Pastor vs. Trump, Triumph Storms a Coffee Shop | Talib Kweli
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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 host, Ron. Hello.

Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm Ronnie Chang. We got so much to talk about tonight. The Proud Boys are back in town. Donald Trump faces off against Jesus. And we sent Triumph to sniff the buttholes of the resistance. So, let's get into another edition of the second coming of Donald J. Trump. I'm gonna come. I'm gonna come.

It's only day two of Trump's presidency and already everyone is mad at him. I mean, guys, can you give him a minute? Let him sit down. It started in the morning when Trump went to the traditional post-inauguration church service, which is not exactly his preferred way to start the day. It's never fun for him to be a guest at someone else's rally. And to make matters worse, the preacher was kind of preachy. Mr. President, I ask you,

to have mercy upon the people in our country. We're scared now. Gay, lesbian and transgender children and the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

New executive order. We are banning church. Hey, Bishop, please. All right? We don't go to church to hear a lecture about having mercy on the less fortunate. That's not what church is for. And Trump was like, I only came here because I heard there were free crackers, and now I'm getting roasted by Tig Notaro? He was...

He was probably looking up at Jesus on the cross and thinking, hey, you and me both, brother. To be fair, I mean, can you imagine going to church and the pastor is only addressing you? Like, this next sermon is about the sinners, the cheaters, the degenerate gamblers, Gary. The point is, no one has ever had a worse time in church than Trump did. And yes, I've seen spotlights.

And you could tell that he had a bad time because of the way he came out of the church super bitchy. Mr. President, what did you think of the sermon? What did you think? Did you like it? Did you find it exciting? Yeah. Does that excite you? Did you like that? Watching your president get lectured to by Bishop Rachel Maddow? Get your little liberal d*** hard, you sick f***.

And is this how we do presidential press conferences now? This is like TMZ at the Departures Hall at LAX. It's like, "Hey, Mr. President! "Hey! Mr. President, what do you think about Blake Lively "and Justin Baldone?"

But after getting yelled at by this church Karen, Trump was also getting yelled at by everyone just because he released hundreds of violent insurrectionists back into the streets or something. And yeah, OK, they beat some cops and broke some windows, but they were doing it for him. No one seems to understand that. And the media won't shut up with these unfair gotcha questions.

You would agree that it's never acceptable to assault a police officer, right? Sure. So then if I can, among those you pardoned, DJ Rodriguez, he drove a stun gun into the neck of a D.C. police officer who was abducted by the mob that day. He later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty for his crimes. Why does he deserve a pardon? Well, I don't know. Was it a pardon because we're looking at commutes and we're looking at pardons? Okay, well, we'll take a look at everything.

We'll take a look at everything. Shouldn't you look at it before you issue the pardon? It's like, step one, release the prisoners. Step two, look into which prisoners we should release. F***ing nailed it. So...

Part one of his answer about this whole Gen 6 thing is, "Well, take a look," which is Trump's speak for, "We will never look at this again." But if that doesn't satisfy you, he has another reason. Okay, well, we'll take a look at everything, but I can say this. Murderers today are not even charged. You have murderers that aren't charged all over. You take a look at what's going on in Philadelphia, take a look at what's going on in L.A.,

where people murder people and they don't get charged. See? Some murderers aren't in jail, therefore nobody should be in jail.

Okay? Also, think big picture here. If he lets these violent criminals go, there's a chance they'll kill the other violent criminals, and then they'll just cancel each other out. And to be fair to Trump, he has been campaigning on releasing the Gen 6 prisoners for years now. Everyone just assumed he didn't mean the violent ones, which would mean going through all the cases one by one, but that's not really Trump's style.

New reporting from Axios this morning details the private back and forth amongst President Trump's team over how many January 6th rioters to pardon. The case-by-case review was onerous. Trump's staffers wondered whom to pardon and who might slip through the cracks. Time was running out heading into Inauguration Day. As Trump's team wrestled with the issue, Trump just said, F it. Release them all. I have never related to Trump more. All right.

This PDF is 400 pages? Okay, it. All crime is legal. And look, you can't expect someone to go through all these cases one by one. I mean, the FBI did, and the prosecutors did, and the judges did, and the juries, and the paralegals, and the person who types on that weird little typewriter no one else knows how to use. But Trump is busy, okay? It's much easier to just click select or delete.

So in the very first seven hours of the Trump administration, we already have our first big controversy, which of course leads to the classic ritual of a Trump presidency. He does something crazy, then Republicans get asked about it, and they're like, what? I didn't see it. Do you agree with President Trump's decision to pardon these violent people if they were truly violent? No, but do I know that they were? I don't know that. His January 6th pardons.

Well, I've said what I've said before, and that is we're not looking back for it. I haven't seen the details, but I think a lot of those crimes were definitely well-deserved. What about those who assaulted police officers and then were pardoned by the president? I haven't seen any. I haven't gone into the detail. We're talking about people that were beating officers with fire.

- Fire hydrants with metal batons. Is that acceptable to you? Those people were partying. - No, that's not acceptable, but I didn't see it, so. - What do you mean you didn't see it? - It's on video. - I didn't see it. - No, no spoilers. Tommy Tuberville didn't watch "Gen 6" yet, okay? He'll get to it, but there's just so much to watch these days, you know? He's still got "9/11" and "Benghazi" on his DVR.

I mean, you were a senator on Jan 6. Like, what do you mean you didn't see the insurrection? You lived it. This is like a Titanic survivor saying, I haven't seen the movie. Don't tell me what happens.

So, to sum up day one of Trump's presidency, church is bad, beating cops is good. So I guess he's a Democrat now. For more on the Republican reaction, we turn to Troy Iwata, everybody. Troy. Troy.

All these Republicans are pretending they haven't seen footage of January 6th. I mean, shouldn't they be embarrassed? Ronnie, I know sad and ignorant people like yourself would think Republicans are being cowardly, but they actually have medical conditions that literally make it impossible for them to see the January 6th footage. And unlike you, I'm not an ableist f***er.

What do you mean ableist? Dude, Ron Johnson just said he didn't see the details. He can't see the details, Ronnie. Ron Johnson has a rare disease. You know, face blindness? He has that, but specifically for insurrections. You know?

When he sees a cop getting beaten with a flagpole, his brain interprets that as a rainbow or a baby deer learning to walk. It might seem cute, but it's actually incredibly painful. Okay, I've never heard of that. But what about the rest of them? Does Senator Tuberville also have this face blindness? Okay, watch your tone.

And no, Tommy Tuberville actually has that disease from Memento. Do you remember that movie? He doesn't. But he forgets about January 6th every three minutes. He's a survivor and it's inspiring. Oh, okay. So he's not just dumb. Well,

Well, if he didn't have memento disease, then yeah, he would absolutely be the dumbest senator in history. But he does have it, so he isn't. I'm doing a walk for the cure next week. What are you doing to give back, Ronnie? I have a metal straw that I'll remember to use someday. But anyway, Troy, come on, they can't.

they can't all have medical issues with seeing Jan 6 footage. They do. Okay. Lauren Boebert was hypnotized at a child's birthday party and just never fully recovered. Rick Scott, he couldn't see the footage because he's actually half horse. So he always has those, those blinders on. And Tim Burchett couldn't see it because he got kicked in the head by Rick Scott because he walked behind him too quickly and it spooked him.

And, oh, oh, oh, and John Thunes' eyes don't work because he once saw a pretty lady walk by and they went, and they just, they never went back into his head.

Yeah. Do you think that's funny, Ronnie? I guess I need to be more sensitive to Republicans going forward. Yeah, you should. Because there's a lot of things coming down the pipeline the next four years that they're not going to be able to see or hear or remember or legislate against or understand or consider. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I guess I should be...

Also more respectful of people who can't watch Jan 6 footage the way you and I have. Oh, I haven't seen the January 6 footage. Do you also have one of those diseases? No, no. It just sounded so depressing. I don't need that in my life. Okay, okay. Troy Watt, everybody. When we come back, we're checking on Trump's opposition, so don't go away. You can't see it?

Welcome back to The Daily Show. Donald Trump's inauguration wasn't the only event in D.C. this week. There was also the People's March to oppose him. We sent our most dogged reporter to check it out. Here in Washington, D.C., at the People's March, we're here with everyone in America who thinks Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski still have good on-screen chemistry. This diverse crowd covers a full spectrum of literally every stage of depression.

Good morning. Look at you guys. You guys are mobilized. Yeah. You're energized. Yeah. You're three months too late. I can't. I can't. If you could just say your name and all your genders from the camera, please. Oh, wow. I lost count. I'm sorry. Let's face it. No one here is going to smash any windows at the Capitol.

that would require upper body strength. You know, eight years ago, in fairness, there were like millions of people here. Do you think the numbers of women participating in this march have dropped off because they don't see themselves represented by the Democrats or because you kept talking to them about Deadpool?

Seriously, looking around here, I've never seen so many people worried about losing the right to contraceptives for purely hypothetical reasons. Tell me, what stage of depression are you currently in? Anger, bargaining, or all the way to wearing that hat in public? So many groups and factions represented here. This person is with People for the Legalization of Medicinal Bath Salts, correct? Deep court.

Trump slash Drumpf. Drumpf, if you don't know, was the Trump family original name in Germany. Okay, nice to know the bath salts have kicked in. Now, honestly, some people are saying that you're all ineffective. You're too weak and unequipped for a crisis. I'm talking to your deodorants right now, actually. Sure, sure. If we want to win next time, we have to build a bigger tent.

Sometimes it's just with language. Okay, so if we want to get Republicans, what about if we rebrand climate change as climate transitioning? Okay, then Republicans will want to stop it. There you go. I can feel Ben Shapiro edging already. So you're a young person. I feel like the young people need to understand what's going on better. What's your message to young people who only get their news from social media?

It's important to organize. Join an organization. Already too complicated. Sorry. People aren't going to take you seriously wearing pussy hats from 2016. We got to armor up.

Show them we don't want to be screwed with right now. Okay, what do you got? Okay, it's time for the pube hat. Put that on. Oh, boy, all right. This is what democracy looks like. Are the pubes organic? Of course they're organic. And they're farm-raised. Farm-raised, organic pubes? Farm-raised, yes. We run a no-kill pube farm. Are there genetically modified organisms in the pubes? Just put the f***ing hat on! Now, see, this is for the more discerning. That's the landing strip pube hat.

Seriously, you guys, this marching stuff, it's so analog. This isn't what the Republicans do, you know? Where's your Pepe the Frog? Where's your cat turd? We need our own Pepe. So I call this one Keith Olbermonkey.

This is another potential mascot, Smuggy, the NPR tote bag. People don't believe facts anymore. They believe conspiracy theories. So we need to make up our own conspiracy theories, okay? For example, Jimmy Carter was doing just fine until Trump got elected again. Coincidence? Who killed Carter?

You know how Trump hides his medical records? Yes. He also hides his DNA test. That's right. He recently took a DNA test that revealed that he's 40% sour cream. Release the DNA test! Release the DNA test! Trump is ruining people's lives! Trump is ruining people's lives! He goes well with onions and chives! He goes well with onions and chives! What do we want? Equality! What do we want? Equality!

GOP, stop the lies! GOP, stop the lies! How did Jimmy Carter die? How did Jimmy Carter die? Young man, are you a member of Gen Z? Yes, sir. Okay, did you mean to come to this march or were you staring at your phone on the way to work and when you finally looked up, you were here? I came here on purpose. I kid, I kid. I know you don't actually work. Are you guys ready to storm a building?

I might be. Let's be honest, you guys aren't ready to storm the Capitol. No, I'm soft. Yeah, believe me. But we're going to start small, okay?

Trust me. We need to do something, you know, that's going to get attention. We're going to start small. Okay. Okay, are you with me? Yes. Okay. Everybody storm with me. Let's go. Let's storm. Come on. We're going to storm. We're about to storm. No, let's storm. Let's go. Let's storm. We're storming. Take it back. Take it back. Take it back. Take it back. Take it back. Whose house? Our house. Whose house? Our house. Whose house? Our house.

Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose house! Our house! Whose

Thank you, Triumph. When we come back, Talib Kweli will be joining me on the show, so don't go away. Welcome back to The Daily Show. My guest tonight is a legendary hip-hop artist whose latest album is a collaboration with J. Rawls called The Confidence of Knowing. Please welcome the one and only Brooklyn's own Talib Kweli. Thank you. Thank you.

What's up, Ronnie? How you feeling? Yeah, man. I'm the people, man. Oh, man. I love the people. This is my city.

Yeah. In my city. Thanks so much. Yeah. Thanks for coming on the show, man. You just came out from Australia. I did. I was with the Roots. Shout out to the legendary Roots crew. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I saw a video of Questlove DJing in a pub in Australia. And I was like, what's he doing there? And you guys were on tour doing music. We were. Those guys are amazing. And I'm happy to share the road with them. Yeah. I used to live in, I lived in Australia for like 10 years. How was it for you? It was good. Um,

Being an American traveling abroad is very interesting. Oh, yeah. How so? How so? People have a lot of questions. A lot of questions. A lot of questions. Thank you for coming to my show at City Winery. Yeah, of course. Appreciate that. No, I love it. I'm a huge fan. I've been a huge fan of your show. No, I'm a real... I'm like playing it cool right now, but I'm like a huge fan of yours and I've been like following your music. I'm a fan of yours as well. No, no, that's very... Yeah, I don't... That's very kind. I don't...

I feel so embarrassed that you even said that in front of people. But one thing I love, like, I listen to albums and you, you know, I think you've been in this game for like 30 years now. I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like most of it, you've been kind of like almost pushing it indie style. Yeah, most of it, yeah. For most of it. And I feel like your last few albums, not this one, but...

The latest one, Confidence of Knowing, is available on Apple and Spotify. That's right. But your last two, including Black Star 2, and your album before that, your solo album before that, you released it on, one was on Patreon, one was on Luminary. I was like, as a fan of yours, I knew you released it, but I would have to go and digitally chase all your albums. It wasn't like I could just press a button and listen to it. And it reminded me of back,

in the day actually having to chase music down. And it, I mean, quite frankly, it made me appreciate it even more when I did find it, because it made it kind of difficult to get in a way. Is there a reason? Yeah, it makes it special. Well, I know everybody here is a fan of Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan is paid millions of dollars by Spotify for people to listen to his podcast. But as an artist, a musician on Spotify, I get a percentage of a penny.

They don't pay any artist that I follow, any music artist, an advance like that. So, I mean, I think that's... And what's your problem? Disparity. You know what I'm saying? Disparity. So, I mean, streaming is very convenient for the fans. It's not the fans' fault. But if you really want to support music, you should go to Bandcamp. You should go to fans' website. You can come to my Bandcamp. You can come to Blackstar Bandcamp. You can come to QualiClub.com, which is a store where I sell my merch and albums. Anything...

but streaming, basically. Right, right, right, right. I mean, look, go listen on streaming, but then go actually support the artists. Right, right, yeah. And, you know, it's a mix, right? A mix of it. Some of it is that people, the music on streaming is so convenient, and so they use that. And the other part is people don't know. People don't know. They think that listening on Spotify or Apple Music is like...

helping you, you know? Right. Well, everything is dictated by the algorithm right now. And whether it's what you listen to, what you eat, what you watch on television, even your politics. So this idea that online interaction is not real, I feel like that's kind of what's helping our current...

political climate. A lot of people slept on the fact that particularly the right wing was pushing online. And they were saying, you know, don't engage. Just ignore that. It's not real. And it turns out that these billionaires are using their platforms to invest and help push policy and politics. So it's affecting everything. We're turning it into like Ready Player One right now. Right. So you're saying your antidote to that is to

Like, what, stop... Like, get off the streaming services? Um, no, not at all. I mean, I mean, right now, as you can see, I'm on Blue Sky right now. You know what I'm saying? Because as far as I can tell, Blue Sky is the only one that is not bending the knee to Trump. You know what I'm saying? But, I mean, you know, um...

There have been great communities built on TikTok, on Meta, on Facebook, on Instagram, even on X. There have been great communities that have helped people. But at a certain point, you've got to really sort of vote with your dollars and vote with your time and energy. And all our engagement that we voluntarily give to these people, we're just seeing as numbers to them. And we don't even own this content. So you have to really think about where you want to put your time and energy.

Right, as a consumer. As a fan, as a fan of the person. So, like, I mean, you've been in this game for, like, 30 years now. Yeah, and I think it's important to note that I'm an artist that doesn't have a platinum record. But I'm still on a daily show 30 years later. And I feel like that... You know, um...

Thank you. I hope that can inspire people who feel overwhelmed by, like, not getting the props they deserve as artists. Okay. Sure. To, yeah, come on The Daily Show. Yeah, you don't have to be mainstream to be successful. Yeah, well, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I think the...

There's art that you produce and then there's commercial stuff and they both have their benefits. Yes. You know, I think what really made me a fan of you was that you kind of, I think you and Mos Def were the first guys to kind of show me hip-hop as an art form and not just a consumable thing to dance at at a nightclub. Shout out to Mos Def. He has a new album with Alchemist. Oh, yeah. No, don't shout him out. It's just you. Thank you.

This is you right now. But I guess because you've been here for 30 years now and you've seen what it was like 30 years ago, you've seen what it's like now, so where do you think the future of the music industry is going? I mean, because it doesn't sound good from what you're saying. I mean, yeah, I think that when it comes to hip-hop, too many people

Think of hip-hop as what the corporations are pushing on them. And the hip-hop community is way bigger than what you hear on the radio or what you see on videos. The hip-hop community is very vast. Matter of fact, I'm going to defend the hip-hop community more than any genre. I feel like hip-hop has more social justice workers, more activists, more people to speak up than any genre, hands down. So even though we're pushed this sort of corporate, greedy, capitalistic, sexist, violent image of hip-hop, when you look at the hip-hop community as a whole,

This is where the artists are becoming activists at. Right. But I guess I was asking, what do you think, if you're a musician right now and you're just getting started, what would you recommend to them? I would recommend that you stay far away from the music industry. Right? And

And build industry around yourself. You know what I'm saying? Like, make yourself a commodity. Make yourself... Not a commodity, but make yourself... Make it about yourself and bring a traffic to what you're doing as opposed to sending traffic outside of yourself. Okay. Okay. Okay, right. Well, that's fair. Yeah. Well, you know, you've been in the game a long time. You're also such a prominent activist for your community politically. Like, is...

I hate to ask you... Oh, let's go, Ronnie. I hate to ask you, like... I'm here for the questions. I know, but, like... They call me Dr. Fumar Johnson. I want all the smoke. I hate to ask you, like, as a black man, but as a black man, can you explain, like, where this appeal for Trump is coming from or where it's going, you think? Well, speaking on behalf of the entire black community...

Because I'll speak for the Asians and you speak for the I am king of the blacks, obviously. I think that the way that the way that people feel this despair, they feel to feel like the system is against them and they can't trust our leaders and they can't trust the politicians. Welcome to how it feels to be black.

The whole time. We've been feeling like that the whole time. So, this is not... Well, this kind of sucks. It does suck. And this is why people, you know, what they say, they say they want the rhythm but not the blues. You know what I'm saying? Sure. I will say this. Right now, I see a push, you know, people out there like Free Luigi. You know what I'm saying? I see this push for people to be like, eat the rich and be anti-oligarch and this push to explain classism

class divisions and class warfare and how these billionaire class, they don't care about race. Race is a social construct, of course, it's not even real. But this idea that we have to focus on class above everything.

And I want to make sure that we don't erase the marginalized people of color who started this fight for us and who often get erased at this time because the top 90%, over the top 90%, is straight white male on purpose. So in America, because America started the idea of, you know, with the Atlantic slave trade, the construct of whiteness being above all, this kind of started with the birth of America.

because it's baked into America. You can't separate race and class. Years ago, James Carville said, um, it's the economy stupid. But now, it's the racism stupid. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't separate everything that they do when it comes to immigration, when it comes to federal workers, when it comes to the economy. It's based on white nationalist ideas. This is why Elon Musk is doing Nazi salutes and no one cares. You know what I'm saying? Or they're even trying to defend it. Well, you know what I'm saying?

I wouldn't say no one cares, but yeah. Well, you know, this is the radical left-liberal. Yeah, we are our own tribe here. And I want to add to that, it's not they're fooling us by making us think it's about Democrat versus Republican. I'm not a Democrat. I've never been a Democrat. I voted Democrat before. I've never voted Republican, but I've never identified as a Democrat. This is not about...

Democrat versus Republican. This is about good versus bad. This is about colonizers versus the colonized. This is about the oligarchs versus the poor and working class people. It's not about Democrat and Republican. In this country, they change philosophies anyway. Sure. Sure. All right. Sure. Well...

You know, thank you. I just want to say thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for your art. Thank you for making the world a better place. Your music got me through some bad days and it also was a soundtrack for some of my better days. So thanks so much for making it and I hope you keep making music. The Confidence of Knowing is available now. Khalid Khali, everybody. We're going to take a quick break but we'll be right back after this. Thank you.

Hey, that's our show for tonight. Now, please consider supporting the California Fire Foundation. They're on the ground working with local fire agencies and community organizations to provide support to impacted residents in Los Angeles. If you can, please donate at the link below. Now, here it is, your moment of zen.

Congressman, I asked you a yes or no question. Do you agree with President Trump's decision to pardon these violent people and releasing them from jail? If they were truly violent, no. But do I know that they were? I don't know that. What do you mean you don't know that? We're showing the footage on the air right now. Congressman, you were there that day.

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