Trump Defies Court Order & Deports Migrants, Lewis Black vs. Air Travel | Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson

Summary

Summary of "Trump Defies Court Order & Deports Migrants, Lewis Black vs. Air Travel | Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson"

Release Date: March 19, 2025
Podcast: The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Hosts: Jordan Klepper, Lewis Black, Troy Iwata
Guests: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson

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1. Trump Administration’s Deportation of Migrants

Overview:
The episode delves into former President Donald Trump's recent actions to deport hundreds of suspected Venezuelan gang members, invoking the archaic Aliens Enemies Act of 1798. This move has sparked significant legal and constitutional debates.

Key Points:

• Use of the Aliens Enemies Act of 1798:
  Trump cited this outdated law to justify the deportation without substantial due process, drawing controversial parallels to its historical misuse during World War II against Japanese Americans.

  Lewis Black [03:27]: "The administration invoking an obscure law, the Aliens Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the government to deport people with little to no due process and was last used to round up Japanese Americans during World War II."

• Legal Challenges and Court Orders:
  A federal judge intervened, ordering that any planes carrying these deportees must return to the United States, a directive the Trump administration chose to ignore.

  Lewis Black [05:17]: "That federal judge, in an emergency hearing Saturday, ordered any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States."

  Troy Iwata [05:48]: "Donald Trump went from, oh, sorry, we would have listened to this judge if we had heard it in time to actually, this lunatic judge should be impeached."

• Constitutional Crisis:
  The administration's defiance has raised alarms about potential constitutional crises, highlighting a blatant disregard for judicial authority.

  Lewis Black [07:10]: "The Trump administration argued that the court no longer had jurisdiction once the planes were over international waters."

2. Trump’s Controversial Claims About Biden’s Pardons

Overview:
In a satirical twist, Trump alleges that President Joe Biden’s use of an auto pen to sign official documents is illegitimate, questioning the validity of past pardons.

Key Points:

• Auto Pen Controversy:
  Trump claimed that Biden’s use of an automatic signing device undermines the authenticity of his pardons, despite historical precedent dating back to Thomas Jefferson.

  Troy Iwata [09:09]: "Presidents Biden and Obama both used an auto pen device to sign official documents, a practice that is legally binding."

  Lewis Black [10:43]: "Trump basically just admitted that he doesn't personally sign any of the get well letters he sends to young people who aren't feeling well."

• Impact on Families:
  The exaggerated claims humorously suggest that Biden’s reliance on technology has dire effects on families receiving these pardons.

  Lewis Black [11:31]: "When these sick kids found out that Trump used an auto pen on their letters, their hearts broke and they died."

3. Air Travel Safety Concerns

Overview:
Lewis Black and Derek Thompson discuss the deteriorating state of American air travel, citing recent plane incidents and systemic issues within air traffic control.

Key Points:

• Recent Plane Incidents:
  Multiple near-misses and accidents have raised questions about the current safety standards in U.S. aviation.

  Ezra Klein [17:04]: "The recent string of horrific plane crashes."

  Lewis Black [17:33]: "You understand? You're supposed to keep the planes appear naturally with all the chaos."

• Air Traffic Controllers’ Crisis:
  The U.S. is experiencing a significant shortage of air traffic controllers, exacerbated by mandatory overtime and recent firings by the Trump administration.

  Lewis Black [18:21]: "Air traffic controllers are under tremendous stress right now. Many controllers working mandatory overtime."

  Derek Thompson [19:37]: "Critics say issues could get worse with recent firings of 400 FAA staff members by Elon Musk in the Trump administration's doge."

• Potential Solutions:
  The discussion highlighted the need for better support and recruitment for air traffic controllers to restore safety standards.

  Derek Thompson [20:16]: "Personally, when I'm flying, I like to ease my anxiety by screaming, there's a bird in the engine. We're all gonna die."

4. Interview with Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson on "Abundance"

Overview:
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, co-authors of the new book Abundance, discuss their optimistic vision for America's future, focusing on institutional reforms and addressing affordability crises.

Key Points:

• Redefining Liberalism:
  The authors argue that to create the future America desires, there needs to be substantial investment in building essential infrastructure like housing, healthcare, and education rather than merely subsidizing existing systems.

  Ezra Klein [25:10]: "The left has looked for what it could subsidize. Right. If we don't have enough health care insurance, can we give you a health care voucher?"

  Lewis Black [25:35]: "Donald Trump does not understand how to fix the problems that ironically led to his election."

• Affordability Crisis:
  California, New York, and Illinois are highlighted as states suffering from severe affordability issues, leading to population declines and reduced political power.

  Ezra Klein [26:13]: "In California, New York, Illinois are losing hundreds of thousands of people a year."

• Outcome-Oriented Politics:
  The book emphasizes the importance of setting clear, achievable goals and removing bureaucratic obstacles to implement solutions effectively, drawing inspiration from the success of Operation Warp Speed.

  Lewis Black [32:23]: "We set a very clear goal. We said, in 10 months we're going to develop a therapy that saves people's lives."

  Ezra Klein [34:31]: "You don't get long term results in politics without short term."

• Positive Vision vs. Negative Identity:
  The authors stress the necessity for Democrats to present a positive and proactive vision for the future rather than solely focusing on critiquing their opponents.

  Lewis Black [37:13]: "What's the positive vision? All right, Donald Trump sucks. What are we gonna place him with?"

  Ezra Klein [35:38]: "We have to have answers to the problems people face in their lives."

• Strategic Recommendations:
  Klein and Thompson advocate for integrating short-term achievements with long-term goals to demonstrate government efficacy and regain public trust.

  Ezra Klein [34:31]: "Making sure that money through government flows faster is how you make sure that people know government actually matters in their lives."

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Conclusion

The episode offers a critical examination of the Trump administration's contentious immigration policies and their broader implications on constitutional integrity. Simultaneously, it addresses systemic issues within American air travel, underscoring the urgent need for reforms in air traffic management. The insightful interview with Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson provides a forward-looking perspective on tackling America's affordability crises through proactive and outcome-driven politics. Overall, the episode blends sharp political satire with substantive discussions on pressing national issues, delivering a comprehensive and engaging narrative for listeners.

Transcript

[Jordan Klepper]

Optimize your nutrition with Factor America's number one ready to eat meal service. Factor's Fresh Never frozen meals are dietitian approved and ready to eat in just 2 minutes. Choose from 40 weekly options across 8 dietary preferences like calorie, smart, and protein. Plus Factor's keto meals can help you lose up to 8 pounds in 8 weeks. Get [e-mail] FactorMeals 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box weight loss with Factor Keto based on a randomized controlled clinical trial. Results will vary depending on diet and exercise.

[Lewis Black]

Introducing Instagram teen accounts. A new way to keep your teen safer as they grow. Like making sure they've got the right gear for writing.

[Troy Iwata]

Knee pads.

[Lewis Black]

Check.

[Troy Iwata]

And helmet.

[Lewis Black]

Done. See you, dad. New Instagram teen accounts. Automatic protections for who can contact your teen and the content they can see. PayPal lets you pay all your pals like your graduation gifters. Who's paying for the mattress topper? You mean the bean bag? Aren't we getting a mini fridge? Can we create a pool on PayPal? It lets us collect the money before we buy. Ooh, yes, that's smart. Glad we can agree on something easily.

[Troy Iwata]

Pool split and Send Money with PayPal. Get started in the PayPal app.

[Ezra Klein]

A PayPal account is required to send and receive money. A balance account is required to create a pool.

[Jordan Klepper]

You're listening to Comedy Central from the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central. It's America's only source for news. This is the Daily show with your host, Jordan Klepper.

[Troy Iwata]

Welcome to the Daily Show. I am Jordan Clapper. We got so much to talk about tonight. The Trump administration deports and says no backsies. Biden's pardons might need their own pardon. And Lewis Black screams about plane safety like a Southwest passenger who got overserved. So let's get right into it.

[Jordan Klepper]

I'm gonna come now.

[Troy Iwata]

One of Trump's big promises for his second term was deporting violent immigrants from America. And he often mentioned one violent gang in particular. Trende Aragua. Remove the savage gang. Trendy Aroa. Trende Aragua. Trendy Arguay. Trende Aragua. You know, the members of that gang are like, is that us he's talking about Trump? Sounds like my grandfather ordering Chipotle. I'll take the Barbara Akoa. Buenos nachos. And over the weekend, Trump announced he was deporting hundreds of these suspected Venezuelan gang members all the way back to El Salvador. So close enough. And of course, these suspected gang members would be afforded A rigorous legal procedure, including a trial, the presentation of evidence, and all the rights of due process. I'm just with you. You did it.

[Lewis Black]

The administration invoking an obscure law, the Aliens enemies Act of 1798, which allows the government to deport people with little to no due process and was last used to round up Japanese Americans during World War II.

[Troy Iwata]

Last used to round up Japanese Americans during World War II. Why does Trump always have to pick the oldest, most racist laws to do what he wants to do? Cutting taxes under the authority of the it's okay to drown Italians law of 1863. It's not just that. It's archaic. Invoking that law has some big problems. One is that if you're deporting gang members, but there's no due process, then you don't really know if you're deporting gang members. You're just deporting people who you think look like gang members. And if you start deporting every shady looking guy with questionable tattoos, I mean, who's gonna go to jetskate? But you know what? You know what? I'm sure Donald Trump has the cultural understanding to carefully discern who is a member of. What's that gang name again? Trendy Arguire. Yeah, yeah, you guys are. There's another problem with invoking this law, which is it's supposed to be used in wartime. So to make this work, Trump had to pretend that we're at war with Venezuela, which we're not. Not to mention, a pretend war is an extremely complicated concept to throw at the Secretary of defense on St. Patrick's Day. So, man, okay, so bottom line, bottom line here, there's a lot of legal questions up in the air. So on Saturday, a federal judge decided to pump the brakes.

[Lewis Black]

That federal judge, in an emergency hearing Saturday, ordered any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, adding, this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.

[Troy Iwata]

Oh, well, it was a good try, Donald, but the judge has ruled and that's the way the system works. So Trump brought the Venezuelans back, gave them due process, did the whole Constitution thing. I'm with you again. He ignored the judge.

[Lewis Black]

The administration made a calculated decision to ignore a federal judge's directive to turn the flights around.

[Troy Iwata]

My God. I mean, if you had told me that Donald Trump would trigger a constitutional crisis just seven weeks into his term, I would have said, that is a lot later than I thought. I mean, Donald showed a lot. I mean, Trump's really becoming presidential. Of course, the administration didn't just come out and say, we don't listen to judges from now on. They had the respect for the judicial branch to come up with some bullshit.

[Lewis Black]

The White House argued that Boasberg's written order was issued when the planes were already mid air, and that his verbal order some 40 minutes earlier did not count.

[Troy Iwata]

It didn't count? Is that how rulings work? You have to put it in writing? You can't just say it? Well, this is definitely not the first time that Trump has defended himself by arguing that oral doesn't count. Look it up. Look it up. Look. The judge wasn't terribly impressed with that argument. So Trump's lawyers went with another response, which was, can't catch me. Force field.

[Lewis Black]

The Trump administration argued that the court no longer had jurisdiction once the planes were over international waters.

[Troy Iwata]

Yes, okay. Apparently, the Constitution is not in effect over international waters. That explains Carnival Cruise Line's new ship, the SS Cruel and Unusual Punishment. And while the Trump administration is saying that it has the right to ignore judicial orders, President Trump himself is somehow going even further. President Donald Trump just took to truth social and deemed this judge responding to.

[Lewis Black]

This decision here, calling him a radical.

[Ezra Klein]

Left lunatic of a judge, a troublemaker.

[Lewis Black]

And agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama.

[Troy Iwata]

He says this judge should be impeached. So there you have it. Donald Trump went from, oh, sorry, we would have listened to this judge if we had heard it in time to actually, this lunatic judge should be impeached. And if you would have told me that that all happened in 48 hours, I would have said, wow, again, longer than I expected. Now, some of you might be thinking, jordan, Jordan, Jordan, enough about this constitutional crisis. I want to hear about another constitutional crisis. Well, you're in luck. Last night, the president posted on social media said, quote, the pardons that sleepy.

[Ezra Klein]

Joe Biden gave to the UN Select Committee of Political Thugs and many others are hereby declared void, vacant, and of.

[Troy Iwata]

No further force or effect because of.

[Ezra Klein]

The fact that they were done by auto pan.

[Troy Iwata]

He's voiding Joe Biden's pardons. It's not enough that he's fighting the judicial branch in the present. He's also fighting the executive branch in the past, he's causing more problems in the multiverse than Jonathan Majors. But, yes, I guess Donald Trump just found out about auto pens. Which leads us to one of the most annoying events in a Trump presidency. Donald learns about something new, so we all have to learn about it, too.

[Lewis Black]

Presidents Biden and Obama both used an auto pen device to sign official documents, a practice that is legally binding.

[Ezra Klein]

The actual use of the auto pen dates back to Thomas Jefferson.

[Troy Iwata]

Thomas Jefferson. I mean, I guess that makes sense when you have that many secret kids. That's a lot of birthday cards you gotta sign. Busy man. Now, to be fair to Trump, he's not just saying Joe Biden used an auto pen. It's something far more sinister, a conspiracy so evil that Trump took time out of his busy schedule waiting for the airplane bathroom to discuss the whole subject of auto pen. Did he know what he was doing? Did he authorize it? Or is this somebody in an office, maybe a radical left lunatic, just signing whatever? Yes, good question. Did Joe Biden really sign the pardons that he said several times he signed? Or did a radical left lunatic sneak into the Oval Office and start signing whatever was in the room? Pardons laws, doctor's notes, yearbooks. I mean, did Joe Biden really want Cindy to have a great summer, or was it the deep state? My favorite part of this whole story is how Trump tried to claim that he would never use an auto pen, only to remember that he actually did use an auto pen.

[Lewis Black]

I never used it.

[Troy Iwata]

I mean, we may use it as an example to send some young person.

[Jordan Klepper]

A letter because it's nice.

[Lewis Black]

You know, we get thousands and thousands.

[Troy Iwata]

Of letters and letters of support for.

[Jordan Klepper]

Young people, for people that aren't feeling well, et cetera.

[Troy Iwata]

Yeah, if I'm doing important things like pardoning January Sixers, I'll say to myself, but for doing stupid shit like writing letters to sick kids, docusign is fine either way. Trump basically just admitted that he doesn't personally sign any of the get well letters he sends to young people who aren't feeling well. Now, obviously, that's not the important part of this story. What's important is the danger that. Excuse me. Jordan? Jordan. Oh, Troy Iwata, everybody. Troy, where are you right now?

[Lewis Black]

Jordan? I'm at the hospital for young people who aren't feeling well. And you might not think that their feelings are important, but when these sick kids found out that Trump used an auto pen on their letters, their hearts broke and they died.

[Troy Iwata]

Holy shit. I. All the kids died?

[Lewis Black]

Well, no, there's still one hanging on, and he is being so brave and. Oh, okay, there he goes. That was the last one.

[Troy Iwata]

Okay. Are we sure it was their. Their broken hearts? It wasn't whatever medical condition they were dealing with?

[Lewis Black]

No, a lot of them weren't even sick. Some had scrapes Some had a tummy ache. Some had that fake get out of school cough, you know, with the curled tongue, the. That one. But no matter what it was, when they learned about the auto pen, their hearts just stopped working. Except for one kid whose life support cord I tripped over. That was my bad, and I said I was sorry.

[Troy Iwata]

Okay, look, Troy, Troy, look. I don't get this. Trump has been so cruel to sick kids. He's cut cancer research and medical services. He's threatening their health insurance. I mean, what do they love so much about Trump?

[Lewis Black]

I mean, little kids just love tariffs. Jordan. I don't know, maybe some of them are racist. But the point is, they're gone now. No more little booger fingers. No more department store tantrums, no more screaming on airplanes. You know what? I'm kind of talking myself into this.

[Troy Iwata]

Troy. No, Troy, you're being very callous.

[Lewis Black]

Sorry.

[Ezra Klein]

You're right.

[Lewis Black]

You're right. Okay. Some of These kids were 5 and 6 years old, so all they had at the end were their stuffed animals and their jobs at Doge. It was. It's a real tragedy.

[Troy Iwata]

It is. You're right. You're right. I mean, I don't. I don't know how their families are gonna live with this.

[Lewis Black]

Well, fortunately, President Trump sent them all letters of condolence. He got a lot of them signed pretty quickly and. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Families don't open those letters.

[Troy Iwata]

Oh, shit.

[Lewis Black]

Everyone's dead.

[Troy Iwata]

Everyone's dead. Tragic stuff. Trojan, everyone. When we come back, Ruth Black is grounded, so stick.

[Jordan Klepper]

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[Lewis Black]

Introducing Instagram teen accounts.

[Troy Iwata]

A new way to keep your teen.

[Lewis Black]

Safer as they grow. Like making sure they always have their seatbelt on. Alright, sweetie pie, buckle up. Good job. Or ring the bell on their bike. Okay, kid, give it a try.

[Troy Iwata]

Nice. Or remember their elbow pads.

[Lewis Black]

Knees too. Okay.

[Troy Iwata]

Yep.

[Lewis Black]

There you go. New Instagram teen accounts. Automatic protections for who can contact your teen and the content they can see. It's tax season and by now. I know we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's an important one you need to hear. $16.5 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Here's another 20%. That's the overall increase in identity theft related to tax fraud in 2024 alone. But it's not all grim news. Here's a good number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US based restoration specialists will fix it. Backed by another good number, the million dollar protection plan. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your money back. Don't face identity theft and financial losses alone. There's strength in numbers with Lifelock. Identity theft protection for tax season and beyond. Join now and save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code iheart or go to lifelock.com iheart for 40% off. Terms apply.

[Troy Iwata]

Welcome back to the Daily Show. Now, when a news story falls through the cracks, Lewis Black catches it for a segment we call Back in Black.

[Derek Thompson]

You know, once upon a time, air travel was a pleasant experience. People got dressed up, the food was good, and if someone put their elbow on your armrest, you could burn it with your cigarette. Of course, nowadays, travel sucks and it's only getting worse.

[Ezra Klein]

The recent string of horrific plane crashes.

[Lewis Black]

Are making many wonder.

[Derek Thompson]

Is it safe to fly?

[Ezra Klein]

Scary moments at LaGuardia Airport after a Delta plane's wing struck the Runway.

[Troy Iwata]

Near miss between the Southwest Airlines plane that is landing, landing right there. And a private jet. Look at that. That crosses its way.

[Lewis Black]

An American Airlines plane engine on fire after landing at Denver International Airport.

[Troy Iwata]

The former president of the National Air Traffic Controllers association had this stark warning.

[Lewis Black]

Unfortunately, in 2025, the United States airspace system is no longer considered the gold.

[Ezra Klein]

Standard around the world.

[Derek Thompson]

Yeah, no shit. What else are you going to tell me Alec Baldwin is no longer the gold standard in workplace safety? And look, I'm no aviation safety expert, but I'm pretty sure the plane is supposed to land right side up, not splayed on its back like it's waiting for a happy ending. Oh, Svetlana, my landing gear isn't gonna tickle itself. So it's safe to say air travel is in rougher shape than RFK Jr. S larynx. And all of these mishaps are no coincidence since America treats its air traffic controllers like crap.

[Lewis Black]

Air traffic controllers are under tremendous stress right now. Many controllers working mandatory overtime. 6 day weeks of 10 hour shifts staffing across the country is a huge and chronic. The country is still short some 3 to 4,000 air traffic controllers.

[Derek Thompson]

How is this possible? There are 300 million people in this country and we can't find any more air traffic controllers. Listen, America, some of you need to help land airplanes. We can't all be TikTok influencers. And I was doing it first. What up, fam? Remember to smash that like button or I'll kill myself. Wow, 3 million likes. Joke's on you. I'm still gonna kill myself. So, yes, yes, it seems like air traffic controllers are in a wee bit of trouble. Luckily, inbred Freddie Mercury is here to help.

[Lewis Black]

Critics say issues could get worse with recent firings of 400 FAA staff members by Elon Musk in the Trump administration's doge.

[Derek Thompson]

Good God, Elon, what are you doing? How can I put this in a way? You understand? You're supposed to keep the planes appear naturally with all the chaos, you might be terrified to get on a plane, but there are plenty of insufferable ways to get over your fears.

[Lewis Black]

If you're feeling anxious on the plane, try deep breathing meditation and distraction with books, music, movies or conversations with others. There's also having positive self talk, having some reality conversations. I'm okay. This is a plane ride. I'm almost there.

[Troy Iwata]

I can make it.

[Lewis Black]

I tell them, put a rubber band on your wrist. When you start feeling phobic or worried or anxious, just gently snap it and it sort of pulls you back.

[Derek Thompson]

Who listens to him? God, that is beyond dumb. I'm sure your seatmate would love to spend seven hours listening to you snap a rubber band and mumble, I'm okay. Snap. Everything is fine. Snap. No one else can smell my nervous diarrhea. Snap. Snap. Snap. Personally, personally, when I'm flying, I like to ease my anxiety by screaming, there's a bird in the engine. We're all gonna die. But hey, you, do you. Of course, if you're riddled with anxiety, why not distract yourself by watching my latest TikTok? There's a bird in the engine. We're all gonna die. See you in hell, fam.

[Troy Iwata]

Jordan Lewis Black, everyone, we come back.

[Jordan Klepper]

Ready to optimize your nutrition this year. Meet Factor America's number one ready to eat meal service. Factor's Fresh Never frozen meals are dietitian approved and ready to eat in just two minutes. Their chefs handle the shopping and the chopping. Delivering fresh, fully cooked meals to your door. All you have to do is heat and Enjoy. Choose from 40 weekly options across eight dietary preferences like Calorie Smart, Protein plus, and Keto. And if you're looking to lose weight factors Keto meals can help you lose up to £8 in eight weeks. Savor Nutritious premium meals no matter how busy life gets. Eat smart with factor. Get started at Factor Meals.com FactorMeals50OFF and use code Factor Meals5.0OFF to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box weight loss with factor Keto based on a randomized controlled clinical trial. Results will vary depending on diet and exercise.

[Lewis Black]

Introducing Instagram Teen accounts.

[Troy Iwata]

A new way to keep your teen.

[Lewis Black]

Safer as they grow. Like making sure they always have their seatbelt on. Alright, sweetie pie, buckle up. Good job. Or ring the bell on their bike. Okay, kid, give it a try.

[Troy Iwata]

Nice.

[Lewis Black]

Or remember their elbow pads. Knees too. Okay. Yep, There you go. New Instagram teen accounts. Automatic protections for who can contact your teen and the content they can see. Hi, this is Debbie, your blinds.com design consultant. Oh, wow, a real person.

[Ezra Klein]

Yep.

[Lewis Black]

I'm here to help you with everything from selecting the perfect window treatments to. I've got a complicated project. No problem. We make the complex simple and I can even help schedule a professional measure and install. I didn't realize you did that. Yeah, we can also send you samples fast and free. Wow. I mean, I always thought I needed.

[Ezra Klein]

A designer to come to my home.

[Lewis Black]

But scheduling's always a nightmare. Notwithblinds.com, we're on your schedule. And there's no haggling, no pressure, no hidden fees either. I just might have to do more. Oh, okay. Whatever you need. How about you tell me what you had in mind? Okay, then. So the first room we're looking at is for guests coming over. Blinds.com has covered over 25 million windows, all backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Shop blinds.com now and get up to 40% off with minimum purchase rules and restrictions may apply.

[Troy Iwata]

Welcome back to the Daily Show. My guests tonight are journalists and co authors of the new book Abundance. Please welcome New York Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein and staff writer for the Atlantic, Derek Thompson.

[Lewis Black]

Gentlemen.

[Troy Iwata]

Gentlemen. You wrote a book about an optimistic future, about reforming America's Institutions. Why delve into sci fi?

[Lewis Black]

This is a good, deep question. Yeah. There's a sentence in the first chapter of the book that sounds like one of the most obvious sentences ever written in any nonfiction book ever. We say, quote, to have the future that we want, America needs to build and invent more of what we need. Like, how in the world do you have to write an entire book about the most obvious sentence you've ever heard?

[Troy Iwata]

So you cribbed that sentence, is what you said. Absolutely. You stole it.

[Ezra Klein]

You put it in chatgpt, wrote that sentence.

[Troy Iwata]

It's so easy now.

[Ezra Klein]

And the whole.

[Lewis Black]

And the thing is, you wouldn't have to write a whole book about that sentence if you lived in a world of sanity. But we don't. We live in a world of the constitutional crises that you talked about. And we also live in a world that has affordability crises and housing crises. And a lot of these crises, unfortunately, are worst in blue states and blue cities. And so what our book is trying to do is to redefine liberalism, the Democratic Party, for an age where the Democratic Party is incredibly unpopular, but it has to be strong and popular to take on Donald Trump. But I think we have to take a good long look in a mirror and say, why is it that we've allowed the places we have the most power to become so problematic that people are leaving and we're losing power in these places?

[Troy Iwata]

Yeah. No. The book is essentially, it's written to the left as sort of a credo as to what we should be looking forward to. What is this idea of abundance? In a nutshell, what are we talking about?

[Ezra Klein]

So for a long time, the left has looked for what it could subsidize. Right. If we don't have enough health care insurance, can we give you a health care voucher? That's Obamacare. Can we give you food stamps to get food? Pell grants to get higher education, rental vouchers to get housing? Then you look at places where liberals govern, and a lot of it doesn't work because we don't have enough of the core thing. If you give people a bunch of rental vouchers in New York City, in San Francisco, what often happens is they can't get housing because there isn't enough of it or the price goes up. Higher education is a similar dynamic. Health care has some dynamics like that. You got, at a certain point, focus on building enough of the things you need. Housing is a big one. I'm from California. I'm from Irvine, California, down south from Los Angeles. I Lived in San Francisco during much of the writing of the book. This is a solved problem. We know how to build apartment buildings, we know how to build homes. We just don't let people do it. And the result is that California, New York, Illinois are losing hundreds of thousands of people a year. So many that by 2030, after the census, where we reapportion political power based on population, after that, if all goes as it's been going, a Democrat who won every state, Kamala Harris won and also won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, still wouldn't win the presidency because blue states would have lost so much power by driving out working class families to red states. So, yeah, you gotta fix this stuff.

[Troy Iwata]

Yeah. And maybe I wanna tweak that optimistic look at the future. But you speak about this, you talk a lot about the regulation, regulations in places like California and places like New York. Is the answer to make California look more like Texas? Is that what we're talking about?

[Lewis Black]

Sometimes I think absolutely the answer is to make California look more like Texas. I mean, sometimes if the problem is that a city has too many regulations and too much zoning and too many rules that get in the way of accessing the most basic technology of putting up sticks and adding an elevator, then, yeah, you take away the bad rules that are getting in the way of adding housing supply, where you have to just add more damn houses. It doesn't mean, though, that we're Texas Republicans. And I think it's important to say that neither is Donald Trump. In a weird way. Like, Trump was elected because of an affordability crisis in this country. He was elected because of inflation. And the biggest part of inflation, the biggest part of anybody's budget, is housing. Trump could have been elected and said, I'm a Texas Republican and my first order of business is going to be to make it easier to build houses in America. What does he do instead? He slaps a tariff on lumber from Canada and drywall material from Mexico. Guess what's really, really hard to build. If you have no wood and you also have no drywall material, it turns out to be houses. So the first thing he does is make it harder to build the thing we need to solve the affordability crisis. Donald Trump does not understand how to fix the problems that ironically led to his election. That's where Democrats need to stand up and say, we're going to build an up opposition movement that fixes people's problems by understanding people's problems.

[Troy Iwata]

Now, how much is. Sure, you're building an argument for building, for coming together. Obviously, you're writing this book before this past election. And there's times where I'm hearing about this vision of if we can get people together to get on the same page, we can fit big issues like the housing crisis, like the environment. It feels like we're talking about, like we can make this Titanic run beautifully. But then the election hits and we hit the iceberg. So how much of this is still applicable to a Democratic movement that feels very hobbled right now?

[Ezra Klein]

I gotta say, man, the thing that surprised me least in the election was the blue shift to Trump. Yeah, right. That blue cities and blue states had the biggest shift to the right because this was an affordability election. And we're actually, I think, just generally in a new age in American politics. For a very long time after the financial crisis, the problem the economy had was demand. We didn't have enough demand. We didn't have enough jobs, we didn't have high enough wages. And everybody on both sides talked endlessly about demand. And in the background, for a long time, for decades, there had been this building affordability crisis in health care, in housing, in education, in childcare, in elder care, and nobody was really doing anything about it. And then the pandemic hit and inflation hit, and the entire, like, Sauron's eye of American politics moved to prices and inflation calmed in parts. Right. It's not going up the way it was, although we'll see how the tariffs go. But the affordability crisis then was in full view and it got in worse and it had gotten worse. And so we're in this era where people are going to have to figure out how to solve this. And yeah, this was a bad election. Like, we are in a bad place. Everything you. I was, like, having trouble deciding during your monologue. Should I laugh? Right, yes.

[Troy Iwata]

Like this stuff. This is. Ezra. This is the problem with liberals today. They're watching a comedy show being like, should I laugh? Should I think about it? How do I feel? Let me run some focus groups. What do you feel, Ezra?

[Ezra Klein]

I have felt, like, disgusted in these last weeks. This has been the worst time I can remember in American politics. And the problem that liberals keep running into is they keep trying to beat Donald Trump, not based on what he does to people's lives, but what he does to people's institutions. And if the Democratic Party is going to win, if it's going to beat the populist right, which is coming up again and again, not just here, but in other countries, you have to have answers to the problems people face in their lives. Not answers to the abstract questions of politics. Not answers to. Not answers to who is on the side of democracy, but answers to whose states are better governed. Which places do you want to live? Who has something to say about what is making your Tuesday hard?

[Troy Iwata]

Now, it's interesting. You talk about messaging, I get to the end of the book, and you bring up Operation Warp Speed and I'm like, oh, I forgot about Operation Warp Speed.

[Lewis Black]

Yeah, so did everybody else.

[Troy Iwata]

Yeah.

[Lewis Black]

I mean, the thing about Operation Warp Speed is like, you have a program that by some accounts saved 10 to 20 million lives around the world by inventing and accelerating the distribution of MRNA vaccines, and yet nobody talks about it.

[Troy Iwata]

Nobody talks about it.

[Lewis Black]

I think the Democrats don't talk about it because it's kind of awkward to give credit to a program that was initiated under Donald Trump. But the weirdest thing of all is that Donald Trump doesn't talk about it. In fact, he's one of the biggest skeptics of MRNA science right now. So it really is bizarre. Like, imagine if we landed a man on the moon and nobody talked about the Apollo program because it just wasn't something that either party could bring up. We saved even more lives with Operation Warp Speed than we saved with the Apollo Program. And no one talks about it. I think it's important to take really, really clear lessons from what Operation Warp Speed did. We set a very clear goal. We said, in 10 months we're going to develop a therapy that saves people's lives. We're going to get it to everybody if they want it, and we're going to make the cost of this world saving therapeutic, maybe the best medicine in the world. $0.00. We set a goal. We identified what the bottlenecks were going to be. We took away the bottlenecks that existed and we met the goal. Frankly, that's how government should work more often. We should have mayors and governors saying we should have mayors and governors saying we're going to set a goal for housing supply. I want to add 100,000 units. And I'm not going to let anybody tell me no. I care about climate change. So I'm going to add this amount of energy that we're going to create from solar and wind and geothermal. And I'm not going to let anybody tell me no. But for some reason, outside of a crisis, we don't have this kind of outcome. Outcome oriented politics. This book is about putting outcomes over processes. It's about setting a north star with a big, bold, beautiful sci fi vision. In the first three pages of the book and saying, we can do this, but in order to do it, we have to get out of our own way.

[Troy Iwata]

But you're talking about long term visions. You mentioned having this lens of abundance is sort of what you're proposing here. But I think you go out and you talk to people and we are the politics of short term results. Everything is about what can you get me now we're not even thinking about the giant medical miracle of operation warp speed from a few years ago. Like, how does something like this resonate with folks who are on their phones, they're flipping through. They want an answer right now. They want to be angry right now. They want action right now. How do you speak to a grander idea when it feels like the world is moving faster than that?

[Ezra Klein]

I'm so glad you asked. So you don't get long term results in politics without short term. And this is the thing I think Democrats have really forgotten. We've been doing high speed rail in California for a long time. Nobody's winning any elections on that. Under Joe Biden, they passed $42 billion for rural broadband. It passed in, I think 2021, early 2022. By the end of 2024, you know how many people are hooked up to rural broadband? A couple dozen. We passed $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers to build a nationwide EV charger network. We built a couple dozen. By the end of his press presidency, you cannot win elections if you are passing billions of dollars that people cannot feel within two or three or four years. And that is not. That does not have to happen in the time that California has not built 500 miles of high speed rail, China built 23,000 miles of high speed rail. We can do this. Making sure that money through government flows faster is how you make sure that people know government actually matters in their lives. When it goes too slowly, they don't know. And then somebody comes out and says, oh, vote for me. I'm the strong man. I alone can fix it. I will make it work. And then you run the risk that they're gonna believe him.

[Troy Iwata]

Now in looking at the Democratic field right now, Democrats, I think are hearing this message and then they're saying, maybe we should go on more podcasts. Feels like they're taking baby steps to this. Who is carrying this message? Who do you see as somebody like, we come out here and we talk to audiences in between acts and more often than not, people are. They're desperate for an answer. Whether that looks like resistance or whether that looks like a vision of the future that they can get behind. And we're desperately. We're desperately missing some of those voices out there. Do you see this message being carried by anybody? Articulately?

[Lewis Black]

I see people in Congress and the Senate and Governors explicitly picking up this message. I mean, someone asked a colleague of Ezra Klein's, the New York Times asked, where's The Democrats Project 2025? And Richie Torres, Representative Richie Torres from New York just tweeted a photo of the COVID of this book and without any words, just said, this is my idea of product 2025 for the Democratic Party.

[Troy Iwata]

That feels lazy. That feels lazy on their part. Wow. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Just to take a picture of War and Peace. The second part. We'll just do the second part.

[Lewis Black]

We're happy to do the work of writing the book if people are going to be taking up the ideas, but people really are taking up the ideas, and that's cool. But I want to say one other thing you talked about. What's the value of a positive vision? And I think it's a fair question. Politics is incredibly negative right now, but I really do think that there's a lot of voters that are starving for not just a negative identity for their party, but a positive identity. Right. It's easy for Democrats to say right now why Donald Trump sucks. You can do that over and over and over again. You could do 10 hours of the constitutional crises that he's starting.

[Troy Iwata]

You can make a television show about that.

[Lewis Black]

You can make a weekly nightly television show about it. What's the positive vision? All right, Donald Trump sucks. What are we gonna place him with? What problems are we gonna solve if we have power? The problem right now is that a lot of Democrats who actually have power in blue cities and blue states aren't doing anything with that power in terms of adding housing and clean energy. We want them to show Americans what will we do if we win, if we can't show Americans the positive vision, if we can't show Americans what happens if we win? Do we even deserve to?

[Troy Iwata]

Well, it's a. It's a fascinating read. Abundance is available now. And also check out the Ezra Klein show and Derek's Plain English podcast. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. We'll take a quick break right back after that. That's our show for tonight. Now here it is. The moment is that Oswald, who out.

[Lewis Black]

There, thinks Oswald did it by himself? I used to be that naive. I know so much more now. Oswald's family and descendants, they have changed their names. They are impossible to find. I'VE tried.

[Jordan Klepper]

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 US.

[Lewis Black]

Paramount podcasts this is.

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[Troy Iwata]

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[Troy Iwata]

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[Lewis Black]

Go to CheapCaribbean.com to start saving. Hey Jenice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We're the hosts of Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio and Intuit QuickBooks. Catch up on seasons one and two and join us for a brand new season of the podcast as we talk to small business owners about how they manage and grow their businesses with the help of platforms like Intuit QuickBooks.

[Troy Iwata]

Listen to mind the Business Small Business Success Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.