's so bad for everybody, why did this happen? Well, it was really Donald Trump. Oh, here we go again. It's the largest failed publicly funded economic development project in Wisconsin history, possibly in US history.

In true Trump fashion, he made a promise, never delivered, and left someone else holding the bag. Was there any way to turn this development disaster around? More breaking news now. Microsoft could be coming to Mount Pleasant. This is a huge win for the village. Microsoft came to town and they announced a $3.3 billion investment project and 2,000 full-time jobs. Okay, 2,000 is quite a step down from 13,000. But those 13,000 jobs were never real. What are you even making there?

It's going to be an AI data center. Wait, but that, if it's an AI center, it's going to take jobs. They're going to replace workers. You're going to end up with less jobs than before. Well, it's better than nothing. Actually, no, because no jobs will be zero. This will be negative jobs because it'll be taking other people's jobs. All I know is that these are 2,000 real jobs. Oh, goddamn villages is jobs, man. You guys talk about anything else here?

In business, not everything turns out the way you want it to. But hey, with a little ingenuity and some American can-do spirit, you too could turn 13,000 jobs into 2,000 and put your whole village into debt. Great job. Thank you, Ronnie. When we come back, Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lair will talk about the future of abortion in America. Don't go away.

Welcome back to The Daily Show. Our guests tonight are reporters at The New York Times and co-authors of the best-selling book, The Fall of Roe, The Rise of a New America. Please welcome Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lair. ♪♪

Thank you so much for being on the show and for all of your incredible work on this. We enjoyed your book very much and also were thoroughly horrified by all of it, obviously. But so many Americans felt kind of blindsided when Roe v. Wade was overturned.

And yet you walk us through every step of the way. This was not an overnight shocking decision. This was decades in the making. Walk us through some of that. You mean the secret plan to overturn Roe v. Wade? Yes. Yes. There was one. For 50 years, the anti-abortion movement tried so hard, right? They made it their life's work, generational commitment, to try to overturn Roe. This was a moral commitment for them, the greatest...

moral calling of their lives. And they were not successful until about 10 years ago. Something changed, and we've taken to calling it the -- this was the last decade, the final decade of the Roe era in American life. They had new tactics, new strategies, and they really radicalized along with the Republican Party and did what many Americans thought was unimaginable, which was overturning Roe v. Wade. -Now, in telling this story,

How much of this did you find was based in sort of a moral argument? And how much of this felt like it was groups who had political motives who were trying to utilize Roe as a piece in which to gain more political power? Well, certainly there's a really deep moral and spiritual element. These are conservative Christians, largely evangelicals and Catholics, and they see this as a story that's rooted in, you know, biblical kind of terms.

But I think there's also this broader effort, and what they effectively want to do is overturn elements of the sexual revolution and return the family, the American family, to a more traditional time. I think one of the most interesting things we found in our book was the role that abortion plays. Of course, abortion is about the right to terminate a pregnancy and when a woman can legally do that. But it also has this great symbolism in American life. It sort of symbolizes for people morality and religion and medicine and abortion.

of course, politics and gender roles and all these really big things. And so if you want to understand where this election might be going, and really, if you want to understand where the country might be going, the story of the fall of Roe is one way to understand that. I guess you articulate that Roe has taken on such a larger-- it's not just one thing anymore. Was that always the case? Or can you pinpoint when that really started to pick up steam? Well, look, our book starts--

in 2013, which is right when Obama won reelection. And it's also when conservative Christians became a slight minority in America.

So this is a group that felt that they were losing their hold on American life, losing their sort of traditional power in American life. And I think abortion rights were one way that they thought they could sort of return the country to where it was before. So it is this larger fight. And we're seeing that play out now in sort of efforts around IVF, around some forms of contraception. This is, of course, about abortion, but it's about so much more than just abortion.

One of the things that I really appreciated about this book is you go through the backstories of all of these characters. You don't paint them as heroes and villains. You talk about Leonard Leo from the Federalist Society and talk about how he personally was affected, what formed his fate. Leonard Leo, devout Catholic, obviously legal mastermind, but the story that motivated him the most

is the death of his daughter when she was 14. Their firstborn daughter had a very difficult prenatal diagnosis. They decided to give birth and raise her. And when we talked with him, he talked a lot about suffering and his views motivated by Catholic theology about suffering and salvation in the human experience. And so for him, that

really shaped not only how he wanted to run his own family, but how he sees how the entire country and world should be structured. You know, for a lot of these anti-abortion activists, those two worlds are intertwined. This isn't a story that you can understand just through politics or just through religion. These are intertwined stories. And I think that's part of

what we really tried to get out at the book was tell those intertwined stories in a way that reflected sort of the intimate. This is such an intimate issue, you know, that reflected that intimacy and how personal it is for these people. Look, it's something that everyone understands. If you've had a baby, if you were with someone who had a baby, if you were a baby at some level, you inherently

understand like how this works and what this is about. And I think it's not the kind of issue that even for the most committed activists that can be disconnected or rooted just in politics. I mean, this book talks about the successes of the activists. Right. A lot of them are the grassroots activists on the right. What were the failings of the left in this fight?

Well, you know, look, I think there was this profound sense of denial across the left. In some ways, that's reasonable, right? It's really hard to believe that this right that people had for generations could suddenly just vanish. And because of that, Democrats, you know, they would always go out, Democratic candidates, and warn about threats to Roe or Roe could fall. And people just didn't believe them. Like, we have in the book tons of polling and focus groups where the issue just didn't resonate with people because they didn't believe it would happen.

And so it's hard to see and prevent something that you don't think is happening. Right. And then, of course, they got very, very unlucky. Trump won and he got three appointments to the Supreme Court, unheard of since Ronald Reagan. And there becomes a point, a turning point where the march to end Roe effectively becomes unstoppable for Democrats and the abortion rights activists. Yeah.

There's the, you know, part of the civil rights activists were rooted in the Christian community. What, where's the disconnect? Why have liberals not been able to connect with the Christian community since then? - Well, conservative Christians figured out that this wasn't really about cultural opinion. A majority of Americans supported abortion rights for, you know, for decades.

But for them, this was about finding ways to pull the levers of power. You can kind of do all the moral conversation education that you want on either side of this, but if you don't have power, you can't do anything.

So they figured out exactly what levers, where in the country, at what levels of government, from the smallest state house lobbyists all the way up to the presidency, the Supreme Court. And they identified them, they polled them, and then they're able to change the culture that way, right, instead of having culture change the law.

Yeah, look, I think we think of politics as working one way, right? People protest, public opinion changes, politicians respond, the culture changes. This is a really different kind of story. This is, you know, a majority of America supported Roe for decades. But these activists on the right, these conservative Christian activists, were able to seize controls of these levers of power and change the culture effectively through force. Now,

Take a step back into what's happening now. Yeah. We see the Republican platform seems to be softening on abortion, at least not articulating that they want a federal ban. We see what happened with Mipha Fristone at the Supreme Court. Do you see a recalculation happening?

Two different things are happening at once here, right? Like, obviously, Trump and a lot of Republican leaders see that this is now a losing issue for them. I mean, Roe was a foundation for so long. Republicans were able to use it in a certain way to motivate key parts of their base, and that's obviously really changed. But, you know, now...

Things we think of as maybe losses for the anti-abortion movement, they're able to reframe and see them as wins, right? I mean, even the platform can be doing whatever it's doing, right? In their minds. In their minds. But they're on the ground thinking in these generational long terms of how they can change the groundwork similarly to how they overturned Roe, right? They're thinking long term about what does this mean for how we can restrict IVF?

What does this mean for access to some forms of birth control? That is such a different long game than Democrats are playing. So in a way, it is definitely a power struggle right now. The two movements, the anti-abortion activists and the Republican Party needed each other to gain power and to accomplish their mutual goals.

So that we're seeing that as a tension, but this is a movement that cannot be undercounted. I mean, they accomplished one of the biggest political resurgences this country has ever seen, and under the noses of people, many of whom just weren't paying attention. Where do you feel, where do we go from here? I mean, are women going to have to just run for president and have presidential immunity in order to legally have an election? That's not where it is.

I mean, it is worth pointing out that many of the most prominent figures in the anti-abortion movement are women, that there was a strategy to put women at the front of that movement.

I think, you know, I've asked a lot of abortion rights activists like that very question. What happens now? It took 50 years for Roe to fall. How many years does it take for it to return? And nobody knows. It's an unanswerable question. But nobody's saying one year. Nobody's saying five years. This is 10 years. This is 20 years. There's no magic wand. You know, President Biden talks about restoring Roe.

There's no way to do that without a margin in the Senate that feels almost impossible unless they overturn the filibuster and then all agree on what that looks like, which, as we know about the Senate, that's an extremely high bar down there. So there's no easy answer here. There's not some, like, thing that can just snap back in place and grow returns. I think the country is in for many more decades of wrangling over this issue. For the disheartened folks who see this story, what can they take away? What positive change can they make?

Look, I think one of the things that was most powerful for the anti-abortion was this sense of denial. They did something because nobody believed they could do it. And that's been really shattered now. So I think there's a lot more awareness of what's going on. I think people are paying a lot more attention to what's happening, not only with abortion rights, but with things like IVF and some forms of contraception. So like all political issues, I think this is one of engagement and awareness. And I do wonder if we're, I do think we're seeing more of that.

now. And there's this question of can Democrats respond with any kind of generational plan in the way that Republicans had? I mean, it was just...

I mean, yeah. Do you need an answer? Tell me. Oh, that was. Oh, yeah. Now we know. Now we know. We've answered that. I mean, this is asymmetrical warfare. It has been for a very long time. And there's a real question. I mean, even people like Hillary Clinton told us that the Democrats just don't have the same kind of infrastructure on their side. So there's an open question as to, you know, are they thinking just in election cycles or are they thinking about one generation, two generations from now?

Well, we so appreciate all of the work that you're doing and you being on here tonight. We're still hopeful that there will be your next book, The Re-Rise of Roe, putting out a... Get the sequel going. Get the sequel going. Thank you for being here. The Fall of Roe is available now. Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lehrer

when we will be in Milwaukee for the RNC all week long. Yes, and if you're in Milwaukee this Sunday, we'll be at Cathedral Square Park for In Dog Scission 2024, Rescuing Democracy. We're partnering with MADAC, a local Milwaukee animal shelter, and Headcount with the hopes to get lots of pups adopted and humans registered to vote. So we will see you there. Now, here it is. Your vote is in. Do you believe he should run for re-election? I'm not.

Am I speaking English to you? I'm not going to be making any statements about any of that right now in the hallway. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount+. Paramount Podcasts.