TDS Time Machine | President's Day

Summary

Summary of "The Daily Show: Ears Edition" Episode: TDS Time Machine | President's Day Release Date: February 16, 2025

In the "TDS Time Machine | President's Day" episode of The Daily Show: Ears Edition, host Stephen Colbert engages in insightful and engaging conversations with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, alongside Senator Joe Biden. This special episode delves into significant global health initiatives, race relations, and the intricacies of modern American politics, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of these pressing topics.

---

1. Interview with Former President Jimmy Carter

[01:33 – 08:45]

Stephen Colbert welcomes President Jimmy Carter to discuss the remarkable achievements of the Carter Center, particularly in combating the guinea worm disease.

• Guinea Worm Eradication Efforts:

  President Carter elaborates on the nature of guinea worm disease, emphasizing its severe impact:

  "Guinea worm... creates a sore, big sore... it destroys muscle tissue and leaves you a horrible pain."
  [02:23]

  He highlights the Carter Center's groundbreaking approach of using filter cloths to prevent the spread of the disease:

  "If you pour the water through a filter cloth... you can drink your filthy water without the guinea worm eggs."
  [04:23]

  Carter proudly shares the success of these initiatives:

  "We have prevented about 80 million cases of guinea worms since we first started."
  [05:44]

• Broader Health Initiatives:

  Beyond guinea worm eradication, President Carter discusses efforts to combat other neglected diseases like trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness:

  "One of the worst cases that comes from filthy eyes... is called trachoma."
  [07:17]

  He underscores the importance of community education and infrastructure, mentioning the construction of over 2.3 million latrines in Africa:

  "We've just finished 2,300,000 latrines in Africa."
  [08:05]

2. Interview with Former President Bill Clinton

[08:45 – 20:35]

In a dynamic segment, President Bill Clinton joins to discuss the Clinton Global Initiative and his perspectives on race relations in the United States.

• Clinton Global Initiative and Ebola Response:

  Clinton addresses the agility of the initiative in responding to health crises like the Ebola epidemic:

  "This is an emergency because nobody knows how to cure this... it's going to take a Herculean effort."
  [10:50]

  He praises organizations like Doctors Without Borders and Partners in Health for their relentless efforts:

  "We can stop the epidemic and let it burn itself out if we can isolate everybody that's infected."
  [11:09]

• Race Relations and Political Communication:

  Transitioning to a more personal discussion, Clinton shares his approach to navigating conversations about race without alienating audiences:

  "If I was clear in my own mind about who I was... I could win them over because there's goodness in the majority of people."
  [14:41]

  He emphasizes the importance of diplomacy and appealing to the better angels of humanity:

  "I don't think that trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature... is somehow compromised."
  [17:36]

  Clinton reflects on the complexities of addressing subtle forms of racism:

  "The challenge we face today when it comes to race is rarely the overt Klansman style racism... but rather about the complex ways in which society is working through these issues."
  [18:36]

• Humorous Exchanges:

  The conversation takes a lighthearted turn as Clinton humorously comments on President Barack Obama's youthful appearance:

  "I resent how young and good looking you are. Cause I used to think of myself in those terms and it's been downhill for quite some time."
  [20:21]

3. Interview with Senator Joe Biden

[20:39 – 24:22]

Senator Joe Biden joins the panel to discuss his political journey, aspirations for the presidency, and his perspectives on the current state of American politics.

• Presidential Ambitions and Campaign Strategy:

  Biden candidly talks about his decision to seek the presidency:

  "I'm out looking to see if I can get the nomination."
  [21:02]

  He highlights the significance of Delaware in national elections:

  "Delaware goes the way the nation has voted... nearly the same percentage over the last two."
  [21:06]

• Political Challenges and Partisanship:

  Addressing the frustrations within the Senate, Biden shares his motivations for advancing to the national arena:

  "I've been doing this a long time and I've convinced that you cannot change the direction of the country in the next two elections in the Senate."
  [22:52]

  He expresses hope for a less partisan political landscape:

  "I would be honored to run with or against John McCain because I think the country would be better off no matter who."
  [23:21]

• Humorous Remarks:

  Biden engages in playful banter with Colbert, lightening the mood:

  "Because here's the thing, somebody's already done that."
  [21:27]

  He humorously acknowledges the challenges of political consulting:

  "I went through that 20 years ago."
  [22:25]

4. Conclusion and Final Remarks

[24:22 – End]

The episode wraps up with promotional segments encouraging listeners to explore more shows within The Daily Show Podcast universe and to watch full episodes on Comedy Central or stream them on Paramount+.

---

Notable Quotes:

• President Jimmy Carter:
  "We have prevented about 80 million cases of guinea worms since we first started."
  [05:44]

• President Bill Clinton:
  "If I really knew that, and I just communicated it as clearly as I could, that I'd be okay."
  [14:41]

• Senator Joe Biden:
  "I've convinced that you cannot change the direction of the country in the next two elections in the Senate."
  [22:52]

---

This episode of The Daily Show: Ears Edition offers listeners a rich tapestry of discussions spanning global health initiatives, the complexities of race relations, and the evolving landscape of American politics. Through candid conversations and humorous exchanges, the show provides valuable insights and fosters a deeper understanding of these critical issues.

Transcript

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[Stephen Colbert]

You'Re listening to Comedy Central. Welcome back. My guest tonight, he was the 39th president of these United States. He is here to discuss how his nonprofit organization, the Carter center, has nearly eradicated the guinea worm disease. Please welcome back to the program President Jimmy Carter. Nice to see you.

[Jimmy Carter]

So here you are.

[Stephen Colbert]

Here's what I didn't realize. Okay, so you have this thing that you start in 1986, right? Carter center goes, and they say this guinea worm is a problem. Explain very quickly what it is because I can't do it justice.

[Jimmy Carter]

Guinea worm. If you drink water out of a filthy water hole which fills up during the rainy season and then stays dry, it doesn't have any fresh water. Then you drink the guinea worm eggs and in a year's time, it grows to a worm about 30 inches long. And then it stings the inside of your skin epidermis. And then it creates a sore, big sore. And then it merges it takes it 30 days to come out and it destroys muscle tissue and leaves you a.

[Stephen Colbert]

Cripple and terrible pain.

[Jimmy Carter]

Horrible pain. Almost indescribable pain. Yeah.

[Stephen Colbert]

And this is. I have a lot of times when a movie is coming out, they'll send me a little something like a nerf ball with the name of the movie on it. Your people sent me a dead Guinea World.

[Jimmy Carter]

I'm glad it's dead.

[Stephen Colbert]

Can we get that over here? This is what it looks like. It looks like that is the thing that comes out of people's. Oftentimes their feet. Yes. Their feet or their toes.

[Jimmy Carter]

Feet, toes. The first time I saw it, one was coming out of a nipple of a woman's breast.

[Stephen Colbert]

Unbelievable. And just terribly, terribly painful. Now, in 1986, when you begin this program, how many cases of guinea worm are occurring throughout. Where is it? Where did it mostly have? Asia, Africa.

[Jimmy Carter]

3. 3 countries in Asia and 17 countries in Africa, Sub Saharan Africa. We found guinea worm in 23,600 villages and we had three and a half million cases.

[Stephen Colbert]

Three and a half million cases.

[Jimmy Carter]

That's what we found this year.

[Stephen Colbert]

Now we are 1986 to now is not going to do the math.

[Jimmy Carter]

Last year we had 542 cases.

[Stephen Colbert]

542 from three and a half million.

[Jimmy Carter]

Right. And 521 of those cases were in South Sudan. This year so far, we've just had seven cases, all of them unbelievable.

[Stephen Colbert]

But here's the crazy part. So here's the thing. So we always think about these types of scourges that hit these areas and we have to develop the right medicine and the drug or we have to create some sort of. How was this solved?

[Jimmy Carter]

No medicine will prevent it. No medicine will cure it. For ten thousands of years. They wrapped the guinea worm when it came out around a stick and put some tension on it. So it would come out in 20 days instead of 30 days. So you had to suffer three weeks instead of four weeks. And so we found that if you pour the water through a filter cloth, the kind that won't rot in the tropics, and we provided that, then it screams out the guinea worm eggs. And then you can drink your filthy water without the guinea worm eggs and you don't have the guinea worm. So that's what we've done.

[Stephen Colbert]

Education. You went there and they showed. Now were they resistant to that type of guinea changing? Thousands of years of how they were.

[Jimmy Carter]

Some of them were because the medicine men were making a lot of money treating it by putting it on a stick. And twisting it. And also they thought that the pond was sacred. If it hadn't been for the pond, their ancestors wouldn't live. Their village wouldn't be there. So we were insinuating that the disease came out of our sacred pond. So then if you hold up the glass and have a magnifying glass, you can see the little things swimming around in there. So we convinced them that these were alien people, alien things in their pond. So they let us provide the filter cloths. But we had to go to every single village on earth that had the disease. So we feel that we have prevented about 80 million cases of guinea worms since we first started.

[Stephen Colbert]

Unbelievable. And it's just with the gauze now, did they now. Do they now create the gauze themselves? Like, how does that. You got to keep going through there.

[Jimmy Carter]

Dupont gave us a special filter that wouldn't rot in the tropics.

[Stephen Colbert]

And that's the thing that you have to get.

[Jimmy Carter]

So it had to be woven by people that make parachutes.

[Stephen Colbert]

Wow.

[Jimmy Carter]

Where it's woven together.

[Stephen Colbert]

So you've eradicated. I mean, do you now you got. You know, Bill Gates is out there with malaria. Do you ever. You see him, you rib him a little bit, you'd be like, hey, man, how's it going? Malaria.

[Jimmy Carter]

Well, we work on malaria, too, because.

[Stephen Colbert]

I've been kicking guinea worm's butt for about 25 years now.

[Jimmy Carter]

Well, we don't rag it. We get a lot of money from the Bill Gates Foundation.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oh, that's what I meant. I meant they're very good people. They're really good people. That's what I'm doing.

[Jimmy Carter]

I really one of Bill Gates greatest admirers.

[Stephen Colbert]

When you go in there and you've earned their trust, then are there other things that you want to accomplish in these villages?

[Jimmy Carter]

Are there other things that you want to do? Some of the same people, we go out in the jungle and in the desert areas where nobody else wants to go.

[Stephen Colbert]

Right.

[Jimmy Carter]

They call these neglected diseases because nobody. They really didn't.

[Stephen Colbert]

Oftentimes diseases of sanitation. Diseases of simple 21st century, 20th century.

[Jimmy Carter]

One of the worst cases that comes from filthy eyes, where flies gather around your eyes, is called trachoma. It's the number one cause of preventable blindness. Cataracts called more. But this trachoma is worse. And when you go into a Maasai village or Adinka village and you see little children at a distance, you think they're wearing eyeglasses. And then you get close, it's a ring of flies that stay on the eyes all the time. So the eye gets infected and the upper eyelid turns inward. And every time you blink your eyes. And then they get cornea.

[Stephen Colbert]

But how do you pull it?

[Jimmy Carter]

You have to get rid of the flies. And so we teach the kids how to wash their faces first of all, which they've never tried before. So we have to teach them. And we also have found out that in certain parts of Africa, a woman is absolutely prevented by taboos from relieving herself in the daytime. So they have to hide and urinate or defecate. We decided to try an experiment in Ethiopia. So we taught them how to build a latrine, an outdoor toilet. It only cost about a dollar if they do the work themselves. So we thought we might have 100 or 1,000. We've just finished 2,300,000 latrines in Africa.

[Stephen Colbert]

Wow, that's incredible.

[Jimmy Carter]

I've become famous as a nutrit. Number one latrine builder in the world. I'm not famous for peace between Israel and Egypt, but, you know, maybe they'll.

[Stephen Colbert]

Change the name from the John to the Jimmy. You never know what'll happen. Welcome back. Tonight, the 42nd president of the United States. Annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting, now in its 10th year, kicks off this Sunday, September 21st. Welcome back to the program. President Bill Clinton. Sir.

[Jimmy Carter]

How are you?

[Stephen Colbert]

I'll tell you this, and I'm going to say this, and it's nice you were here to witness it. I live this every day, just the ovations. You're good, too, but thank you.

[Jimmy Carter]

I do this when I see you at home. I'm all alone, just clapping.

[Stephen Colbert]

Scream, look at you.

[Jimmy Carter]

We just can't help ourselves.

[Stephen Colbert]

Exactly. Ten years, a Clinton Globe Initiative. So you have this thing all planned out. You've got these tremendous speakers, all your things in order. Something like this Ebola epidemic jumps up. It probably represents the confluence of all the various things that you can do at Clinton Globe Initiative. How agile can you be when something like that arises? Can you address it, even at this year's scale?

[Jimmy Carter]

Yeah, we are. How we're going to have all the people from the World Health Organization and the UN and the Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health. All these people are going to come together and talk about it. The United States has done a lot. President Obama's gotten some money through Congress and the Pentagon's committed a good bit of money and resources. Look, this is an emergency because nobody knows how to cure this. We know that almost 5000 people have been infected. We know that more than 2600 have died. Almost certainly more than that have been infected. The problem is, as compared with previous outbreaks of Ebola, which were in remote rural areas, this is hit in some urban areas. And when it got into Nigeria and the Congo, there are a lot of people there.

[Stephen Colbert]

Right.

[Jimmy Carter]

And there are just so many bodies brushing up against one another every day. It increases the risk. You have to isolate a lot of these people can survive if they get proper care quickly. And we can stop the epidemic and let it burn itself out if we can isolate everybody that's infected. But it's going to take a Herculean effort.

[Bill Clinton]

Right.

[Stephen Colbert]

Is the idea, too, since you have people on the ground. You know, if organizations that are not as familiar with the local and provincial authorities down there, you know, one of the big issues is trust. The local communities are very frightened by this, justifiably so. And they may not necessarily trust outsiders that come in the United States coming in. How is it that can your organization build through those more local authorities and build the trust you're going to need?

[Jimmy Carter]

We can in Liberia, where we're very active and where we've been there, you know, from the beginning of President Johnson's Herdleaf's tenure. But in other countries, they will have to work with the local health ministries. They'll have to work with the local people, which is why it's encouraging to me that we may have an African coordinator who will have, I think, a lot of credibility working with the overall UN coordinator and the World Health Organization and everybody else. I think, by and large, Doctors Without Borders deserves an enormous amount of credit because they have put their lives at risk and put everything into it. So many people have gone there to serve. And now that Partners in Health is going in. Partners in Health is my partner in Africa, and they've done a lot of work in Africa and they have a very good name. We're going to, I think, see a big ramp up. And I think in Liberia, I saw a news story which said. Just interviewed people on the street who were really thrilled that the American government and the military were going to invest in doing this. We've been working in Africa with the military since I was president, and there's an Africa command now, and they're very well organized. I expect this to be better.

[Stephen Colbert]

How old is that? 20 years. Is that.

[Jimmy Carter]

Well, we first of all organized a training program in West Africa, and then after I left office, they turned it into a separate command. So they've been working about 17 years, I think.

[Stephen Colbert]

All right. Unbelievable. Well, it's nice to See that? The infrastructure paying off in the future. When we come back, we're gonna figure out how to fix the other parts of the world that are broken.

[Jimmy Carter]

Let's do it.

[Barack Obama]

Welcome back to our conversation with soon to be former tenant of the White House. I've got one more question for you. This is a personal question. It's a little bit selfish. I look up to you because we share a lot in common. We both have parents who are black and white, both half African. South side of Chicago. South side of Africa. Similar in and around race.

[Bill Clinton]

Yeah.

[Barack Obama]

When you are a person who has a platform, when you are in a space where you are engaging with people, it is often difficult to navigate and skirt that line between speaking your mind.

[Bill Clinton]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

And sharing your true opinions on race whilst at the same time not being seen to alienate some of the people you are talking to.

[Bill Clinton]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

You know, because if you are a white person who's speaking about race, then you are just a person who is interested in race.

[Bill Clinton]

Right.

[Barack Obama]

If you are a person of color we're speaking about, it's like, oh, the black thing started again. So the question I've always wanted to know is, how did you navigate that? Cause we watched you do it. But I always wanted to know how you navigated that through three or two terms.

[Bill Clinton]

You know, my general theory is that if I was clear in my own mind about who I was, comfortable in my own skin and had clarity about the way in which race continues to be this powerful factor in so many elements of our lives, but that it is not the only factor in so many aspects of our lives, that we have by no means overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and colonialism and racism, but that the progress we've made has been real and extraordinary. If I'm communicating my genuine belief that those who are not subject to racism can sometimes have blind spots or lack appreciation of what it feels to be on the receiving end of that, but that doesn't mean that they're not open to learning and caring about equality and justice and that I can win them over because there's goodness in the majority of people. If I. I always felt that if I really knew that, and I just communicated it as. As clearly as I could, that I'd be okay. Another way of saying this is there's not been a time in my public life or my presidency where I feel as if I have had to bite my tongue. There have been times in my public life where I've said, how do I say this diplomatically? How do I Say this, as you indicated, in a way that it's received. Yes, right. So there, there have been very few instances where I've said, well, that was racist. You are racist. There have been times where I've said, you know, you might not have taken into account the ongoing legacy of racism in why we have so many black men incarcerated. And since I know that you believe in the Constitution and believe in justice and believe in liberty, how about if we try this now? Some might say, well, you're not speaking fully truth to power because of that diplomacy.

[Stephen Colbert]

Yes.

[Bill Clinton]

But you know, I don't think that trying to appeal to the better angels of our nature, as Lincoln put it, is somehow compromised. There may be times where you just have to call things out and name names. But the challenge we face today when it comes to race is rarely the overt Klansman style racism and typically has more to do with the fact that people got other stuff they want to talk about. And it's sort of uncomfortable and it's somebody not getting called back for an interview, although it's never explicit or it's, you know, who gets the TV acting job, the actress who doesn't quite look the part. And what does that mean? And in that environment where you're not talking necessarily about cut and dried racist behavior, but rather about the complex ways in which society is working these issues through, you know, trying to reach folks in ways that they can hear, I think is important. And I would add, everybody's got a different role to play. You know, if Chris Rock's doing standup, then there's a benefit to him doing something that is different from the President of the United States doing something. For one thing, you know, he doesn't have to edit his language quite as carefully because I am still subject to, you know, some restraints.

[Barack Obama]

You've still got your last few days.

[Bill Clinton]

On those seven words George Carlin talked about. I can't use those as a general proposition because a lot of children are watching. I try to comport myself in a way that my mother would approve of.

[Barack Obama]

Well, I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for being an inspiration. And most importantly, thank you for giving me an opportunity to see what I would look like after eight years of the toughest job in the world.

[Bill Clinton]

You know, I, I will say that I, I resent how young and good looking you are. Cause I used to think of myself in those terms and it's been downhill for quite some time.

[Barack Obama]

Thank you, sir.

[Bill Clinton]

Thank you, man.

[Barack Obama]

Thank you very much.

[Bill Clinton]

Appreciate it.

[Stephen Colbert]

Back we're talking with Senator Joe Biden, maybe Senator Joe Biden, perhaps President Biden. Is that.

[Joe Biden]

Well, I'm going out to see whether or not anybody but me thinks I should be president. So I've been going out around the country, going to a lot of those red states as a Democrat, see if I can gain some support, raise some money, and that's what I'm doing.

[Stephen Colbert]

I've always said, and I've always heard, as Delaware goes, so goes the nation.

[Joe Biden]

Well, actually, actually in terms of presidential elections, we haven't never had a president. But in terms of presidential elections, with one exception, that's been the case.

[Stephen Colbert]

Is that true?

[Joe Biden]

That's absolutely true. Because it's voted the way the nation has voted, by almost the same percentage over the last two.

[Stephen Colbert]

You know what I would do for Delaware as a reward for that? Buy the entire state indoor carpeting.

[Joe Biden]

Because here's the thing, somebody's already done that.

[Stephen Colbert]

Is that true? I can literally punt. So that's what that is, that soft, cushy feeling when you're deciding to do something like that. Do you have to go out and immediately hire the whole coterie of consultants? Is that the thing? And do they immediately tell you the essence of you that has made you a popular politician lose that? Is that the advice that they give is to cause. Doesn't it strike you that Hillary Clinton is now saying to her, let me suck you dry of any rough edges so that you can be palatable like cottage cheese?

[Joe Biden]

Well, let me. I've not hired any of the so called big feet out there. I went through that 20 years ago. And what I've decided to do. Look, I've noticed one thing. Those folks have made it good, bad, indifferent, have had a group of people, half a dozen people with them for 20 years or more, loyal to them, that took them to the dance, they.

[Bill Clinton]

Stayed with them, who would do anything.

[Stephen Colbert]

For them, destroy people if they destroy people, who would make phone calls to south people.

[Joe Biden]

South Carolina.

[Stephen Colbert]

Exactly. And do what they have to do. Does it give you pause that for being in the Senate it seems so frustrating because the Democrats right now are reduced to. I'm gonna hold my breath until you stop bringing up these names. Do you know what I mean? Does that make you give you pause in terms of getting into the national arena?

[Joe Biden]

Well, that's the reason to get in. I mean, part of my frustration is I've been doing this a long time and I've convinced the. You cannot change the direction of the country in the next two elections in the Senate, you can't get it done. And that's an honest to God reason why I'm out looking to see if I can get the nomination. And besides, as one staff member told me, he said, there's great benefits. Look at the vacation time you get.

[Stephen Colbert]

Nicely done, sir. You may end up going against a senate colleague, perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist.

[Joe Biden]

Well, John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain because I think the country would be better off be well off no matter who.

[Stephen Colbert]

Did I hear?

[Joe Biden]

Did I hear with, you know, John McCain and I think, don't become cottage cheese, my friend.

[Stephen Colbert]

Say it.

[Joe Biden]

The answer is yes. I hope John. I wanted John to run with John Kerry last time out and I asked him to do that.

[Stephen Colbert]

Boy, I would love to see politics be shaken up in a way that just completely blew out the ramparts of partisanship. That that would be a wonderful situation. That's what we like to say, whether it be any Democrat or Republican. I like. I like the pairing. Thank you for coming by. I know you're on recess on recess.

[Joe Biden]

Just like grade school.

[Stephen Colbert]

I'm excited on recess. Go have yourself a nap and a little sippy cup and be on your way. Senator Joe Biden, thank you so much for coming by. Appreciate.

[Jimmy Carter]

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 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount+.

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