[theme music]
From New York City, the only city in America.
It's the show that invented news!
This is The Daily Show with your host, Wanda Sykes.
[cheering]
[applause]
Welcome to The Daily Show.
I'm Wanda Sykes.
Yep, tonight is my last night hosting the show.
I don't know what took Jon and Trevor so long,
I solved everything in four days.
Hey, we've got a great show for you tonight.
Sherrilyn Ifill will be joining me, so let's get into it.
[cheering]
Let's start with the big political news.
Facebook and Instagram are ending the two-year ban they
imposed on Donald Trump after January 6,
and allowing the former President back on their sites.
I mean, letting Trump back on Facebook is crazy.
You're just asking for trouble.
It's like letting Hannibal Lecter baby-sit
your most delicious child.
But Facebook is putting him back online anyway,
because they say that quote, "The public
should be able to hear what their politicians are saying."
And to that, let me say, quote, "Phooey!"
Look, we all know Facebook is losing a ton of money
and they want that Trump attention back.
They need a hit.
Trump is their White Lotus.
Right?
I mean, he's the Jennifer Coolidge of the internet.
Yeah, I'm fun.
[applause]
Look, but I think maybe for the first week,
they should just allow him to only post cat photos.
You know, let's see how it goes.
If you see a bunch of cats storming the Capitol,
although adorable, shut it down.
All right, moving on to some tech news.
You ever play that game where you ask,
what if you could have dinner with anyone in history?
Personally, for me, it would be Jesus,
because my mother is watching.
Well, the good news is, AI is making this fantasy happen.
The bad news is, there's one name on the invite list that
probably shouldn't be there.
Meantime today, the new AI app
intended to create interest in history
is instead causing controversy.
Historical Figures Chat was created by an Amazon
software engineer.
It allows users to select historical figures
and have a conversation with an AI pretending to be them.
People have been chatting with figures like Jesus, Babe
Ruth, and now, Adolf Hitler.
Activists worry Hitler's addition will attract
and encourage neo-Nazis.
Why would anyone make an AI Hitler?
That's the last thing we need.
And we already have an app where you can hear
Hitler's uncensored views.
It's called Twitter.
[applause]
And look, parents are already worried about what
their kids are doing online.
Now they'll be knocking on their kid's bedroom door
like, Jeremy, you better not be in there talking to Hitler!
All right, let's move on.
Because if you've ever been to a museum,
you might have thought that the biggest problem is pretending
you know what Baroque is.
$30 for a ticket?
My Baroque ass can't pay that.
[applause]
But it turns out there's even a bigger problem that's
finally being addressed.
The word mummy is being canceled.
Museums are choosing to go with different terms,
largely because of the pop culture
view, which tends to portray mummies as monsters.
So CNN says more museums are choosing
to go with the term, mummified person,
to restore the person's humanity.
Wait a minute.
Let's be clear right off the bat.
Mummies aren't monsters.
It's only a monster when it gets the [bleep] up!
Just a mummy.
Monster.
But yes, they want us to be respectful.
The correct usage is mummified persons.
As in, why the hell do half our senators
look like mummified persons?
[applause]
If you ask me, the museums are making a big mistake here.
Having a monster in the museum is the only thing
that gets kids in the door.
You think kids are coming to see them old ass bowls?
No!
They're coming to see a mummy!
And finally, Missouri is the latest
state to consider a law banning critical race
theory in schools.
But that's not all.
This law also offers teachers $3,000 to take a course
in how to teach patriotism.
Man, if I was a teacher, I'd be pissed.
$3,000 for a patriotism course?
I knew this whole time y'all had money for school supplies.
I been, you got me out here giving
students pens that I ripped off the chain at the bank.
For more on this patriotism course,
let's turn to Roy Wood
Jr. [applause]
[cheering]
Roy.
No, you don't, you don't mess up my count.
Hang on a second.
OK, all right, I got my count straight.
What's going on? - OK.
I just wanted to know, what do you know
about this patriotism course?
You know, what can I tell you about this patriotism course?
I can tell you a lot about the patriotism
course, because I took it.
You took the course?
But it's for teachers.
Why would you take it?
For $3,000!
Shit!
Took the course 20 times.
Look at all this damn money.
I took the course as Roy Wood Jr.,
and then I went back as Roy Wood Sr.
and went back as Michael Jordan, Michael B. Jordan,
all you got to do with these white people, man,
just tell them you one Black dude,
and then they believe you.
I'm going back next week as Frederick Douglass.
What's wrong with you?
$3,000.
OK, well, did you learn anything?
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, I came out with a real appreciation
for the founding fathers.
Founding fathers, like Ben Franklin.
Founding fathers like Andrew Jackson.
OK, no, no, Roy, I mean--
I got a Jackson in here.
OK, look, what did the course teach you?
It can't be that good if it's run by a bunch
of Missouri Republicans.
I mean, actually, I learned a lot.
First thing I learned, I learned
that Missouri is one of the most
important states in our Union.
Did you know, without Missouri, Iowa would fall into Arkansas?
And it would just be chaos.
Just a big hole in the middle of the country.
It's structurally important.
Look, all Republican history is very interesting.
It's very interesting.
It's a very interesting course.
I learned that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by Hillary
Clinton, and, and, hold on, this is, I learned this,
this is in the book.
Now I also learned Harriet Tubman.
You know Harriet Tubman?
It's really a white man.
You can't run from the truth.
Roy!
Come on, man.
I'm just telling you what I learned.
Harriet Tubman was really a white man.
It sounds like you learned a bunch of nonsense.
Look, look, it wasn't all nonsense.
I tell you one thing I really learned.
We really do need to keep pushing for CRT,
because I think we've finally found
a way for Republicans to start giving more money to teachers.
That's what we got to do.
You keep 'em scared, they'll find
more money for the teachers.
I'll tell you right now, that's why I printed
up these fake textbooks.
I'm going to start leaving these at all the schools.
I'm going to scare the hell out of these Republicans.
They're going to be giving all the money.
Look at some of these subjects.
Look at this one.
AP Reparations.
That's scary.
You got a Drag Queen Philosophy.
That's a good scary book right there.
We got AOC's ABCs.
Oh, that's a scary textbook.
That's going to get a lot of money.
This is the one right here now, this is the one.
This is the one going to get them all.
George Washington, Our First Non-Binary President.
[cheering]
I'm telling you.
OK, they're really not going like that one.
No, they're not, they're not.
Look, just wait until you read this book.
You read this George Washington book and find out the truth.
He chopped down that cherry tree
and used the wood to make an abortion clinic.
OK, this is ridiculous, this is ridiculous.
I'm tell ya, look, look, look.
In this, this is history.
It's not ridiculous, it's history.
I read it in a book.
You need to learn something about our country's
very history, Wanda.
I'm happy to teach you for $3,000.
Roy Wood Jr., everybody.
No.
You need a little money?
No.
I need a little money.
Need a little money.
[applause]
[cheering]
[applause]
All right, welcome back to The Daily Show.
All right, let me just take a few minutes to tell you
something that happened to me.
So I was on the LIE--
that's the Long Island Expressway--
and I got pulled over.
The officer, he was a young Eric Estrada type.
He said I entered the HOV lane illegally, OK?
Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.
I don't know.
So he handed me the ticket, and it was rolled up with a rubber
band, you know, like it was a grade
school diploma or something.
I was like, OK.
So the next day, I was like, yeah, I wasn't
really thinking much about it. I was like, you know what?
Let me check this ticket out.
So I unrolled the scroll.
And it was actually four tickets.
Yeah.
One was for entering the HOV lane illegally.
One was for an obstructed license plate,
which was totally bullshit.
One was for disobeying traffic signals.
And he also gave me a ticket for exiting
the HOV lane illegally.
I was like, you were behind me with your lights on.
You made me exit illegally.
So it added up to about, you know,
hundreds of dollars in fines and a bunch of points.
So I gave it to my business manager
and they gave it to a lawyer.
And he took care of it.
Actually, the lawyer said he ran into the judge
in the hallway, didn't even have
to go to court, all right?
So small fine, no points.
I kept the rubber band, by the way.
Now I was lucky, right?
I have the means to deal with these kind of situations.
OK, more specifically, I have money.
I mean, I don't have murder money.
[laughter]
But I can commit a few infractions.
You know, petty ones.
Running late, don't have quarters for the meter.
Ah, [bleep] it.
Give me the ticket.
But it did make me think, you know, for a lot of people,
just getting a ticket could practically ruin your life.
And that's what I want to talk about in tonight's installment
of Long Story Short.
[music playing]
[applause]
Across America, police are handing out 112,000
speeding tickets every day.
Yeah, that's a lot of tickets.
I'm like, where do they find the time to shoot people?
[laughter]
And those tickets aren't going away
any time soon because these fines
aren't just to punish you.
It turns out local governments need that money
to keep the lights on.
FEMALE REPORTER: Traffic stops aren't
always about safety or hunting contraband or crime.
Some cities use traffic stops to raise money.
The cities and counties that are
trying to use these schemes, trying to use these fines
and fees to balance their budget
are basically charging a back door tax to poor people.
MALE REPORTER: In the South, municipalities strapped
for cash have been targeting the most vulnerable
citizens, who are primarily Black
and living under the poverty line.
In Missouri, some of these municipalities
generate anywhere from 20% to 40% of their total revenue
by fining citizens.
That's right.
These cities are filling their budgets
on the backs of poor people.
Yeah, so the next time a cop asks,
do you know why I pulled you over?
You can be like, let me guess.
The mayor wants a standing desk?
[laughter]
[applause]
And getting fined is bad enough.
But then they tack on a bunch of extra fees.
Payment plan fees, collection fees.
One county even has a $51 processing fee.
So it costs you $51 to give me a $30 ticket.
How about you not giving me the ticket,
and you just saved yourself $21?
[laughter and applause]
And let's say-- and let's say you're like a lot of people
and don't have all this money just laying around.
Well, in 14 states, your ass might be going to jail.
Yeah, you heard me right.
14 states will send you to jail for being poor.
And if you want to know what states those are,
it's probably the ones you're thinking of.
And guess what?
You could come out of jail owing
even more because they actually charge you another fee
for going to jail.
Like, that's so messed up.
Wait a minute.
I'm in jail because I couldn't pay,
and now you're charging me more for being in jail?
You knew I couldn't pay.
That's why I was here in the first place.
What, do you think I hit the lottery while I was in jail?
But you know what?
It doesn't have to be this way.
A lot of other countries never fine
you more than you can afford.
They fine you based on your income.
This makes it more fair since billionaires
aren't paying the same fines as people
who work at the dollar store.
And if you're thinking, that must
lead to some expensive ass tickets, you'd be right.
A man in Finland got caught speeding,
and, boy, did he have to pay up.
Listen to this.
A Finnish millionaire got a $58,000 fine for going 64
miles per hour in a 50 zone.
Well, that seems kind of crazy here.
Over in Finland, speeding tickets
are based on your income.
The highest ticket so far was $103,000, a ticket
given to a Nokia executive who made roughly $14 million
that year.
I'll tell you what.
I tell you what.
We did that here, that would make
me start putting those quarters in the parking meter.
Look, if the ticket is meant to punish you, it should feel
like a punishment. $30 for a rich person
is not a punishment.
Rich people don't even know money goes that low.
If you ask Jeff Bezos for $30, he'll be like,
do I just rip a corner off for this $100 bill?
So long story short, stop using poor people as your little
take a penny jar, especially over small shit.
If anything, we should be doing the opposite.
I propose every highway should have a broke lane.
[laughter]
Do what you want.
Do what you want to do in the broke lane.
Busted tail light, expired registration,
dangling muffler.
Who cares?
You can haul ass in the broke lane
because you got to get from your second job
to your third job.
I don't care.
Do whatever it takes.
But if you get caught in the broke lane, talking about,
well, I'm trying to get to my squash game
at the country club, then the officer can say,
oh, I'm going to have to tase you.
[laughter and applause]
And the electricity has a $51 processing fee.
All right, stay tuned because when we come back
Sherrilyn Ifill will be joining me on the show.
Don't go away.
[applause]
[cheering]
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
My guest tonight is the former president of the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund.
Please welcome Sherrilyn Ifill.
[music playing]
[applause]
Oh, so lovely to have you here.
It's wonderful to be here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
I'm so happy to have you here.
So I want to get your title right, because last year you
passed on the mantle of President
and Director Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Yes, I did.
Now, how hard is it to leave that job?
Because you can't go, well, my work
here is done, because there's so much more work to do.
No, it was hard.
I love the Legal Defense Fund, it's
where I started my career, and I love the work.
And I feel like I was made for that position.
But I also feel like I led it at the right moment.
That almost 10 years that I led the organization
was right for me.
And I really believe transition is part of leadership.
I think especially in the civil rights space,
sometimes we hold on a little too long.
And I think it's healthy for our organizations
when we pass that mantle.
And fortunately for me, I had an amazing deputy,
Janai Nelson, who's now the head of the organization.
And I know that she can continue the work well.
And I have things I want to do, because the work
is not finished.
OK.
[applause]
And you said that, well, you've said that if you were
in the private sector, that you would be on the cover
of Forbes magazine.
Well, I think nonprofits get, we don't get no respect,
as Rodney Dangerfield used to say,
in that it's very hard to do this job.
And in addition to doing the substantive work,
you're a business leader.
You're leading a staff.
I mean, I grew LDF five times the size it was in staff,
in budget, in endowment.
And that's not a small thing.
[applause]
And you know, I think if you're running a for profit company
and you do that, people consider
you a financial wizard and a superstar.
Right.
And I think I was a superstar.
Absolutely.
So I think it's important to say it.
But does the nonprofit allow you
to do more of the type of work that you want to do,
like to achieve the goals that you want?
Or could you do that the same work
like in the private sector? - No.
I mean, when I was a little girl,
I wanted to become a civil rights lawyer.
That's what I wanted.
I wanted to be in a position where I could strategically
confront issues of inequality and injustice
wherever they are, however they appear.
Sometimes that means that we sue corporations.
Sometimes we sue states.
Sometimes we sue cities.
And so the nonprofit space allows us to be independent.
We don't take any money from government.
And that allows us to do whatever we have to do.
Because racism and white supremacy
is a complex structure.
And if you want to get at it structurally,
you have to be able to meet it where
those structures are kind of manifesting the injustice.
And you don't want to be restricted
in that by who gave you money or by the rules of government.
You want to be able to really get at it.
So I love being in the nonprofit sector.
I just want us to feel worthy of the kind of respect
that people get in for profit sector for all
the aspects of what we do.
And in fact, we do a little bit,
we do a lot with a little bit.
And we do it gladly and joyfully, because
of our commitment to the work.
So it's just, I love the nonprofit world,
and I particularly love the nonprofit civil rights world.
But now it's time to get paid!
[applause]
OK.
This is what I want to, right now, the Supreme Court,
they're hearing a case about affirmative action at college.
This keeps coming up over and over again.
Like, why do you think we're still having this battle?
Yeah, it's quite interesting.
You know, so I'm a litigator, and most litigators, lawyers
know that if you're going to take
a case up to the Supreme Court, you're bound by precedent.
If the Supreme Court has decided that issue before
and has decided it one way, it's very hard to get
the court to reverse course.
It happens, but it's hard to do,
and you have to really have a reason
for why you think at this moment the court should
reverse course.
But this court has been doing it quite a bit
at a brisk clip.
Yes.
And you know, obviously, we know
the Dobbs decision overturned Roe vs Wade,
a 50-year-old decision.
And affirmative action as well.
I mean, it's not as though the court
is not deciding affirmative action over and over again.
This is like, you just keep going till you
get the court you want.
In 1979 in the Bakke case, affirmative action
in college admissions was challenged and upheld.
It was upheld again then in the Grutter case
out of University of Michigan.
Then in 2016 again in the Fisher case,
University of Texas.
And after the University of Texas loss,
the man who has been behind this whole effort
basically said, using a kind of a clue
from the dissent of Justices Thomas and Alito,
I think I need Asian-American plaintiffs.
And he set about crafting a set of claims
that race conscious admissions is
actually discriminatory against Asian-Americans.
And that's the claim that he had brought
in Harvard, at Harvard.
And that's the case that's now before the Supreme Court.
But should the Supreme Court be hearing this again
when they just heard it in 2016 and before that just heard it
in 2002 and before that just?
But it's a new court, right.
And so you basically you have somebody
who keeps coming back, and now they have the court they want.
OK, but this scares me about the court though.
The court we have now.
I mean, the Supreme Court has really been
our only recourse for justice.
I mean, pretty much everything that we've
gotten as far as rights, right, has been based on a decision
from the Supreme Court.
Now like you said, Roe has been overturned.
What do we do now?
How do we get past this court?
Well, I think actually it's a sobering moment for us
to recognize that although I think many of us
grew up in a period of time where we believe
that, it's in fact, not true.
It is true that the court decided Brown vs Board
of Education, which ended legal apartheid in this country
and really changed American democracy.
And there have been many other civil rights
decisions from the court that have been wonderful.
Most of them have not been wonderful
actually in the history of the United States Supreme Court.
And so we've always had to supplement
it with legislative action.
With the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
with the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
with the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
We've had to supplement it with direct action,
with protests, with boycotts.
We've had to supplement it with education.
We've had to supplement it in all kinds of ways.
And so it's always been a multi-pronged strategy.
The problem we have now though, is that the court seems
bent on dismantling the successes we
make in those other realms.
And so we see that with, for example,
the Voting Rights Act, which has been severely weakened
by this Supreme Court.
That's where we have to really start to get worried.
And it is a real problem.
It is not something to be taken lightly.
And it's not just a partisan battle, as many people think.
I've been a civil rights lawyer for 30 years.
You win some and you lose some.
The rule of law is that you abide by what
the court says and does.
But you do that with the knowledge
that the court is behaving fairly and with integrity
and legitimately.
And when you start feeling like decisions are being made
without the proper foundation, then it
gets very hard to convince your clients
that it's a fair system.
And so I think we are in a kind of perilous moment
as it relates to the court.
Before you go, I know, you said
something I want to get to.
That you said our democracy, we're, it's like a teenager,
we're teenagers, we're young, it's like teenagers.
So what?
Democracy is what?
Staying up all night on Snapchat or something?
You know, I mean, yes.
Like teenagers who think they know
everything, who have a grandiose sense of themselves,
who throw tantrums.
Yes, we are.
I mean, if you think about American democracy, at least
for me, I wouldn't count America as a democracy.
Certainly as a nation, but not as a democracy until at least
1954 when Brown was decided.
Because you can't call a country a democracy--
[applause]
--if by law, a whole segment of citizens
can be denied the right to participate
in the political system.
So that's just, and that's being pretty generous.
That's 1954.
I would take it to 1965 with the Voting Rights
Act, because--
[applause]
--before the passage of the Voting Rights Act,
even though the right of Black people
should have been guaranteed by the 14th and 15th Amendments
to the Constitution, enacted and ratified after the Civil
War, most Black people then lived in the South,
and still live in the South, and most of the South
was denying the vote to Black people.
So until 1965, I wouldn't call us even credibly a democracy.
And if you think of it that way, then we are young.
And so we're still figuring this thing out.
And I'd say, Wanda, just to give people hope--
Please! Give me some hope.
I'm going to give you some hope.
Please!
Please, Sherrilyn, give me some hope!
We're also trying to do something
that no other country has done.
There is no template for the kind of multiracial democracy
with the kind of history of white supremacy and slavery.
There's no other country that's trying
to do that in the dynamic way that we are doing it.
We talk about being a nation of immigrants, which is not
entirely true, but immigration is
a huge part of the character of our country.
And 20th century immigration, for sure,
made the country have the cast that it does.
And so we're trying to create something
we're not trying to do something
like another country.
We're not pointing to them and saying, oh yeah, like that.
We are trying to do something very particular,
and it's hard.
And that's what I'm currently writing a book about.
It's called Is This America?
And it is about race, but it is also
about what I think of at this moment as the last best
chance for us to really create a healthy democracy
in this country.
OK, well, when you finish the book, I won't be here,
but I'm sure they'll bring you back
and there'll be a nice white guy sitting here, interviewer.
OK, thank you so much.
And we're going to take a break and we'll
be right back after this.
[applause]
Well, that's our show for tonight.
I'm out of here.
But tune in next week because your new guest host
is going to be my friend DL Hughley.
And if you want to catch me again,
I'll be in Philadelphia February 3 and 4
filming my new hour special.
Check out the link below for tickets.
Now here it is, "Your Moment of Zen."
--great tennis star.
Is it Stefano "See-see-pus"?
ANCHOR: Tsitsipas. - Tsitsipas.
ANCHOR: Tsitsipas - Tsitsipas.
ANCHOR: I'm actually watching it right now.
It's hilarious. - "Sissy-pas."
ANCHOR: Tsitsipas - Not "Sissy."
Tsitsipas. - "Sit-sy."
Tsitsipas. "Tsitsi--"
- Look at the pronunciation-- - Yeah, it's wrong.
- It's not "See-see-pas." - No.
- It's "Sit-sy." - Tsitsipas.
Tsitsipas.
Yeah.
[laughs]
MTV LOGO: MTV.