The Daily Show: Ears Edition

The Precap | Jordan Klepper on "Don't Believe Your Eyes" Week

43 min
Jan 12, 20263 months ago
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Summary

Jordan Klepper and Matt O'Brien discuss the week's major news stories under the theme "Don't Believe Your Eyes," covering the Minneapolis police shooting, the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuela's president and seizing oil assets, territorial expansion plans for Greenland/Cuba/Panama, January 6th revisionism, and RFK Jr.'s inverted food pyramid prioritizing red meat.

Insights
  • Partisan filters prevent people from interpreting identical information differently, even when presented with identical evidence (Hillary body double experiment demonstrates this)
  • The Trump administration operates with explicit disregard for performative morality that previous administrations maintained, directly stating intentions rather than disguising them
  • Rapid policy implementation (tariffs, Venezuela action) creates facts on the ground faster than legal challenges can resolve, following a tech startup 'ask forgiveness later' model
  • Media narrative control and blame assignment now occur instantaneously after tragedies, eliminating the space for collective human empathy that previously existed
  • Territorial expansion rhetoric has shifted from absurd to normalized through repeated Overton window expansion (Greenland now discussed seriously in NY Times editorials)
Trends
Post-truth governance: Direct contradiction of documented reality becoming normalized political strategyUnilateral executive action circumventing congressional oversight and legal processesRapid normalization of previously extreme policy proposals through repetition and media saturationPartisan interpretation of identical visual evidence creating parallel realitiesCombination of nationalist expansion rhetoric with corporate-style asset seizure and monetizationInstitutional capture of fact-checking mechanisms (Polymarket refusing to honor invasion bets)Erosion of performative institutional norms and diplomatic language in favor of explicit transactionalismFood policy driven by ideological contrarianism rather than public health evidenceStrategic distraction through multiple simultaneous crises preventing sustained focus on any single issue
Topics
Minneapolis Police Shooting and Partisan Narrative ControlU.S. Venezuela Military Action and Oil SeizureTerritorial Expansion Plans (Greenland, Cuba, Panama, Canada)January 6th Capitol Riot Revisionism and DenialTariff Policy and Supreme Court Legal AuthorityRFK Jr. Food Pyramid and Nutritional PolicyMilitary Spending Increases and Defense BudgetEpstein Files Release and Congressional DeadlinesPartisan Interpretation of Video EvidenceExecutive Power and Congressional OversightBetting Markets and Legal Definition DisputesImmigration Enforcement and ICE OperationsInstitutional Norms and Diplomatic Language Erosion
Companies
Polymarket
Betting market that refused to honor bets on Venezuelan invasion, claiming it didn't meet legal definition of invasion
Petco
Pet retailer sold live plant with snail infestation, offered refund for plant with 'no snail guarantee' violation
Comedy Central
Network that produces and broadcasts The Daily Show and this podcast
Paramount Plus
Streaming service where The Daily Show episodes are available on demand
Elevator Repair Service
Theater company performing adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses at Joe's Pub in New York
People
Jordan Klepper
Hosting The Daily Show this week, discussing major news stories and political developments
Matt O'Brien
Co-host of The Precap podcast, interviewing Jordan Klepper about the week's news
Donald Trump
President pursuing territorial expansion, Venezuela military action, tariffs, and policy reversals
Nicolás Maduro
President of Venezuela kidnapped by U.S. forces in military operation discussed
RFK Jr.
Health official who inverted food pyramid to prioritize red meat over vegetables and fruits
Marco Rubio
Secretary of State handling Venezuela situation and potential other international assignments
Stephen Miller
Administration official making statements about territorial expansion and policy implementation
Hillary Clinton
Subject of body double conspiracy theory used as example of partisan interpretation of identical evidence
Rob Reiner
Actor/director who made statements about recent shooting incident, criticized by Trump administration
James Joyce
Author of Ulysses, book being discussed in Klepper's book club at Elevator Repair Service
Quotes
"Don't believe your eyes. Which I gotta tell you, that is, put that on a t-shirt. This administration loves to put that out there."
Jordan KlepperMid-episode
"Log off and feel. Give it a shot."
Jordan KlepperEarly-mid episode
"He's getting older and wondering if not about legacy, but what is his name going to be on?"
Matt O'BrienMid-episode
"He did January 6th. He drove there. He went in there. He punched a cop. There was a videotape of it. He stood in front of a judge and said, I did it. And then when he sat down in front of me, he said, Antifa."
Jordan KlepperLate-mid episode
"We are the Uber Eats of the world."
Jordan KlepperLate episode
Full Transcript
You're listening to Comedy Central. Hello, welcome to the Precap. My name is Matt O'Brien. I'm here with Mr. Jordan Clepper, your host of the Daily Show this week. Here on the Precap is where we talk about maybe some of the news of last week and what we anticipate may be covering this week. Jordan, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Matt. After a long and contentious back and forth and heated negotiation, I'm returning to the Precap finally. There's a lot of angry people that I hadn't been back sooner, but it was nice to... It was a big day for them. I was just with... Because they were angry that you hadn't been on. That I hadn't been on. Yes, this is not you, but there was a vibe in the building. No, not me. I was fine with once. However, the groundswell of people were crashing the servers. That's how we talk here on the Daily Show. There's not a lot of water cooler talk, but there's a lot of protestation through the Internet chat. The servers. The servers went down. You are hosting the show this week. Thanks for chatting with us before you get busy. All right, so last week... This is what they love. They love this energy. Thank you. First of all, there was an air of judgments, nonchalance. Also, such an air of ownership. Thanks for hosting the show this week. Thanks for coming in. I'm going to close. I take time out of your busy schedule. I don't know why I haven't been asked back sooner because based on the top, we've got something to really bottle here. But there's a ramble. I think people... They like moving in and out of the lives. But that's podcasting, right? It is. It's just we're filling time. If we do this right, we will just vamp until an advertisement hits. Exactly. And maybe bleed into the next episode. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed we don't touch anything worthwhile. And yet, people continue to listen because what else are we going to do with our lives except listen to podcasts over and over again? Well, let's continue that positive energy by talking about the news from last week. Something that everybody wants to remember. There was, of course, this ice shooting in Minneapolis. A 37-year-old woman was killed. What's your blink reaction or any thoughts that you have? This... We're trying to wrap our head around. Obviously, the video footage is everywhere. The clips are everywhere. We're recording this and it's just happened. So we're just seeing the videos and we're seeing the reactions in real time. I mean, overall, you take a step back. This feels like the narrative this week is the don't believe your eyes week. And we might talk about January 6th. Multiple stories. Fitting to that. And this situation is a tragic situation. The video is horrific. The details that are coming out about this mother. I saw images of the glove compartment filled with toys for her child, which is just a harrowing image to see. As I mentioned, making assumptions about who she was and what she believed based on a terse description on social media. Not really having any of the facts or any of the information. It just goes to... We're seeing this reaction. The reaction in real time is a reaction of partisanship and of blame with no information. And it jumps over this very human space that we used to have that you would fill with empathy or sympathy when tragedy took place. A shooting, a death. Let's wait and see. But in that space, in that little space, there's a space where there was a human reaction to it. We saw this with the Reiner story a few weeks ago, which was horrific and infuriating. And to see the administration jump into that space where you could connect as a human without partisanship. And they filled that space with just anger, vitriol, and Trump made it all about himself. And then you see this again. And it's all narrative spinning right away. Right away. And here, Noam come out and do it and throw out domestic terrorism. Here, Trump come out and do it without any information. Not even knowing the name or the situation. You're not even seeing the videos that other people have seen. And suddenly, we're not talking about this horrific situation. We're not talking about this woman. We're not talking about the child who doesn't have a mother anymore. We're talking... We're fighting over what the narrative is and who is to blame and how you can weaponize this for further actions and strengths. And do they fit into this very... She'd be a very broad definition of who is the enemy. And they did it right wing medium and the president. But so Rob Reiner disagreed with me. So he's an enemy of America. And this woman, Renee Nicole Good, who was shot, she had she her in her bio and she was a lesbian. So anything that doesn't fit within this definition of what is patriotic and what is their vision of America, they start to bleed into while they're an enemy of our mission. And it seems like the qualification of that keep getting smaller and smaller. Well, she, her, she had to be a paid agitator, even though we have absolutely no evidence of that. Log off and feel. Just if you're at this point where you feel like you have to choose a side, log off and feel. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. That's a nice mantra. Log off and feel. And then the secondary part of this is this video and it's going to be over analyzed a billion times. But from what I have seen, it seems like a horrific situation and it seems like a situation where a shooting should not have taken place. It didn't feel like it was a self-defense shooting. It felt like a murder and a tragic situation. And yet again, we're being asked to not believe the things that you see. Believe the administration, believe your partisan leanings, don't believe your eyes. Which I gotta tell you, that is, put that on a t-shirt. This administration loves to put that out there. Of course. And everybody's seeing the same video and to see such starkly different interpretations of it is kind of baffling. I don't know, I can't really think of an analogy or another time where people are seeing what's in front of them and running it through such broadly different filters in their mind. I did a field piece for the show when Hillary Clinton was... The conspiracy theory was that Hillary Clinton was using a body double. And that there was somebody who was pretending to be Hillary Clinton and she was out there. So what we did is we printed two identical pictures of Hillary Clinton and we went to a Trump rally and we showed people identical photos of Hillary Clinton and asked them to point out which one was the body double. And they did. Of course. They consistently did. And beyond point... It's better than being wrong. It's better than being wrong. And you find it. That's the thing. When you have these blinders on, the blinders of partisanship, you find the difference. Identical photos. There is nothing at play here and yet people would look at that photo and they would say, well, you can tell the eye is different here. You can see the hair is different here. The color is slightly off. No, what is off is the filter you have on right now. And I think we all have those permanent filters that are put in front of our eyes here that we see all of the news with. Of course. Moving on from that dreadful story to the next one, we kidnapped the president of Venezuela, seized a couple of their oil tankers, and now it's slowly starting to crystallize what our semblance of a plan is moving forward. The latest is that we are going to essentially micromanage Venezuela and run Venezuela by seizing their oil and using the profits to run the country. That's as far as we've gotten. And it feels like... What comes to mind is it feels like a private equity firm coming in and firing everybody, in this case, kidnapping, and saying, okay, we're going to take it over and run it and essentially use the money for what we see fit to make it run more efficiently. Sounds like a good plan. It does. It sounds like they've thought it through. I think I've never heard of bad situations where that takes place. If you can name a historical precedent, particularly recently, that this has proven to be a bad idea, I'd love to hear it. So basically, we're going to take the oil money and put it in what amounts to a slush fund for President Trump, a checking account for President Trump to do with what he sees fit. I think you could fit it into the don't believe your eyes. The world is crazy right now. It just feels wild. I think you could fit it into don't believe your eyes. Although there's a detail here that is always compelling to me is we kidnapped a president and we're going to steal their oil. And America has not always been on the up and up when it comes to situations like this in the past. You look at the Iraq war. And yet there was at least an expectation that America would make an argument towards the better angels. That for democratic norms, for the safety of the people, there was an understanding at that time, even though Tom Fulory was at play and there were oil companies that were making a killing and there was a lot of things at play outside of the general welfare of the Iraqi people and the Americans at the time. There was still an understanding that the articulation around why America was there had to be above board, had to be moralistic in a certain sense. A check in balance on that, if you will. Yes, and yet you fast forward to here. And the old Congress folks are still playing that game. They feel like they have to reach to democracy and what have you. But Donald Trump gives it all away. And I think that's what's always been so compelling about this Trump administration is he doesn't feel that need to be kind in those moments that even if a leader wasn't earnestly kind, they felt they had to be performatively kind because that is what the office engendered and what was necessary. Donald Trump feels zero need to do that. So in some ways it's believed Donald Trump. That's been a winning strategy for him, so why would he stop? He's going in there to take the oil. And you're going to have some minions tell him, no, it's for democracy and for the... And then he'll undercut all of them with one press conference. So in that one, believe your eyes, he's telling you. He's always telling you what he's going to do. You don't have to read between the lines. Just turn off Fox News when they talk to somebody in Congress because they're spinning the old game. Donald Trump is playing the new one. There was a small story off Venezuela that I don't know if you saw, which was I guess the betting market. I don't know if it was Polymarket or Colchia or whatever. One of these betting markets had a... There was a bet of whether the U.S. would invade Venezuela. And a lot of people had bet yes. And when it happened, thought they had won a lot of money. And then Polymarket pushed back and said, well, technically this doesn't fall under the legal definition of an invasion. Again, it's that don't believe your eyes. Even though we have helicopters, we're kidnapping the president. The government, of course, is telling you it's not an invasion. This is just a law enforcement operation where we're sending highly trained military people into the country to extract the president in the cover of night. It's not an invasion. Are you telling me I should no longer trust the people at Polymarket? At Polymarket. If it hasn't already been a shit week, now my faith in Polymarket is ruined. I know. I hate for it to come out that you've lost a lot of money. Faith. You kept saying to me, because our offices are next to each other, you would just yell, I'm going all in on Venezuelan invasion, pushing all my chips to the center. Come on, invasion. It's not going to be an invasion. It's going to be a pinprick strike. Daddy needs health insurance. Let's go. Let's go. He does need health insurance, because if you're reading the news, it's all going to be taken away. It's going to be gone. Of course, another thing that came up last week is American expansion. We're still talking about taking Greenland. And now we've thrown Cuba and Columbia into the mix. Canada is still on the table. Maybe Iran we're talking about now. Panama. Have we heard Panama pop up again? Panama. That was old school a few months back. I haven't heard it pop up, but I'm sure it's back in the mix. That would be a nice property to have. The thing obviously that comes to mind is Trump ran on this vision of isolationism to turn our eyes within our own borders and fix what we have here at home. And six months in, he's shopping for other countries. Donald Trump. Invading other countries, kidnapping other presidents. The man wants his name on something. It's very clear. He throws it on the Kennedy Center. He's got it all up around the West Wing. The man wants his name on shit. He's been doing it for years. That's his whole thing. Give me a Trump Tower. Give me a Trump whatever. And he sees these lands right now. The national parks are free on his birthday. He's throwing parades on his birthday. This man wants property. And he's getting old. You can sort of see that. He's not getting older and wiser. He's getting older and wondering if not about legacy, but what is his name going to be on? And I think he sees Greenland and he's like, I think that's it. Let me throw it at Trumpland. I see it. And what happens naturally with age is you start to realize what's important. And in this case, naming things after yourself. What really makes you happy? The Don Row document. He threw that out there as well. Oh, the Don Row. Yes. It's just so clunky. It feels right. It just sounds like a poorly educated attempt at creating a name for a doctrine. And I think it essentially is. A lot of people will play off him talking about taking it for this country. He says tongue in cheek. But as we've seen with Venezuela, he's happy to circumvent Congress and any of the levers of democracy to just do it himself. So what is there? There seems to be very few roadblocks to him really just grabbing these countries if he wanted. Now, how serious should we take him? I don't know, but it does feel like it's not nothing. No, you know, that he keeps bringing it up. It's that overton window gets shifted where you suddenly... This was already happening with the initial Greenland conversation. It seemed so ludicrous at the time. We're sending officials there to visit. We sent Don Jr. back in the day to try to create a propaganda video to make people believe that Greenland wanted to be a part of the U.S. And now with this yet again, the conversation is happening. I'm seeing the New York Times, right? Editorials about what legal authority they could have over there, what they could do without military intervention, how they could expand bases. We're suddenly contemplating this as a reality. I mean, I do think the Maduro situation explains that it... or proposes that it could be very much a reality. It should be taken seriously. I think it has to give skeptics pause and say, oh, maybe he really will just... he will go in without any sort of congressional approval or permission and just do what he wants, which is obviously pretty nerve-wracking. All right, speaking of don't believe... continuing, don't believe your eyes weak here on the Precap. You can hear cheers from the audience. The servers. They're chanting. Don't believe. Don't believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't believe. This was the... last week was the fifth anniversary, January 6th. Same theme in terms of... So the White House put out a... you know, it's hard to call it anything other than factually inaccurate and almost fictional timeline of the day. But it... obviously there are a lot of people out there. I mean, it was peer propaganda, really. But obviously there are a lot of people there that agree with that or believe what they're putting out there. It's just... and it's sort of that same thing that we talked about with the ICE shooting in Minnesota. Everybody's seen the footage. And don't believe your eyes. This is... it was a peaceful, patriotic operation. It was the most photographed and videotaped crime in the history of the world. Sure. Yeah. There's never been a more well-documented crime on planet Earth. Yes. That we've all witnessed. Yeah. We've all seen videos. Which makes it that much funnier that so many Republican congressmen just said, I haven't seen the January 6th footage. I know January 6th. I'm sorry. I don't even know who Taylor Swift is. My judge is just like, I'm sorry, I'll catch up with it later. I'm so busy. I haven't seen the January 6th footage. Like you said, the most photographed event maybe in history. Yes. And yet this weird Rorschach test where people are seeing two entirely different events through what you would call that partisan, I don't know, I want to say sickness, but this filter that they can't seem to supplant. I'm curious, are you looking forward to more material from the J6 Choir? I do. I met a member of the J6 Choir. You met, okay, good. Here's the thing, you've met a lot of J6ers. I was there on January 6th. Yes. Working to be very clear. I've met J6ers. I saw it as it was happening. I met people after January 6th. I met a person who regretted their actions on January 6th. I interviewed a man who was sort of a, an eye-opening interview I had, and especially I did a little while back, was somebody who was there on January 6th. He met with people beforehand. He marched. He broke into the Capitol. He punched a police officer. It was on videotape. He was then arrested. He pled guilty. He served time in jail. He became part of the January 6th Choir. And I met and I sat down with him after he was out of jail, had been pardoned. And again, when I asked this man who drove to D.C. on his own, he went inside the Capitol. He punched a police officer. He went to court and then he pled guilty. I asked him, who did January 6th? And he said, Antifa. And to be clear, he did January 6th. Of course. He did it. He drove there. He went in there. He punched a cop. There was a videotape of it. He stood in front of a judge and said, I did it. And then when he sat down in front of me, he said, Antifa. That shit was Antifa. The human brain is an amazing thing. It does these contortions and shuts off at times. The desire to, to believe the thing you want to believe, overrides the desire to understand what is happening every fucking time. The only thing that he took from January 6th was the gift of music. That is true. And you know what? So, it's overlining. Maybe it was all worth it. In the end, that beautiful voice, that choir, it really has somebody begging. Hey, will you cut me out saying it's all worth? It was all worth it? No, that's, no, that's alright. That's days. That's days. That's days. Alright. Every minute precious on the precap. We're going to need to cut it for time. RFK's new food pyramid, of course, has moved meats. I guess red meat being as important to the top of the pyramid. He's inverted it. Red meat is now as important to ingest as fruit and vegetables. To be clear, I'm always confused by pyramids. Yes. They're a wonderful structure. I don't want to, I'm not anti-pyramid. But I don't fully understand. We work way up. Our Egyptian listeners breathing a sigh of relief. Yes, pro-pyramids. Yeah, yeah. Alright. I don't like the ways in which they were constructed. Of course. I'm union labor when it comes to pyramids. Of course. But... You would be a fair pharaoh. I would be the fairest of pharaohs. Fairest of pharaohs. Fairest of pharaohs. Okay, good. And I don't even need a pyramid, you know? Just a small, some altar. I don't know. I don't know. I just, it'd be very, I'm Midwestern in my Pharisees' wishes. But I want to look at it. A Midwestern pharaoh. Classic Midwestern pharaoh. He just wants everybody to like him. He's just like, he's just a sweetheart to watch. Just a respectable, respectable little place to bury him and his wishes, you know? Watch the Packers. Yes, watch the Packers. Send him off not into the River Hades, but into the Kalamazoo River, you know? Up past Ypsilanti. Kayaking, kayaking. But like with a pyramid. Where do I start with a pyramid? I'm looking at this pyramid now. Yeah. Do I start eating at the top and then working your way down? Yeah, you're right. And then they crawl up from the bottom. It's confusing. Like Laszlo's pyramid, right? Laszlo, you like complete the bottoms and you move your way to the top. Yep, exactly. So I think, is that sort of what we're supposed to be doing with the RFK pyramid? I would say I don't know that it's been scrutinized in the way that you're suggesting. I think they just said, turn it upside down. That looks cool. Yeah. It is almost a joke. This is where the administration does have a sense of humor. If you want to piss liberals off, you're like, okay, RFK is going to be in charge of the food pyramid. It's like, well, what's he going to do? Flip it upside down? Yeah, he flipped it upside down. I love that there's a giant rotisserie chicken at the top. I love the idea of Americans saying, I haven't had my daily rotisserie chicken. Everybody, dig in. It's time to get healthy. Go get that rotisserie chicken in red meat. It's already noon and I'm only halfway through my entire rotisserie chicken. I went to the website and they say, I'm paraphrasing, but I know they use it. They say, this is the end of the war on protein. That really says that. We are ending the war on protein. We don't, guys, do we have to be this battle focused? You can say merry protein again. Is there a war on protein right now? I don't, if you have any paramedopausal friends, you know there is not a war on protein. If anything, there is a new acceptance of the importance of protein. Protein's gotten way out of hand. The war on protein should be to tamp it down. There's protein in everything right now. Just RFK Junior, if you're listening, talk to your paramedopausal friends because they'll tell you protein is alive and well. Then talk to your 46-year-old friends and they will tell you, you have to watch the cholesterol. Red meat is no good. You can't eat an entire rotisserie chicken, a block of cheese, and red meat before getting to the grains. Drinking a bottle of olive oil according to this. Yeah, it's fascinating to me that if you look at the average carriage, if you walk through an airport or an amusement park, the idea that you'd think these people need to eat more red meat would come to your mind, feels, again, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a health expert, that seems to contradict. But you are a parambulator, which means you are a person who walks amongst the people. I believe my eyes. Yes, and a parambulator should believe their eyes. This is thematic here. Walk amongst the people, RFK Junior. All right, stop eating the bears in the woods and hanging out with all your Hollywood friends. Walk amongst the people and understand, you know what? Let's push them out and exercise vegetables and fruits. We can agree on that. Some whole grain, nice. And salmon, I like that we have salmon in there. Again, it feels like every time they talk health, they start out and they talk about, RFK Junior will come out and say some fairly rational things about, you know, it's good to eat clean, have more vegetables, have more fruits in your diet, and you're nodding along. You're like, yeah, maybe this is good. This is good. This is good. And then he always throws in, and then don't forget to eat an entire elk. That's exactly it. Don't cook it, dip it in measles, and then suck on the marrow. That is why he's tricky, because he'll say our food system is broken, our soil is tainted, huge conglomerates have compromised the nutritional value of our food. Okay, I'm on board. Also tap water makes you gay and causes gender dysphoria. Okay, well, can we just focus on that first part? That first part, you're going so good. I mean, that was the Trump game plan from day one. He's like, government is corrupt. It's like, all right, good message, good message. He's like, but let me get in there and make it real corrupt. Really? Okay, slow down. In that spirit, I'm starting a crypto coin that people can privately invest in. I'm putting my name right on it. This week, I don't know if there's anything off the top of your head that you think you might want to cover this week. A few things, just to prime the pump, the Supreme courts may release their tariff opinion, as to whether the tariffs are legal. Obviously, if they say they are illegal, that will be a huge, huge calamity because we will have to return money to, I mean, and I'm guessing that they will then just appeal or, I don't, what will they do? Will they just say, no, we're keeping the money? I don't know. What do you do at that point when you have to return $200 billion to people? Well, I'm sure America will do it responsibly. We've always been scrupulous. Yes. We're always, we're a country of our word. I'm sure they'll be able to appeal, even though I don't believe you can appeal Supreme Court opinions. No, I said appeal and I thought, no. That's it. That's the law of the land. But I feel like there has to be. Donald Trump has figured it out. He will, the very first appeal in Supreme Court history. We might have, we might go, kick that thing down to Venezuela. Give Marco Rubio another job. Give CBS an opportunity to compliment him on his good job doing these jobs and then have him deal with what the tariffs are going to do. So, yeah, we may cover that to see if the Supreme Court actually steps up and shuns Donald Trump. I'm not going to hold my breath, but that could happen. It reminds me of, the tariff situation reminds me of almost a tech startup situation where that philosophy of just do it and ask forgiveness later. Implement the tariffs. They've already been going now for a while. Let it work its way through the courts. And by the time there's a decision, we're already past the point of return. That seems to be strategically almost his entire agenda. Yeah, who's going to stop me? It's the East Wing of it all. There you go. It's like, oh, I'm going to tear down the East Wing. Well, what do you get? Oh, I already did it. Oh, shit. Well, the genie's out of the bottle. Is it more work to put it back in? When Uber would just release their service in cities without any, really kind of illegally, and by the time they get sued, well, people are already using it. The taxi industry has already gone there. And too late. So we are the Uber of the world, I guess you could say. Yeah, okay. Maybe the Uber Eats of the world. We are the Uber Eats. More accurately, we are the Uber Eats of the world. Yeah, what else are you going to? He asked for half a trillion, or he asked for $500 billion more for the military. Right. Of course. Right. This deficit hawk, this, we're going to cut spending. You cut spending by spending. I think that's what it is. You have to spend your way through it. That's where, and especially if we're going to run other countries, and I think- Oh, that should be cheap. Yeah, I was going to say, we got to get Greenland, we got to get Panama, we got to get Canada, we got to get more troops out there. So yeah, let's up that spending and see what we can do. And of course, in his first term, he spent more than any other president in history. So he's nothing if not consistent. Again, it's also interesting, as you do all this, the Epstein story has really fallen off for a little while, which is a curious thing. It's an odd phenomenon. It's an odd phenomenon that when you kidnap a president, you recklessly police the streets. Make news all the time and talk about invading Greenland. Somehow, people stop talking about the Epstein files. Even here on the precap, look how late into the show it's come up. This is- And we have it in our notes. Why aren't we talking about the Epstein files? There's a congressional order to release them, of course, that they're essentially ignoring or ignoring all the deadlines so far. And here we are, falling into their trap. You know what? I blame myself. Trying to steer this ship. And what do I do? You start. I took the bait. You took the bait. You should have started this show with Epstein talk right off the bat. That's the responsible thing to do. You got so cocky about being back up. We'll get to Venezuela if there's time. Yeah, exactly. So what do you expect to cover this week, if you could guess if there's anything on your mind or that you think will be inevitably something we have to talk about? It does feel like this, you know, we're sort of at the beginning of what is happening in Minneapolis. We're watching this response and this narrative shifting in a way that I think will continue into next week, where that will be I don't exactly know. But like what we've been watching, what is Trump sending ice to all of these cities has been sort of a powder keg. And perhaps this is lighting that powder keg. So I wouldn't be surprised if that is something we're covering in the new week, as well as watching what's happening internationally. With Venezuela, tracking whatever jobs Marco Rubio gets and whatever chaotic things Stephen Miller says that tries to make him more and more a man who wants to own whatever land that he so desires. And yeah, and let's maybe we should check back in on those Epstein files just to see if I feel like you could do all that stuff. You could do all that stuff on Tuesday, but Wednesday and Thursday has to be war on protein. It has to be war on protein. It's time to get back into it, right? That's a dense, dense issue. They say it's over. Two days minimum. They say it's over. War on protein week. I don't think anybody would blame you. Yeah, I think maybe you're right. Scratch that. Whatever happens. It's a war on protein week. Tune in. It's a war on protein week. We're going to dissect it from all the different angles. All right. Sit on your couch. Cook up yourself a good couple rotisserie chickens. And watch the Daily Show as we unpack this war on protein. Do your part to fight the war on protein. One rotisserie chicken per day. All right, Jordan Klepper. Call this the Daily Show and tell. Something on your mind, something you've watched, read, listened to, argued with someone about anything on the Klepper brain. Anything to share? You know what? Forgive me if this is pretentious. I've, I joined a book club to read the book Ulysses by James Joyce. There's a wonderful theater company called the Elevator Repair Service which is doing a big run of Ulysses at Joe's Pub here in New York. You should see them. They're a wonderful theater company. But in addition to putting that show up, they offered up a book club to actually read this notoriously difficult text which I've attempted multiple times, failed horribly. And for the last month and a half I've been at a book club trying to work my way through this book and it's been infuriating. Possible at times, incredible at times. It feels like, feels like when I was in like middle school and like we didn't have Showtime or Cinemax but you'd like go to the channel that had Cinemax. It was just all the squiggles and then every so often the squiggles would like unsquiggle and you'd see like a nipple. That's what reading Ulysses is like. And I'm just like, I have no idea what this is about. I have no idea about it. Oh, it's about Dublin. It's about Dublin. I see it. I see it. So that has been my experience of reading Joyce. But it's been wonderful to read something that is so dense and hard and difficult and yet rewarding because you start to piece these things together. And quite frankly, boy, getting lost in a novel that's not there just to make you escape but there to sort of like challenge what you can do with a literary form has been, it has been wonderful. And it has made me insufferable to the people around me because I'm like, oh, I want to talk about the Cersei chapter in Ulysses. And people are like, nobody wants to fucking talk about that. All right. Watch the chair company like a real person. And also you don't even understand what happened in that book. And I'm like, I don't, but I need to talk it out with somebody. And so that's where I'm at with my life. James Joyce, did he write Heated Rivalry? Yes, exactly. There's a lot of sex in Ulysses. There is a lot of sex. At least that's what I'm told when I can sort of make out what's happening, which is, again. It's a great analogy of the squiggle line. It is. Is there gyrating? Is there jostling? I think that's what it is. Oh, wait. Oh, this is the part about sex. Oh, yeah, I guess that is what they're talking about. Okay. Interesting. What are you showing and telling? What am I showing and telling? Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for passing it over. I want to know what is it? What is it? I don't mind. What has tickled your fancy? Well, my daughter got a fish tank filled with fish and a snail from Santa. And we woke up yesterday morning and saw 15 baby snails crawling around the tank and another sack full of them. So we're expecting a total of about 30 snails. And it's, you know, obviously a wonderful thing when you discover you're expecting snails. It's like, out of one snail? Well, so, and this is where it really gets interesting. The Petco employee told us that when you buy a live plant from them, it usually has a, to put in your fish tank, it has a no snail guarantee. You didn't understand the importance of that. I didn't. I thought, okay, yeah, sure. Sure. I don't see any snails on the plant. So we've, the transaction is complete. However, they have offered to refund me the 699 for the plant because it was riddled with snails. And I guess, yeah, in a tank, a tank can't, you can't sustain the life of 30 snails. Of course not. No. How does one sustain the life of one snail? One snail. They, I believe, feed on build up an algae and they're helpful to clean your fish tank. I believe 30 snails, that becomes an invasive species. There's not. Wait, what do you do? Are you going to exterminate 29 snails? That's a good question. We're having that moral dilemma right now. Just walking over with the kosher salt. The Morton's on top of it all. Oh, the horror. The horror. Honestly, yeah, that's probably what's going to happen. I don't know. I would, you can't, would you put like free snails on Facebook Marketplace? I don't know what you do with 30 baby snails. I think you take 29 snails. Although maybe you want to keep them all as a family. I don't know. Here's the thing. We have one main snail. Maybe she wants to raise one or two as her own. That's a tough choice. Do you take all the snails to Prospect Park? I think that's, can you find a puddle of urine of Prospect Park? I'm going to show up at the Humane Society with a crude cup of water containing snails and say, I'm re-homing these. How big are these snails? Tiny. Baby snails, like smaller than a dime? You know, oh sure. Half a tic-tac. Half a tic-tac. I mean, they're tiny. Yes. But now, another dilemma is my daughter, I believe, has already named a majority of them. Oh no. So, we're going to have to use their proper names as we're executing them. Well, clearly. Well, you are religious people. One of them is named Pickles. Sorry Pickles. Sorry Pickles, but you've been brined. Deal with it, Pickles. Oh man. Deal with it. Deal. That's the end of that. The majority of the episode was about how to kill baby snails. A little bit of talk about the Epstein files in Venezuela. That's the precap. I've been Matt O'Brien. This is Mr. Jordan Klepper. Please catch him hosting The Daily Show all this week on Comedy Central and Paramount Plus. Jordan, thanks for stopping by. Thanks. Protein week. Check in. War on protein. 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 Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.