RFK Jr.’s Gross Jeans and Stephanie Ruhle on Luigi

Summary

The Daily Beast Podcast: Episode Summary Title: RFK Jr.’s Gross Jeans and Stephanie Ruhle on Luigi
Release Date: December 19, 2024
Hosts: Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee

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1. Opening Banter and RFK Jr.’s Wardrobe (01:40 - 05:07)

The episode kicks off with Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee engaging in their characteristic witty banter, setting a light-hearted tone for the discussion. They delve into a humorous conversation about RFK Jr.’s choice of attire, particularly his thick, tight, sweaty workout jeans. Samantha humorously remarks:

"RFK Jr. Working out in his jeans. Like in a way that makes me throw up."
[02:48] – Samantha Bee

Joanna adds to the humor by referencing RFK Jr.’s frequent topless workouts and his appearances in Cheryl Hines’s beauty line video:

"He's doing a lot of certainly topless stuff because there was that video of him for Cheryl Hines's beauty line."
[03:15] – Joanna Coles

The discussion underscores the playful dynamic between the hosts as they riff on the eccentricities of public figures.

2. Exile of Public Figures: Kimberly Guilfoyle and Prince Andrew (05:07 - 12:06)

Joanna and Samantha shift focus to current events, discussing the apparent exile of Kimberly Guilfoyle to Greece and Prince Andrew's self-imposed exile to Bahrain. Joanna shares a personal connection to Greece, reminiscing about her childhood and her parents' admiration for Greek singer Nana Mascuri. This leads to a lighthearted speculation on who might accompany Guilfoyle in Greece, mentioning celebrities like Zach Galifianakis and Arianna Huffington.

Samantha humorously critiques Prince Andrew’s predicament, exploring the implications of his new association with a Chinese spy:

"In his words, Andrew is desperate. This is in a letter from one of the advisors to the alleged Chinese spy... Andrew is desperate."
[09:27] – Joanna Coles

The conversation highlights the political ramifications of these exiles, touching on the influence of high-profile friendships and the broader impact on international relations.

3. Business Leadership and Donald Trump: Interview with Stephanie Ruhle (14:23 - 25:06)

The podcast features an in-depth interview with Stephanie Ruhle, the Senior Business Analyst and Anchor of MSNBC's "The 11th Hour." Stephanie provides insightful commentary on the intersection of business leadership and politics, particularly focusing on interactions between prominent business figures like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk with Donald Trump.

Key Discussion Points:

• Transactional Nature of Trump: Stephanie emphasizes Trump's pragmatic approach, describing him as "completely transactional."

  "He will be able happily hand over power, control opinions from any one of these people if they give him what he wants."
  [17:34] – Stephanie Ruhle

• Business Settlements with Trump: She discusses Disney’s recent $60 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit initiated by Trump, analyzing its implications for media organizations.

  "A company like Disney, $15 million is not a lot of money. They're insured for it."
  [20:57] – Stephanie Ruhle

• Chilling Effect on Media: Stephanie elaborates on how such settlements create a "chilling effect," discouraging media outlets from critical reporting due to fear of litigation.

  "This is going to be a long and arduous few years... Republicans now have all of this control if they end up spending their time just going down, you know, litigious rabbit holes."
  [25:06] – Stephanie Ruhle

• Regulatory Challenges: The conversation also touches on the broader challenges businesses face under Trump’s administration, including regulatory hurdles and the lack of direct influence on policy-making.

  "These social media, they're going to... They have designed rage to sell, not content."
  [30:35] – Stephanie Ruhle

Stephanie offers a nuanced perspective on how businesses navigate the political landscape, highlighting both the resilience and vulnerabilities of large corporations when interfacing with political figures.

4. The Business of Rage: Impact on Society and Media (25:06 - 38:34)

Stephanie Ruhle introduces the concept of the "business of rage," explaining how media and social platforms capitalize on and amplify public anger, leading to societal polarization.

Key Insights:

• Social Media Algorithms: Stephanie critiques how algorithms prioritize content that elicits strong emotional reactions, particularly anger, to drive engagement.

  "The algorithm is now feeding you specific content to get you angrier... It has small impacts in our lives, and then it has huge ones."
  [26:19] – Stephanie Ruhle

• Normalization of Violence: She connects this to real-world consequences, such as the normalization of violence and public celebrations of tragic events.

  "We have this feeling of life's not fair... but we are the most prosperous country in the world. That doesn't match how badly we feel."
  [38:15] – Stephanie Ruhle

• Political Narratives: The discussion extends to how political narratives are shaped by these societal trends, with a focus on Donald Trump's strategy of using defamation lawsuits to silence critics and manage his public image.

  "Donald Trump getting into a lawsuit is not new news. The question is, how are people going to interface with it?"
  [25:06] – Stephanie Ruhle

Stephanie calls for greater media accuracy and responsibility, suggesting that the current environment requires stringent fact-checking and critical reporting to counteract the spread of misinformation and destructive rage.

5. Friendship and Personal Growth: Conversation with Dan Bukatinsky (46:26 - 71:03)

The episode transitions to a warm and engaging conversation with Dan Bukatinsky, acclaimed actor known for his role as James Novak on "Scandal" and his appearances in "Our Little Secret with Lindsay Lohan." Dan shares personal stories about his friendship with Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee, emphasizing the importance of vulnerability and embracing failures.

Key Highlights:

• Forging Friendships in Hollywood: Dan recounts how his friendship with Joanna began at the White House Correspondents Dinner and blossomed into a decade-long bond.

  "We sat down at the dinner and we do not stop talking for four hours... We started talking that weekend and have not stopped talking for 10 years."
  [55:25] – Dan Bukatinsky

• Failure Fridays: He introduces the concept of "Failure Fridays," where individuals share their setbacks and embarrassments to foster resilience and community support.

  "If we could all start to inspire one another by our setbacks... let's start inspiring each other on how we can get up off the floor when we have a setback."
  [56:08] – Dan Bukatinsky

• Personal Anecdotes: Dan narrates a poignant story about losing his parrot, Kermit, illustrating his journey from despair to acceptance and using humor to cope.

  "I was horrified because of what I would have to tell my daughter about the failure... My daughter calls me the bird killer."
  [60:25] – Dan Bukatinsky

• Career Reflections: He reflects on his acting career, the challenges of controlling one's destiny in the entertainment industry, and the importance of saying "yes" to opportunities despite fears and uncertainties.

  "This opportunity to spend three and a half weeks just working... will have some kind of additive sort of restorative powers to me."
  [47:54] – Dan Bukatinsky

• Building Resilience: Dan emphasizes the value of embracing failures as stepping stones to success, advocating for a mindset that views setbacks as essential for personal and professional growth.

  "Pushing against resistance is the only thing that makes us stronger."
  [59:16] – Dan Bukatinsky

The conversation with Dan Bukatinsky is both inspiring and relatable, offering listeners valuable insights into overcoming personal challenges and the significance of supportive friendships.

6. Holiday Cheer and Wrap-Up (38:34 - 71:03)

The latter part of the podcast is filled with festive banter as Joanna and Samantha exchange Christmas gifts and share holiday traditions. They discuss traditional English treats like mince pies and Christmas crackers, adding a personal and charming touch to the episode.

Notable Moments:

• Gift Exchange: Joanna presents Samantha with English mince pies and whipped honey, symbolizing their camaraderie and the festive spirit.

  "These are English sweet meats called mince pies... absolutely delicious."
  [40:25] – Joanna Coles

• Humorous Interactions: The hosts engage in playful exchanges, including pretending to receive the police and ambulance, adding humor and light-heartedness to their interactions.

  "You're really creepy. You're really, really creepy."
  [43:14] – Samantha Bee

• Final Thoughts: They conclude with heartfelt messages about the importance of friendship, the impact of social media on personal relationships, and well-wishes for the holidays.

  "Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas Holidays."
  [43:57] – Joanna Coles

The episode wraps up on a warm and joyous note, blending insightful discussions with personal anecdotes and holiday cheer.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Daily Beast Podcast masterfully weaves together political commentary, business analysis, and personal storytelling. Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee navigate complex topics such as the interplay between business leaders and political figures, the societal impact of social media-induced rage, and the personal growth derived from embracing failures. The inclusion of insightful interviews with Stephanie Ruhle and Dan Bukatinsky enriches the conversation, offering diverse perspectives and relatable experiences. The festive closing adds a delightful and personal touch, making the episode both informative and entertaining for listeners.

Transcript

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[Joanna Coles]

And bienvenue. Welcome to the Daily Beast podcast. I'm Joanna Coles, Chief Content Officer of the Daily Beast.

[Samantha Bee]

And I am Samantha Be, chief Content officer of RFK Juniors wardrobe of thick, tight, sweaty workout jeans.

[Joanna Coles]

This is the Daily Beast podcast where Sam and I break down the people and the stories of the week that tickle our fancy. This week in the Download, we're talking Kimberly Guilfoyle's apparent exile to Greece, Prince Andrew's self exile to Bahrain. We're also welcoming our Beast of the Rule, the acclaimed MSNBC anchor, an all around badass. And as a holiday bonus, we've got a fun conversation with my old friend Dan Bukatinsky, the lovable actor featured in the smash movie, actually the global number one movie on Netflix, Our little secret with Lindsay Lohan.

[Samantha Bee]

But first, you had your holiday party last night and I heard you were cutting a rug.

[Joanna Coles]

Cutting a rug? What is that from the 50s? From the 50s.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, you said tickles are fancy.

[Joanna Coles]

Okay, so we're doing 50s job.

[Samantha Bee]

We're doing 50s. But we used to say in our family we would Say it tickles me pink, which I think is dirty. Oh, isn't that dirty?

[Joanna Coles]

Well, what is the pink?

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, I don't know. I don't want to say. I don't want to say. But I will tell you what tickles my pink. No, I won't. I'll tell you what tickles my Fancy is actually RFK Jr. Working out in his jeans. Like in a way that makes me throw up.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, I was gonna say I would be very nervous if you were excited by RFK working out. Cause he's working out topless. For those who haven't seen the pictures which were everywhere.

[Samantha Bee]

Everywhere.

[Joanna Coles]

He's also doing a lot of certainly topless stuff because there was that video of him for Cheryl Hines's beauty line.

[Samantha Bee]

He's constantly topless and doing pull ups and chin ups and he was in.

[Joanna Coles]

The shower in her video for her body cream, I think. Or soap.

[Samantha Bee]

Do you think that they work out topless in their jeans together?

[Joanna Coles]

I hope so. I hope so. No, the couple that work out topless stay together.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

They do.

[Joanna Coles]

This is not obviously what he did with his last couple of wives.

[Samantha Bee]

I have so many notes about what we would call his jeans line if he were ever to create them.

[Joanna Coles]

Go on.

[Samantha Bee]

I think, well, my top choice is yeasty jeans. My top choice is yeasty jeans. But also, we were wondering in our pre meeting when we actually do discuss the things that we're going to discuss on this podcast. I know that's hard to believe. If you're listening right now.

[Joanna Coles]

I believe because I don't remember us discussing yeasty jeans.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, I remember us discussing in detail how often we think that he washes his jeans. And I think the answer is not very often.

[Joanna Coles]

I bet RFK Jr. Is one of those people that thinks if you just leave your jeans, they self clean.

[Samantha Bee]

They self clean.

[Joanna Coles]

Like cashmere is supposed to do.

[Samantha Bee]

Cashmere is supposed to. It does not cashmere.

[Joanna Coles]

Cashmere is supposed to self clean.

[Samantha Bee]

Okay.

[Joanna Coles]

You take your cashmere sweater off, you leave it for a few days and it's supposed to self clean. I'm confident RFK Jr thinks that's what his jeans do.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, his jeans have a salt crust.

[Joanna Coles]

They probably stand on their own.

[Samantha Bee]

I'm sure they do. And I'm sure they're trying to run out the door just like.

[Joanna Coles]

Of course they are.

[Samantha Bee]

Just like the rest of us trying.

[Joanna Coles]

To get vaccinated from him.

[Samantha Bee]

God. Now, speaking of running out the door, Kimberly Guilfoyle exiled to Greece.

[Joanna Coles]

This is such a. Wow. Can we just have a moment because I grew up. I mean, I grew up in Europe, so I spent some time on the Greek islands. But actually I feel aligned to Greece because my parents first album was by a Greek singer called Nana Mascuri.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, Joanna, I remember Nana Mascuri. Well, we had an Austin Mini in our family and we had an eight track tape player in the Austin Mini and we had exactly one eight track and that was Nona Muskouri with her big thick glasses and her face mole with little hairs coming out of it.

[Joanna Coles]

Which I think in Greece is a sex symbol.

[Samantha Bee]

I think so. She's the Britney Spears of grease in the 1970s. Do you remember the song?

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I remember White Rose of Athens, which is what the album was called. And my parents proudly displayed it. And the interesting thing about it was they'd actually bought it for a friend who then. Who was ill and then died. And so my dad bought the album and we had it propped up, as you know, because consumerism was just beginning then. And it was a sign of. Well, it was a sign.

[Samantha Bee]

So you reinherited. We reinherited album that you had given.

[Joanna Coles]

And I remember it was black album or the front was black. She was there in a white dress, the white rose of Athens. And then there was a red rose, sort of artistically put to lunch.

[Samantha Bee]

Sure. Nana never leaves you. She just boomerangs right back into your life. Well, let me blow your mind right now. Love is a rose, but you better not pick it. It only grows when it's on the vine. Handful of thorns and you know you've missed it. You lose your love when you say the word mine and then you clap. I don't remember the rest.

[Joanna Coles]

I don't remember.

[Samantha Bee]

Gina turned all red.

[Joanna Coles]

That is just. Well, it's just like the best, the best moment of our podcast history together.

[Samantha Bee]

Can you imag Kimberly Guilfoyle getting that call? I mean, it really is. Isn't that. I mean, we all were so outraged about like. Well, lots of people were outraged about Joe Biden pardoning his son. But isn't this the ultimate pardon? Just exiling your son's ex girlfriend to a lonely Greek island. She must have been like, who do I know who's Greek? Who do I know who's Greek?

[Joanna Coles]

Zach Galifianakis.

[Samantha Bee]

Zach Galifianakis.

[Joanna Coles]

I mean, I could see he could become very helpful in the Greek. Or the American Embassy in Athens, I'm assuming, is where she's going to be. Where I have to say, it's not great air quality in Athens gets very hot in the summer.

[Samantha Bee]

Get Maria Menounos on the phone.

[Joanna Coles]

Okay. Who else is there? Arianna Stassinopoulos. Nee. Well, not nee. Ne. Stasianopoulos. Huffington. Sisypas. Yes, Sisypas, the tennis player. Now that I could see them making some sweet Greek fun together.

[Samantha Bee]

Of course, Michael Dukakis. She doesn't know that Aristotle Onassis is long past, so she's like, get me one of the Onassises, George Stephanopolopoulos. I don't think that. I don't think that he'll be receiving a call. I don't think that he'll be receiving a call.

[Joanna Coles]

It's just magnificent. So I want to go to Greece, lose my passport, and then have to drop in at the embassy and see if she's there. Do you think she'll be behind the counter stamping things?

[Samantha Bee]

Of course. That's what one does. That's what one does.

[Joanna Coles]

She's gonna throw great parties. There's gonna be a lot of fig leaves and fig. What are they called? Dolmades.

[Samantha Bee]

Dolmades. What's going on with Prince Andrew?

[Joanna Coles]

Oh. So Tom Sykes is our royal correspondent based in the uk, and we have an extraordinary story about Prince Andrew, who once again has chosen badly in the friends department. And you will remember, close observers, myopic readers of the Daily Beast on the royal family will know that Prince Andrew has been in trouble, largely because as the infamous BBC interviewer, which has now been the subject of not one, but two movies, that he was so honorable, he kept his friendship with Jeopardy. Epstein going a little bit longer than it should have done. He was just so honorable, he couldn't break up that friendship.

[Samantha Bee]

That friendship.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, now he's got a new friend. That's good, because he's been exiled from the Royal family. He's got a new friend who in fact, turns out to be a Chinese spy.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, my God.

[Joanna Coles]

And what is so fascinating about this is the emails that have come to light between the Chinese spy and one of Andrew's advisors. And it turns out that the Chinese spy very quickly realizes that, in his words, Andrew is desperate. And I wanted to read. This is in a letter from one of the advisors to the alleged Chinese spy. I hope it's clear to you where you sit with my principal, that is Andrew, and indeed his family. You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship. Outside of his closest internal confidence. You sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, I hope he takes great comfort in all those corgis that he inherited.

[Joanna Coles]

He did. He inherited the corgis after the Queen died.

[Samantha Bee]

They're his only friends.

[Joanna Coles]

Okay, so I just want to read one more bit of it, which is that this is from internal documents from the spy's phone. And there are. One of the statesmen is obviously looking for advice on how to deal with Andrew. Important manage expectations. Really important not to set too high expectations. He is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh my God. I would die on the spot if I read about myself in an email that someone said that I was so desperate that I would cling to literally anything.

[Joanna Coles]

This is. And you're. I mean, with greatest respect, you are not a member of the British royal family.

[Samantha Bee]

I certainly am not. Can you imagine what his family is thinking? They're like, andrew, why don't you just take the longest walk off that terribly short pier when you just start swimming toward the horizon, don't come home.

[Joanna Coles]

I mean, this is devastating for King Charles. Devastating because it's his younger brother and I'm sure he must feel to some extent protective of him. But there are now rumors that he may move to the Middle east and do a Juan Carlos who, as you remember when he was found with his hand in the Spanish royal family till moved off to the uae. And I think there are now rumors that Andrew will move to Bahrain.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, a lot of people have pet tigers there. Watch those corgis.

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[Joanna Coles]

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[Samantha Bee]

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[Unknown Speaker 2]

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[Unknown Speaker 3]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Joanna Coles]

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Don't, don't, don't. No, I mean, honest started this. I thought I only have to do like four of these. I mean it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a [e-mail] switch whenever you're ready.

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[Joanna Coles]

We are thrilled to be joined by this week's Beast of the Week. Stephanie Rule, the vivacious senior business analyst and anchor of MSNBC's the 11th Hour, who is known for her energetic interviews with titans in business, politics and entertainment. Serena Williams, Martha Stewart and Stephanie even got one of the first one on one exclusive interviews with Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. She was picked for good reason. She's also appeared on screen with Trump, with Biden, with Jamie Dimon, Bill Gates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kobe Bryant, who she says was one of her most thoughtful interviews Diddy, who was one of the rudest, Kanye, the craziest, Joanna Coles and Samantha B. The best ever. Stephanie is so engaged and present in her interviews that she practically jumps out of the screen. In fact, someone once told me that the reason you were so good on television was that you looked as if you were crawling across the desk to get to the reader and holler them and say, I feel that way and say that. Watch me. So we can't wait to talk to her about everything going on this week, specifically ABC's pricey settlement of the Trump defamation lawsuit. Stephanie, welcome.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Joanna Coles]

I did want to start with someone else that you've interviewed Jeff Bezos, who's going down to Mar a Lago today. We're recording this on a Wednesday. What do you think he and Donald Trump are going to talk about?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I actually interviewed Jeff Bezos the day he launched his rocket. The day he.

[Joanna Coles]

Listen, Jeff Bezos came back pretty quickly, right? 11 minutes. He did.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

11 minutes. 11 minutes. Listen. He's going down there to do what everyone else is, and I'm not going to say kiss the ring. They're going down there to play ball. And while a ton of people are very angry to see all these business leaders go down there, I don't know why we thought that they're anything but pragmatic. Right? They lived through Donald Trump the first term. They all witnessed Republicans versus Bob Iger and Disney. And not only does no one want to be in that position, they all know that Donald Trump is completely transactional. Right? They are going through. They're just wrapping up the Biden administration where if you ran a business, if you are successful, chances are you only got more successful and your business grew in the last four years. However, it's safe to say you didn't have a direct line into the White House. Lina Khan, who runs the ftc, was not open to your ideas of mergers and acquisitions. And they know that Donald Trump is. And I'm not saying that as a positive or a negative. Most things he doesn't even have a view on. Right. A year ago, Donald Trump was anti cryptocurrency. Right. I'm not sure he knows what AI stands for, but one of the reasons I think guys like a Jeff Bezos or certainly an Elon Musk know that one of the most important transformational things that are going to happen in the next five years is what artificial intelligence is going to look like. What does Donald Trump think? He thinks nothing. He doesn't care. But he will be able happily hand over power, control opinions from any one of these people if they give him what he wants. We don't know what that is. Chances are it's something having to do with personal business or just kissing his ring and giving him more power, which he loves well.

[Joanna Coles]

And we know that he wants funds for the inauguration. So we saw Dara at the CEO of Uber, whose last name you can pronounce and I probably can't, gave $2 million to the inauguration fund. Mark Zuckerberg has given $1 million to the inauguration fund. So that's clearly one way of appeasing Trump. The thing I wanted to ask you is Donald Trump famously is actually bad at running businesses.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Joanna Coles]

You know, Trump water, Trump University, Trump stakes. So what did they think of him as a business person?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

They don't have to think about him as a business person. They have figured him out. He's completely transactional. And when you talk about these people that have infinite wealth, what they don't have is infinite power. They have regulators, they have the SEC that could be on them at any given moment. They've got regulations standing in the way of how they want to grow their businesses and change their businesses. And they know that Donald Trump is purchasable. Right. And the fact that you could have a bat phone into the Oval Office, that's worth a lot of money.

[Samantha Bee]

Do you think it was an investment mistake for me to buy you both Donald Trump gold watches for Christmas?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I wanted the sneakers, but I'll take the watch. But the thing that I think is so interesting, I stole the Bible.

[Joanna Coles]

I'm just saying I was the Donald Trump authorized Bible.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Still a chance in 2016. You did not see these people go to the inauguration. You did not see American designers line up to dress Melania. What's so. And even after Trump won, CEOs were walking a tightrope. Should we join this business council? Should we go to the White House? Because they knew they were going to get backlash from their employees, from their customers, probably not Their. It could end up being their shareholders. If customers would have left. They, they feared boycotts. That fear seems to be gone. And it's not like Donald Trump won in a landslide. He, you know, he definitively won. And yes, Republicans gain control of Congress, though Mike Johnson has the thinnest, thinnest margin than you've seen in a very long time. I just find it so interesting that it was such a complicated thing for business leaders to interface with Trump when he was president last time. Right. Even, even for a CEO to say on record, well, Donald Trump seems to be pro business. You know, let's see what that's going to look like. If you said something like that, you'd face serious backlash. Somehow that's all dissipated.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, I feel like everybody's just playing the hand of cards that they've been dealt now. Now everyone's just like, well, we got four years. Whether we like it or not, let's do this thing. Let's survive.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And they fear in the same way that CEOs fear the backlash that Bob Iger got, People don't want it.

[Samantha Bee]

Right.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, let's talk about the Bob Iger moment and the Desantis decision, obviously the governor of Florida to go after Disney because of the don't say gay bill. This week we saw AB settling with Donald Trump for $60 million settlement after Donald Trump accused George Stephanopoulos of saying that he had raped someone. That's not what he was found guilty of. Talk to us about that decision. What do you think? Is it as chilling as the media is making out?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I can't really opine on the details of why specifically they settled.

[Joanna Coles]

Right.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

We don't know the ins and outs of that. However, to a company Like Disney, $15 million is not a lot of money. They're insured for it. There's a very, very good.

[Joanna Coles]

And it's a company that's worth $200 billion.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And there's a very good chance they could say in this complete rage fueled environment, we don't want to have to face day in and day out of even random emails being exposed, even if they say nothing much to it, just embarrassing emails, day to day emails that any of us could have between our.

[Joanna Coles]

Colleagues, emails at Disney going back and forth discussing Donald Trump, probably in preparation for the interview. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Or not. Who knows what they would be. It's easy to say. The company could say, we need to move forward, we need to get into 2025 and move on. However, for the media environment, for the rest of the world, when they see a settlement like this, there is a chilling effect. Right. Because what happens immediately after, well, you see Donald Trump say, I'm going to sue the Des Moines Register. I'm going to sue the pollster who put out a poll just before the election that said women in Iowa are going to vote for Kamala Harris. Listen, she and the Des Moines Register were already proven wrong and they already submitted all of their data and they're saying, listen, we will fight Donald Trump. We will protect our First Amendment right. But who knows how deep their pockets are. And we can all say, listen, a judge is going to throw this out. By the time you get to a judge, tens of thousands of dollars are spent in legal fees. So if you're a local news organization, right, and you're saying, I want to accurately cover this administration like all of us are going to, it's a scary time. So for all of us, this is a warning. You better have your T's crossed, you better have your I's dotted, which I actually think is a positive because we need to do that. But yeah, there's definitely a chilling effect.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, it's a cry for accuracy in the media. Right, but which is A good thing. Yeah, which totally is a good thing.

[Samantha Bee]

Except that, okay, accuracy is very important. We know that it is critical. But a defamation lawsuit can still be brought. That is a terrible inconvenience that you could absolutely fight in court, but you're not going to want to when those winged monkeys are unleashed upon you. It is just like it is a terrible experience and it can ruin a lot of lives.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Being involved in a lawsuit is an absolute disaster. However, I think people are going to absolutely cover this White House, tough as nails with accuracy. The truth matters.

[Joanna Coles]

So what's your interpretation of the Disney decision then? It's pragmatic business. They've got, this is a huge company that's got tons, you know, it's got parks, it's got all sorts of business. This is a small distraction from its news division.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That is my take. However, I really can't opine on why exactly did they do this. We don't know. Right. We don't know what happened there. But from a business perspective, it makes sense that they would say settle this, move on.

[Joanna Coles]

And what does it mean for George Stephanopoulos?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Listen, he's an extraordinary journalist. He's always been an extraordinary journalist. And the idea that this is his company not supporting him, I don't think that's the case. If his company wasn't supporting him, he wouldn't be on the air. He's on the air every single day. And they just said, yes, we're going to settle this. Here's $15 million and move on. I don't know how he's feeling, so I can't opine on that. But I don't think this shows that Disney isn't behind him. I don't think this shows that he's not a great journalist. He is.

[Samantha Bee]

Do you sense that this is emboldening, though? Because I do feel like in the last for Trump. Yeah. Because in the last 24 hours it feels like now it feels like this brought him a lot of joy and satisfaction. And so I think this is going to accelerate and really kind of, I think it's going to be kind of a non stop defamation accusation.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes. Look what's happened in the last 24 hours to Liz Cheney. Right. Right now they're going after Liz Cheney and the January 6th committee. This is going to be a long and arduous few years and it'll be unfortunate that Republicans now have all of this control if they end up spending their time just going down, you know, litigious rabbit holes. Which, by the way, this isn't new for Donald Trump. This has always been his signature behavior.

[Joanna Coles]

This is what he's done.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Dozens and dozens of lawsuits. Right? You can do an entire podcast series of contractors and subcontractors over the years who Donald Trump had a financial dispute, didn't pay the bill, underpaid the bill. So Donald Trump getting into a lawsuit is not new news. The question is, how are people going to interface with it?

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Right.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, and also, how does this play out over a period of the next two years until the midterms?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It all depends on what happens, because a lot of people said, we are voting for change. We want something that's different. And so if he spends the next two years just going down rabbit holes of the Des Moines Register and Liz Cheney, that's not going to help people's lives get better. Right. At the end of the day, people want to be financially secure, physically safe, socially free, and they want the government to ensure that that happens. People right now feel angry. They feel disappointed, despite the fact that we have the most prosperous country in the world. And they said, I'm voting for something different. And now it's sort of like, all right, Republicans, you've got the ball. What you gonna do?

[Joanna Coles]

So let's talk about that disconnect, because actually, you know, we all love that book Factfulness, which actually talks about the fact that for the most part, our lives are much better than they were 15 years ago, 20 years ago, certainly 50 years ago. And yet there is such a disconnect with how people talk about their lives and how they say they feel about their lives. Plus, we know that a lot of people say they have mental health issues. They're living with tremendous anxiety, whatever the pressures of that. I know this is something you feel strongly about.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I feel so strongly because I think at the root of this is the business of rage, right? Forever and ever, we thought, you know, sex sells. Sure, sex sells. Rage is what sells.

[Joanna Coles]

Right?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And there is enormous business complex out there that have identified that people are angry and people feel alone. And the algorithm is now feeding you specific content to get you angrier. You know, we always have this feeling of life's not fair. But even if I'm doing well, even if I am going on spring break to Florida, I'm going to go on social media and see that you're in Italy, and I'm going to see that you're in Botswana, and life's not fair. And so what the algorithm is doing is taking the things that you are annoyed about that you're feeling a little unhappy about. And they're cranking them up more and more and more. And it has small impacts in our lives, and then it has huge ones. Think about what happened just a few blocks from here. Two and a half weeks ago in New York City, a CEO was walking into a business conference and was gunned down. He was shot in the back. That doesn't take away from the fact that the health insurance is deeply flawed in this country, that we have a sick country, that people are being treated terribly. You can put that in category A, but in category B, a human being was gunned down and people are celebrating it and treating him like a folk hero. And the normalization of this violence has come from this ratcheting up in rage, in the business of rage. Some people look at who he's following and they say, follows Elon Musk. He follows Tucker Carlson. He's a madman. Maga. Someone says what? He went to Penn. He was indoctrinated by woke Ivy League professors. He's a Bernie Sanders anarchist. And the crazy thing is we're not taking a set of facts and saying, let me absorb this and let me see who this complicated person is.

[Samantha Bee]

Right?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

We have this moment where we need a person to fit a narrative that fits our current political views. And that's a huge problem.

[Joanna Coles]

So you pointed out that Donald Trump had changed his mind about crypto. He's also changed his mind about TikTok. So initially he thought it should be banned. Then amazingly, there was bipartisan support to actually get it banned. The day it has to be sold or divested from Chinese ownership is the 19th of January. Where are you on TikTok? What do you think should happen?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

What's amazing is I love when Donald Trump was asked about TikTok with my colleague Kristen Welker, and he said TikTok. I did really well on TikTok in the election. They love me. The youngins, they love me. I think TikTok is just part of this problem. We have no regulation on our social media platforms. Ask millions of people on the street, where do you get your information? Where do you get your news? And they're going to tell you social media. And these social media, they're going to.

[Joanna Coles]

Tell you TikTok, actually. And I do think TikTok's different to Facebook or. And, you know, I should declare I'm on the board of Snapchat here. But being owned by an adversary is very unusual. To have a media company owned by an adversary is unheard of in America. There's certainly no reciprocity you cannot get Google in China. You can't get Snapchat, you can't get Instagram. So why are we allowing them here? We wouldn't allow the Russians to own NBC or ABC. What is TikTok doing here?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

If you remember in the Robert Mueller report, I want to say it was in the first few paragraphs when he was talking about Russian interference. He said foreign interference had one goal in this election, to sow discord and chaos. And that is exactly what happens on TikTok. Right? The most famous TikTokers out there are just spewing things that aren't true to get people fired up and angry. But the amazing thing is lots of Americans would say, well, I don't care. I love my TikTok. I love my cooking videos, I love my dance videos. And when you watch that and you step back, you start to feel like I'm in a movie right now. This is like watching a suspense thriller of people saying, yes, I know I'm being poisoned, but it tastes so good. So. So the question of do the right thing. Come on, like whether it's ownership.

[Joanna Coles]

So how would you regulate them? Because the complexity around this is of course, how do you regulate these, organize these companies, which we know is complex.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, do we, I mean, all the people who are in charge now have no interest in regulating these companies anymore? I mean, all of these people have been so elevated, I just don't see it happening.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

But no, we're unlikely to get regulation there or anywhere else. The fact that a traditional news organization, everything that we say and do goes through legal and standards that we have to own what we say or we are liable for it. We face this scrutiny. And I'm not saying it from a place of envy. I'm saying it from a place of just corporate social responsibility.

[Joanna Coles]

And the analogy always used is a phone call that you can't blame the phone companies for conversations that people have on the phone. Similarly with social media, there are billions of messages going every single day. How do you physically or even what is the mechanism for regulating it?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You know what, Joe? You start to figure it the hell out, right? These are, we keep talking about these companies like these baby little companies with 32 year olds.

[Joanna Coles]

Stephanie, lots of people, people have tried to think about this. How do you regulate it? You just said, let's regulate them. How do you do it? What would you do?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You have to put some level of standards on this. You have to actually designate, this is news content. This is not news content. The audience should know immediately where this information comes from where it's sourced and what it is.

[Joanna Coles]

But the information is coming from regular users, regular people who, many of whom set up as news fluent influencers who know nothing.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes.

[Joanna Coles]

So how, how do you make them do it? There, there are millions of them. How do you actually physically impose that?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

If someone wants to be a news influencer on your site, well then they are going to have to show, here's my standards, here's the person who vets all of the content, here's my sources. Like the same thing I have to do saying I'm a news organization and if they don't want to do that, well then put them in a different category on your site that I'm here for. Dance videos. Personally, it's super expensive and onerous, but we keep looking at these companies like they're these baby little startups who, these hipsters and hoodies, these are the masters of the universe.

[Samantha Bee]

I would put age requirements on it, first of all. I would put a minimum age on it and I would also remove anonymity.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Correct, correct, correct.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

Okay.

[Joanna Coles]

And I, I would just say that almost the first thing that you see when you go out outside is kids in strollers with cell phones because parents are exhausted, they're working two jobs and the first thing they do is hand their kids a screen. And the kid is incredibly smart about working through it. How do you grandfather it in? If you bring in age regulations and you say 16, which is what they're saying in Australia. Right. How do you physically make that happen when you've had, when you've got 13 year olds who are already on it.

[Samantha Bee]

Well, you're always going to have that, but, but you can't, you won't have kids getting their own accounts at the age of 8. Like I understand that it's not going to solve every problem, but it may solve problems moving forward.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And you're starting to. Right. When Jonathan Haidt's research came out and his book came out, you're actually starting to see some of that movement. Right. So I have an 11 year old daughter who forever and ever has been counting the days to get a full phone. When she's 12, she's no longer getting one. When she's 12, she'S getting one. When she's 14. She is devastated about it in many ways. She feels like a pilgrim in her school who doesn't know TikTok dances and is one step behind. And that is a difficult battle in my house. But Jonathan Haidt writing that book, parents across this country starting a Movement saying, guess what? My kid just needs a flip phone. This whole argument that I need to have a smartphone bullshit.

[Joanna Coles]

So I wanted to do that also with my children, and I found that. That what you've. There is always one family who is the weakest link. So the parents will say, you know what? We're gonna put our. We have a line in the sand. You can't have a phone until you're 13. And then some parent gives their kid the phone at 11 until something begins to crumble.

[Samantha Bee]

You know what I really think it is? It's not like you're gonna solve every problem in every family. You're just not gonna do that. That's not happening. But the more friction you can put in the way, the better it is. The harder they have to work to get the material they're not necessarily entitled to. It makes it better. It just makes it marginally better. What I want to know is how much is the Daily Beast contributing to the inauguration campaign and the library?

[Joanna Coles]

I mean, the Daily Beast would like to be sufficiently solvent. Did. Did businesses also contribute to Biden's inauguration? This is actually. Is this fairly straightforward procedure.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

The thing that's not straightforward is nobody showed up for Trump in 2016. Right. Even Mark Zuckerberg just a few months ago was like, we're staying out of this. They have all changed their tune, which they have a right to do. The one caution I would give people is everyone is coming unglued, saying, my God, all these people are in bed with Trump. They might not be in bed with Trump. What they might be doing is playing the game, but we don't know what's happening in any of those rooms. And we do know that Donald Trump is a chronic exaggerator. So they could just be in there covering their bases to make sure they're not a bullseye. But tariffs are something he can impose, and he's learned it from other countries. It is the greatest way to pick winners and losers. Not just to say, I'm going to punish China and impose tariffs, but to say, I'm going to give you an exception. Right? So think about all these businesses or countries that are there right now, and you manufacture something, and Trump is going to say to you, I'm going to impose tariffs on all of your foreign competitors, but not you. How incredible that you'd end up with a de facto monopoly. And so that's what this tariff game is. And, you know, fans of Donald Trump would say, this is how he negotiates, and critics would say, this is going to Be a disaster. We'll soon find out.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, Sam feels this very keenly as a Canadian. Oh, yes.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You're a Canadian.

[Joanna Coles]

I am.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Well, can I just tell you, I just went on vacation to Canada. Oh, you did?

[Samantha Bee]

Where'd you go?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I went to Niagara Falls, first of all, which is like Reno meets the Poconos, right next door to, like, a beautiful natural wonder. And I loved it.

[Samantha Bee]

Sure.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And then I full. I did the full Christmas market tour, Montreal, Toronto, and now my new favorite city, Quebec, which is sort of Quebec City is kind of like. And it's not going to sound nice, but it is. It has this, like, Paris meets Poland energy. And I just loved it. I couldn't have had more maple syrup, wine, whiskey, or meat and cheese products. I had the greatest time.

[Joanna Coles]

So would you be in favor of it becoming the 51st state?

[Unknown Speaker 1]

That is so absurd. That is so absurd. But look at Justin Trudeau at risk right now. Look at Germany's government falling apart. And I take all of this back to the business of rage. This rage that we are experiencing, largely fueled by social media, isn't just hitting here in the US it's around the world. It's why you've seen incumbents lose election after election. Like I said it in the beginning, we are the most prosperous country in the world. And it is not to say that there aren't groups suffering. We broke records on Cyber Monday and Black Friday. So do not tell me that this country. Listen. We've experienced the largest inflation spike that we have in our adult lives, and that stings, and people do not like it. But this country largely. Look at unemployment, look at wages. We are doing well. That doesn't match how badly we feel. And that's happening across the world, and that is fueled by rage. Yes, you all just took deep breaths.

[Joanna Coles]

No, we did take deep breaths.

[Samantha Bee]

And as a Canadian, I am dead afraid that eventually the United States is going to come for all the water, because there are a lot of golf courses in Arizona that need sprinkles. And so, I mean, I have my own hesitations. It'll eventually be the 51st state, probably, but hopefully when I'm dead.

[Joanna Coles]

No, no, on the contrary, I'm going to vote for you for president of. Of your. Or governor of the state, as that. As Donald Trump is now calling Justin Trudeau governor.

[Samantha Bee]

God. Oh, my God. Canadians are all.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It's such a silly flex that we're all falling into that headline. Oh, my goodness. He called us at the 51st state. Move on. People voted for Donald Trump because they want their lives to get stronger and better, and they think he's going to do that. You know what my Hope is for 2025?

[Samantha Bee]

Please.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Even people with the strongest of opinions to have open minds and hearts. Right. The smartest people out there are people willing to change their minds. And I just think it's my plea to people in 2025. Right. Like, we actually have a band of nerves in the middle of our head, Right.

[Joanna Coles]

It's called.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Called corpus callosum. Humans have them. Whales have them. Rodents and bats. We're the only ones. No other mammals have them. We have the ability to have reason, so we don't have to act immediately on instinct. So my Hope is in 2025, actually, let's connect the right and the left side of the brain. Let's have some reason, let's lower the temperature, and let's actually try to improve things.

[Samantha Bee]

I love that. Those are my favorite mammals.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

There you go. Us Whales, rodents, and bats. It's a great group.

[Joanna Coles]

Special delivery.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

It wasn't a dancer.

[Samantha Bee]

It wasn't quite a dancer.

[Joanna Coles]

One of my favorite stores in the village. This is very. They've sent me a little joke. This is a Christmas package for all of us. This is the first joke. Coles Christmas pudding pasta.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, I love it.

[Joanna Coles]

Christmas crackers. Christmas crackers. Christmas crackers. And then this is the piece de resistance. These are English sweet meats called mince pies, which I both. I want you both to try because they are delicious. It's not mince meat.

[Samantha Bee]

I feel like they weigh five pounds.

[Joanna Coles]

No, no sweet meats. It's all good. It's mince pies. They're delicious. They're sugary English treats, which should be. No, no, no. It's not sweet product. It's sweet. It's dried fruits. They are absolutely delicious. And tea and sympathy makes the best. And it's a place where British people go. I like that place to celebrate all British things.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yum.

[Joanna Coles]

And Sam is a baker. So this is my Christmas. This is my Christmas treat for the two of you.

[Samantha Bee]

I do love to bake. This is great.

[Joanna Coles]

Love, guys. Thank you. They can also be eaten warm with brandy butter or just regular butter or cheese.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I brought for the two of you. I made honey butter, and I brought you both some. Yeah. No, no. I brought whipped honey.

[Joanna Coles]

Whipped honey. No. I didn't believe you made it.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You're 100 wrong. Wow. My bag outside. Thank you. Because I bought gallons of honey when I was in Canada, so I made whipped honey.

[Samantha Bee]

Amazing. Oh, my God. Thank you.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

There you go.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, look at that.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Whipped honey for you.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, my goodness.

[Joanna Coles]

Fantastic.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Thank you very much.

[Joanna Coles]

She's fantastic. So you should also pull a cracker, shouldn't you? Look how beautiful these are.

[Samantha Bee]

This is so beautiful.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, my God.

[Joanna Coles]

So if you need crackers or you.

[Samantha Bee]

Need mince pies, I'm gonna take this out.

[Joanna Coles]

My friends at Tea and Sympathy will take care of you, and you will get to celebrate in an English fashion, which is different to an American fashion.

[Samantha Bee]

Wait, do you do Christmas crackers on Christmas Day or the day before?

[Joanna Coles]

You just went over to have a box of crackers. But I do them on for Christmas lunch. I do them. Okay.

[Samantha Bee]

Do we get a crack?

[Joanna Coles]

And there is a joke in them, and there is a silly hat in them.

[Samantha Bee]

Great. Okay.

[Joanna Coles]

Wait, don't we cross? Yes, that's right.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, we do.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, no.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Are you giving me the end of it?

[Joanna Coles]

I think this is an American tradition because this is a bit too intimate for British people.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And you.

[Joanna Coles]

You reach across.

[Samantha Bee]

Okay, ready?

[Joanna Coles]

Just as near as it's a physical contact for us. Nice. Bang.

[Samantha Bee]

Now I got yours.

[Joanna Coles]

All right.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

There's one on the floor.

[Joanna Coles]

Thank you. I'm gonna read the joke.

[Samantha Bee]

I like that. It smells like gunpowder. Since we're doing Christmas things, I think you should open your present that I have for you.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, my God.

[Joanna Coles]

This is fantastic.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

And so.

[Joanna Coles]

I love this so much.

[Samantha Bee]

Yes. Yes.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, this is absolutely. Did you do this yourself? This is fantastic. This has to be.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Oh, that is so good.

[Samantha Bee]

That's our royal portrait.

[Joanna Coles]

It's fantastic. Thank you so much.

[Samantha Bee]

You are welcome.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Show it. Show the camera.

[Samantha Bee]

It's just. It's a beautiful. Just a beautiful.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

You look super creepy in it. You're really, really creepy.

[Samantha Bee]

Just a little dolly. Just a little dolly.

[Joanna Coles]

It's so good. It's so good.

[Samantha Bee]

Every time I look at it, I smile.

[Joanna Coles]

Obviously, we need to put it up here. We need to have it behind us at all times.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yeah. No, they don't have those in Marla.

[Samantha Bee]

Inspirational. It needs a giant gold frame, obviously.

[Joanna Coles]

Very strange. There's so much to discuss.

[Samantha Bee]

There's so much.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Really wonderful.

[Samantha Bee]

Thank you.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Great job.

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah.

[Samantha Bee]

Thank you. Thanks. Great job, everybody.

[Joanna Coles]

This is lovely.

[Samantha Bee]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

No, they don't have those. They don't have those in Mar a Lago.

[Joanna Coles]

I'm beside myself.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I love it.

[Samantha Bee]

And here come the police. So I'll see you guys later.

[Joanna Coles]

They're coming. That's actually an ambulance. They're coming to take you away. I've asked for special white coats, and.

[Samantha Bee]

Yeah, this is fair. Yeah, this is fair.

[Joanna Coles]

Okay. Happy, happy Holidays. Merry Christmas Holidays.

[Samantha Bee]

I guess we can say that now for the next four years.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

Yes, yes.

[Samantha Bee]

Alone. Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.

[Unknown Speaker 3]

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[Unknown Speaker 5]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's Unlimited Wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a [e-mail] switch $45 upfront.

[Samantha Bee]

Payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first 3 month plan only taxes and fees, extra speed slower above 40gb on unlimited. See mintmobile.com for details. Foreign.

[Joanna Coles]

We'Re now joined by Dan Bukatinsky, who might just be America's favorite on screen gay husband. He's best known for the Emmy winning turn as James Novak on Scandal But Dan has been lighting up our screen for years. He's appeared on nearly every iconic TV show you have ever seen. He's in Hacks. He was on Curb youb Enthusiasm, Weeds, Friends, Will and Grace Fraser, Grey's Anatomy, just to name a few. And you can now see him in the new smash Our Little Secret, alongside Lindsay Lohan and Kristin Chenoweth, which swept the holiday season on Netflix. In fact, last week, it was globally the number one film being watched. And though initially hesitant about the role, Dan took it on and in true form, made himself unforgettable. Dan, welcome. Have you ever met Sam before?

[Dan Bukatinsky]

No. I'm a huge fan, so I'm kind of freaking out right now.

[Samantha Bee]

Thank you.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

I'm so happy to meet you.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, no, likewise. I'm so happy to meet you, too. Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

[Joanna Coles]

You just wrote a fantastic piece for the Daily Beast on how you went back and forth on this role and said yes, which you weren't expecting to. Please explain. For those who haven't read the piece, explain yourself.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

I know. How dare I? Just like, I went back and forth. I was gonna. I was gonna say no to ever appearing on this podcast, but then I had to. No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Samantha Bee]

Just say yes.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

But no. It was after the strike, and, you know, we had all been beaten down by picketing on the Writer's Guild side and on the actor side, and we just wanted to get back to work. Nobody quite understood where the business was gonna go, and opportunities were very, very slim. And speaking of which, I was sent this script to play Christian Chenoweth's husband, and I was so excited to flip through the pages and find out all the ways in which, you know, we would be, in my mind, darting off to Rome and having a second honeymoon and having all these fabulous scenes together. As it turns out, when you're in a romantic comedy that stars Lindsay Lohan, it's not about you. So I flipped through the script, and I realized that for the most part, my character appears in the background of many, many scenes and didn't have a lot to say. And, you know, I kept thinking in the back of my mind that old adage, there are no such thing as small parts, just small actors. I admitted to myself that I was a small actor and that this, in fact, was a very small part. And I thought, what am I going to. I mean, I can't go spend a month in Atlanta just sort of in the background, can I? I didn't have the ego strength for it. I Just. And so I talked about it with my reps and they're like, well, do you want to get back or do you want to maybe hold out for something better? And many of them were saying, yeah, you should definitely pass. This is too small a part for you and you shouldn't do it. And it just fed my negative internal critic, like, what will people think? How far he's come, how far he's fallen. All these just crazy, grandiose ideas, like anybody's thinking of me anyway. They're not. And I remembered something that was in my old boss, Shonda Rhimes book, which was, you know, all about saying yes. And it made me realize that, like, this opportunity to spend three and a half weeks just working, just being with other actors, just being on the set will have some kind of additive sort of restorative powers to me. I certainly hoped. And I just said yes. I just said yes. I'm going to go, I'm going to make the most of it. And as most people said to me, like, you know, you're going to wind up making it better than it is anyway. You're just going to feel it. And the minute, the minute I got to Atlanta and I met Kristen and we started working together, we started to fill it. We just filled the empty spaces and the relationship. And it became one of the most satisfying experiences for me, mainly because of what I said. That. That feeling of just doing, being in it, not the end result, not the like, oh, did you see Dan in that movie? He has got like no lines. Which is the kind of thing my mother would say every time I'm in anything. My mom's like, I thought your part would be bigger. Yeah, well, I've been hearing that my entire life, both sadly, both at home and, you know, I just didn't. It didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter anymore. It was about just doing. And, and I. It was such a huge lesson to get to push my ego out of the way.

[Joanna Coles]

There was a great line in the piece where you talked about how you rule yourself out of things is not by saying no once, it's by saying no repeatedly. And then you somehow rule yourself and then people stop calling you and it's a sort of self perpetuating circle. Can you talk a little bit about that? Especially as an actor having had the trauma of the strike and then the Writers Guild strike. I know you're in both unions, just that long period of not working and we're close friends, so I know how difficult you and lots of Actors found that.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we definitely did. And first of all, that it was an actual quote from. From Shonda's book that was all about the power of one no and what kind of ripple effect it can have as opposed to the power of a yes or continuous yeses. You know, but all of this has to do with controllable variables and uncontrollable variables. The entertainment business is a horrible business. We, you know, so few of us who are the creative, the people who make stuff or write things or act in things, perform, create content, have no control over the outcome of what we do. Whether we will be hired, whether the thing we get hired to do is going to last more than one or last more than a season, or get canceled after, you know, two. Those are all things out of our control. And so what happens is we become unbelievably obsessed with this false. This false narrative that we have more control than we do. The only control we have is to say yes or no, to say yes or no to ourselves if we decide we want to sit down and write for 30 minutes and just do it, or the power to say yes to a job that is offered to us that we think is beneath us or too hard or out of town when we don't want to leave town. There's all these variables that we don't control. And after the strike, talk about uncontrollable variables. Like, we. We just felt powerless. We would just walk in circles around the studios, like, talk about a metaphor. We spoke our truth on the placards that we walked with, but we had no control over what was being negotiated and what the future of our business was going to be. And am I whining? I sound like I'm whining?

[Samantha Bee]

No, not at all. Wait a second. Actually, I want to know how you know each other.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

I was a fan of Joanna's because I was obsessed with and am still Project Runway. And so there was a very, very well viewed season of Project Runway All Stars where Joanna was the mentor and a lovely one at that. And my husband and I were just like, oh, my God, I love her. She's so glamorous and so smart. And then I was lucky enough in the last season that I was in Scandal to be invited as the entire cast of Scandal and all the Washington D.C. shows, Veep and House of Cards, were invited to the White House correspondents dinner. Exactly 10 years ago. Joanna was, I guess, editor of a magazine called Cosmo. I think. You know, I'm sort of teasing you, but she Joanna was sort of was running the world over there, that little old thing, whatever, Cosmo, and invited like a third of the cast, including Jeff Perry and myself. And I was so honored and excited. And the moment I arrived in that lobby in D.C. and Joanna pulled through the. Those electric doors and walked through, I was like, I'm so excited. And Joanna, you take it from there. I stalked you.

[Joanna Coles]

Yeah. No, no, I love that. I love that. Because I was watching Scandal obsessively. Sam. I loved it and was very excited to be taking the cast to the White House correspondent. For those who haven't been. It's literally the world's longest dinner. It's like four hours. You're stuck at the table because of all the security, because the president, et cetera, et cetera. So I thought, I have to find someone that I can sit next to for four hours who I know is going to be amusing. And literally, I've never done this before. But I became obsessed by Dan's character, partly because he was a journalist. I started reading up about Dan Buktinski, who is he? And I thought, I'm going to sit next to him. If anyone can keep me entertained for four hours, it's him. We sit down at the dinner and we do not stop talking for four hours. We carry on talking until, I think three in the morning. And we. We basically end up having a wonderful weekend. And then we sort of became new best friends.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Yeah, we did not stop.

[Joanna Coles]

That's fair to say.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

We started talking that weekend and have not stopped talking for 10 years.

[Joanna Coles]

We really haven't stopped talking. He's one of my closest friends. I love his husband, Don. I love his kids. He loves my kids. It's so much fun.

[Samantha Bee]

Wait a second. Do you vacation together? Do you do things like. Do you go on a boat together?

[Dan Bukatinsky]

We sort of do.

[Joanna Coles]

We do a lot of staying at each other's apartments. It's so much fun. But you also started something called Failure Fridays, which we also wrote about at the Beast and took off, and all sorts of celebrities in Hollywood started liking it. And this is where you post your failures on Instagram. Now, obviously, you're in a number one movie on Netflix, so your failures are kind of in inverted commas. But what prompted you to do that?

[Dan Bukatinsky]

I had been thinking a lot about how, especially during COVID but about how much social media is sort of this, what we feel, this emotional doom scrolling where the successes and triumphs of other people, their bodies, their bread, their cappuccinos, their awards, their dresses, you name it. Every single thing that is fabulous gets posted and curated so that. That our version of reality becomes skewed. And by the way, I felt, you know, I fell into that trap as well. I felt like the only things I could post are things that look the best. It's the whole reason why there are filters on our phones to filter the actual truth into something that looks better than the truth. And one of my worst fears is that anybody see me with my shirt off. For the last 20 years, my biggest fear is that anybody, including these eyes, see me with my shirt off. So I've been showering in a turtleneck for the last two decades, but I felt like I needed to get over myself. And I started feeling like if we could all start to inspire one another by our setbacks, by the things that don't go so well, by our humiliations and our embarrassments and our failures, at least once a week, at least, let's start inspiring each other on how we can get up off the floor when we have a setback. Because really, the path to success is paved by failure. I mean, every single award someone wins is at the heels of dozens of projects that never saw the light of day or did not win awards. And we only hear about the good. So I really became excited about getting over my own fear of letting people with my hair down, so to speak. And I started talking about my parenting failures, my relationship failures, my. My. My work failures, all of them.

[Samantha Bee]

I think it is so valuable because I even find, like, having done so much press and having done so much of that stuff out in the world, it is actually very rare to even have the opportunity to talk about, like, kind of like all the hard work and all the hurdles that got you to the place where you ended up. And I think it's a really important part of the conversation because it's absolutely like, you're not going to wake up one day and just. Just automatically be at the top of your game. That road is paved with stumbles and failures. So I thank you for that work.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

You know, how many times are we on the floor in a fetal position? Like, you know, we've put a year and a half into a project that we care so deeply about, and the. Instead it's over. And getting the energy back or the hope or the. The incentive to get back on a horse and do it again, which, by the way, is the only way we can keep going. It's what life's all about. It's about. So anyway, I get very passionate about it. It's even the notion of resistance that makes us stronger. Go to the gym. Every single weight that we can't lift is only about continuing to try until eventually we can. So pushing against resistance is the only thing that makes us stronger.

[Samantha Bee]

I agree. It's like friction. You have to have friction in your life.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

That's right. That's right.

[Samantha Bee]

To achieve those big heights, they just feel bad.

[Joanna Coles]

You're dangerously close to sounding like a motivational speaker, so I'm going to break in and say, I want you to tell the story that you told me on the phone one day when you called up. And you. I couldn't really understand initially what you were saying because.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Was I crying?

[Joanna Coles]

You were crying, you were hyperventilating. And I was like, damn, it's okay. Keep calm. And car. I was just being as British as I was possibly could because I was worried you were having a panic attack because you were. I want you to tell Sam and everybody listening what, in fact, had happened.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Well, you know what's really scary is that there have been more than one time that I've made a phone call like that to you. So are you talk. Are you talking about the time involving an animal?

[Joanna Coles]

Yes, I am. And alcohol? Because it's the alcohol part, which I also love here.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

All right, I'm going to tell it to you in a nutshell because. Because it's too long of a story, but my son wanted to. My son, who at the time was 16, wanted to start modeling. And I'm just so excited that he was sort of off his track of becoming a sniper and playing Call of Duty that I was like, oh, my God. As. As a gay dad, my son wants to be a model.

[Joanna Coles]

Like, a wholesome career to be modeling.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Please. I could totally help you do that. Although I had to really play it cool, because if he. If he could whiff even a drop of Mama Rose in me, he would have dropped it like a hot potato. So I acted really casual, and I was like, yeah, sure, we could get you some pictures and whatever you want. I mean, you. You drive it. I mean, I'm totally cool. I couldn't care less. Like, you could do it or not do it. It's all fine with me. Meanwhile, I was, like, shopping for outfits and totally into it. So we go to. We go to my friend who's a photographer, who's going to do sort of a spec shoot with him. We get there, and I'm planning on art directing the entire thing, and she sends me into her kitchen. She's like, joan and I are Going to go shoot pictures. It's better if we just create a rapport and you stay in the kitchen. Horrified, I sat in the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of. It was 4 o'clock, the glasses were very small, and I had a glass, maybe two of this little. And then he had a fabulous time. They had a great photo shoot. And we headed home.

[Samantha Bee]

Home.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

And he went off to volleyball. And I went to take care of. When I got home, I went to take care of this green cheek conure, which is a little kind of parrot that I was taking care of for my daughter who was in Ireland. It was. My only job was to take care of this bird. And I took the bird out and I was playing with it, and that's the last thing I remember because I passed out on the couch in the kitchen. And then I woke up and went in to pay some bills. And then I was like, oh, where is Kermit? Where is Kermit? I couldn't find the bird. I went looking everywhere. I could not find that bird. The cage was closed, the bird was gone. I was fit to be tied. I called Don, I called Jonah. Everyone comes home, it's dark now. We're walking with our apple flashlights all around the house, all outside the house. And then I found feathers on the front yard. And I realized that one of the dogs had gotten Kermit. I fell to the ground, you know, like the. Like the Kent State photo. And I burst into tears because of the. Because of what I would have to tell my daughter about the failure. I. I couldn't even keep this bird alive. I was horrified. And. And Don kept saying, it's the dog's fault. Stop blaming yourself. It's the dog's fault. My son kept saying, dad, it's okay. It's human error. It's human error. It's. He just kept. He just kept making sure I knew, it's okay, you have to forgive yourself. But it's definitely human error. I was horrified, and I still haven't let it go. My daughter calls me the bird killer.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, my God, Kermit.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Yeah. I mean, how many times have we had to break our kids hearts? It's going to happen many times, and it has happened. Happened many times, but that was one of the worst. And I called Joanna and she was like, oh, my God, Dan, it's a bird. It's a. You're gonna look back on this. It's gonna be a fun. I'm like, why are you laughing? She's like, well, because it's Kind of funny. And I was horrified and. But Joanna was right. Within a month, I was like writing a piece about it, which really helped me turn my perspective on it into something that could be looked at with some levity.

[Joanna Coles]

Everything is copy.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Everything is copy.

[Samantha Bee]

That is true.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Yeah. So. So that became one of my first failure Fridays.

[Samantha Bee]

Before we wrap up, I do need to say this in the body of an interview as I stare into your eyes, that the Comeback was one of my favorite shows. And I mean, that show is a goddamn tour de force.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Well, I'm very proud of it. You're not alone. And I have to say, it's so weird. It's like I've been hearing so many people. I think people have been finding it somehow and watching it again because.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh, really?

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Season one was in 2005. Season two was in 2014. It was. It's been 10 years since season two. It's something I'm incredibly proud of. Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King created that series. They wrote it together, but I produced it with them. And it is beloved. And I certainly understand why. I mean, she's so brilliant in it. And it's, it's such a commentary on our business and on ego and on the fishbowl of, of attention and wanting attention. And it goes back to the grandiosity of it all, which, you know, I certainly shared when not wanting to do our little Secret. And it wound up being one of the best experiences I ever had. So I, it really. I encourage people to say yes to almost everything. Just like HBO said yes to the comeback idea. They had no idea what we were talking about when we pitched that show. And Carolyn Strauss sat there and said, I don't know what you guys are talking about, but why don't you just do it? And you don't get that kind of comment anymore.

[Samantha Bee]

It was very lucky and those opportunities are so rare to like, create something that is. It's like the type of show that's a jewel box, you know what I mean? Like, it's like a beautiful, rare. Like it's like a little green bird of rare perfection. Like what it is, it's. It beautiful gem.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

It's specific and it's just edgy and it really, it's just. There's nothing like it. I'm working now on season four of Hacks, and the creators of that show are, are such huge fans of the Comeback and, and certainly derived some piece of inspiration, I think, a little bit in terms of driving forward with a female driven, you know, entertainment focused show. And they've done such a fabulous job with that show, if I may say so myself.

[Samantha Bee]

Amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. Truly amazing.

[Joanna Coles]

And also it's a tribute to the power of just keeping on, keeping on. Because I remember in the depths of COVID when so many actors I knew thought they were never going to work again. And you and I had many sort of supportive conversations during COVID because we were both feeling sort of, you know, we're both extroverts. We were feeling claustrophobic. But look at you now. You're on the fourth season of Hacks, having been on the third, and they've rolled out a bigger character for you. And your Netflix show with Lindsay Lohan is at number one or your Netflix movie. So many congratulations. You just have to keep on keeping on.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I. Exactly. I know there's lots of gratitude, believe me.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I adore you. No one makes a better gluten free chocolate chip cookie than you do.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

Thank you.

[Samantha Bee]

I want to go to your parties. What is going on? I need to come on the. This, like, camping retreat with.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

You're totally invited. You're totally invited. You would love it.

[Samantha Bee]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Joanna Coles]

By the way, hiking with Dan around Beverly Hills is the best experience because he knows where everybody lives. The air is rich with rose and fresh rose always like, it's, you know, whatever the flavor of the. Of the tree is, he knows that it's the best.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

So important. I'm actually off to care. I'm off to Kerry Washington, star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. I mean, it's about time, right? Right?

[Samantha Bee]

That's cool.

[Joanna Coles]

It is about time. Mma. She doesn't have one, but you two will have your star down.

[Dan Bukatinsky]

No, you know, I either will or I won't. How about that? But I'll be wearing clothes. Nobody. I. I will not have my shirt off, I guarantee you, at any point before, during, or after. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me, guys.

[Joanna Coles]

How much fun is Dan?

[Samantha Bee]

So fun. You are friends with everyone. I'm not joking. I do think that this podcast should be subtitled. How do you two know each other again? And that's just my first question every time.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, I'm very fond of Dan because he really was someone I'd watched on telly and I thought, I want to be friends with the actor because I somehow conflated the character and the actor. But he just turned out to be the best. He's one of the best people.

[Samantha Bee]

I like it when people become friends as adults and you kind of turn to someone after a dinner and go, should we be friends? Like, should we email and call each other and hang out a bit? It's kind of cool. I don't know.

[Unknown Speaker 1]

I love it.

[Joanna Coles]

It is cool. And also, you know, one of the things I find really interesting is that friendship, it's so important and yet it's really not discussed. People are obsessed about romance. There are all these sort of dating apps, but actually one of the hardest and most important things is friendship. It.

[Samantha Bee]

Yes.

[Joanna Coles]

It's so important to stay social. It's one of the things that prevents Alzheimer's. Actually, if you're an older person, meeting a younger person is one of the most important things you can do for your brain. Yeah, it's challenging. It's super important to keep you mentally alert.

[Samantha Bee]

And then when. When they don't suspect it, you. You steal their soul and you become younger yourself and you take their skin.

[Joanna Coles]

I wish that was true. Yeah, you take their skin. Yeah, that's very true. That's very true.

[Samantha Bee]

That's my holiday thought.

[Joanna Coles]

Well, you're my new midlife friend. I think I can say midlife because you're younger. So I'm taking your. I'm taking some of your years.

[Samantha Bee]

Let's do it.

[Joanna Coles]

That was weird, wasn't it? Because British people shouldn't say things like that. Did I just display some vulnerability there? I hope not. Embarrassing. So don't need any friends.

[Samantha Bee]

My cat is so happy. I need nothing. I don't need anything.

[Joanna Coles]

I am an island.

[Samantha Bee]

Just a jar of mincemeat.

[Joanna Coles]

That's not your cat. Susan Collins, though.

[Samantha Bee]

That's Jerry.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh, that's Jerry.

[Samantha Bee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joanna Coles]

Jerry Nadler.

[Samantha Bee]

Yeah, Jerry, my cat, Jerry Nadler. Somehow, Susan Collins is a funny name for a cat, and Jerry Nadler is the worst name for a cat.

[Joanna Coles]

I think I need to get a cat and call it Kash Patel. I think that would be a good name for a cat. If you have been. Thank you for listening and if you enjoyed the episode, please, like, subscribe and share it with. With everybody you know and people you don't see people randomly on the subway.

[Samantha Bee]

Make them listen, Share it with strangers. And send us an email if you [e-mail] Joanna and I, I promise that we read them over a cup of tea every afternoon around 4pm so keep them coming.

[Joanna Coles]

And if you haven't subscribed to the Daily Beast yet, you really must. There's some wonderful, wonderful journalism, a lot of which we discuss on here. So just go to thedailybeast.com membership podcast.

[Samantha Bee]

And as my muse once said, be best.

[Joanna Coles]

Oh Sam, maybe in 2025 you will remember it's be beast.

[Samantha Bee]

You're being your best in this I'm certainly beautiful portrait.

[Joanna Coles]

We need to hang it somewhere very special.

[Samantha Bee]

Oh very special. Very special.

[Joanna Coles]

I think these will be on sale in Times Square pretty quickly.

[Samantha Bee]

It's a. It's a hot item.

[Joanna Coles]

Very hot items. Happy Holidays.

[Samantha Bee]

Happy Holidays.

[Joanna Coles]

The Daily Beast podcast is produced by Sarah Demonkoft, Sphere, Baron Reinstein, Jesse Cannon and Sheamus Calder. Additional writing by Sasha Seinfeld and edited by Deanna Check Chapman and engineered by Cameron Shenken.

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