[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, Kal Penn!
[applause]
[cheering]
Welcome to The Daily Show.
My name is Kal Penn, and I will be your host this week.
Now, you might know me from my work as an actor,
or my work with President Barack Obama.
[cheering]
Yeah.
Yeah, I plan on dropping his name all week.
Anyway, we've got a great show for you
tonight, including a very special interview
with President Joe Biden.
[cheering]
He is a man who I know well from my time
working for Barack Obama.
But first, let's get into the headlines.
[audio logo]
Of course, last night was the Academy Awards,
and hashtag #OscarsSoAsian?
[cheering]
Hell, yeah, that's right!
That's right.
It was an incredible night for the Asian-American community.
So many Asian artists won and thanked their parents,
which was like, so nice.
Although honestly, if their parents
are anything like mine, they were probably just like, OK.
Let's move on from movies to music,
and some big news for a hot new artist.
A new song credited to Donald Trump
and the J6 Choir is now topping the iTunes music chart,
"Justice for All" features the former President, along
with a group of men in prison for the January
6 attack on the Capitol.
(SINGING) What's so proudly we hailed at the twilight's
last gleaming.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America.
(SINGING) Whose broad stripes and bright stars.
Wow.
I can't believe I'm saying this,
but those guys should stick to insurrecting.
This song is such a turd, I'm surprised it's on iTunes
and not Nancy Pelosi's desk.
This is so bad, Mike Pence heard it
and he hanged himself.
And why are they calling themselves Donald
Trump and the January 6 Choir?
Coup and the Gang is right there!
[applause]
Anyway, let's get to today's big news, the collapse
of Silicon Valley Bank.
I know, it's impossible to believe that a town that could
spend half a million dollars on this ape
would have financial problems.
But somehow, it happened.
SVB was the 16th largest bank in the country,
and the favorite bank of tech bros,
disruptors, and anyone who's ever
invented Uber, but for weed.
So here's what happened, OK.
SVB invested a lot of their clients' money on a bet
that interest rates wouldn't go up.
And when interest rates did go up,
they started losing their clients' money.
Then they told their clients, hey, don't freak out,
but we're losing your money.
So, of course, everyone immediately freaked out
and ran to the bank to take out all
their money before it collapsed,
which then caused the bank to collapse.
It was like that bank run scene from It's a Wonderful Life,
but if everyone was wearing Patagonia vests.
And look, people are legitimately
scared this could spread to banks across the country.
So to stop the panic, the federal government
took the bank over and promised everyone that they'd
get their money back.
And it's kind of funny, because some of the companies who
had money at the bank were screaming on social media
that the government needed to come and save them.
That's right, all those tech bros
who complain about being under the government's yoke
were suddenly like, oh, no, my money's gone?
(WHINING) Yoke me, Daddy!
So, that's basically what happened.
But if you're looking for an explanation of why SVB failed
that doesn't require you to learn about interest rates,
well, Fox News got you covered.
Part of the problem was, is that this
was one of those woke banks.
They were one of the most woke banks in their quest
for the ESG top, top policy.
This bank, they're so concerned
with DEI and politics and all kinds of stuff.
This bank, Silicon Valley Bank,
they had been focused on a lot of these social issues
in the last weeks and months leading up to this collapse.
They had a month-long LGBTQ month of activities just
before the bank collapsed!
I think the senior vice president of risk
management at the bank was heavily
focused on LGBTQ+ programs.
The female head of risk management spent a lot of time
spearheading what critics would call,
woke programs, such as a safe space for coming out stories.
Oh, right.
The female head of risk management.
That explains it.
She probably spent the bank's money on shoes and abortions.
For more on Silicon Valley Bank, we go to Michael Kosta.
Whoa!
[applause]
Michael, where are you?
Well, where does it look like I am?
I'm at Silicon Valley Bank's headquarters.
Looks like you're at a gay nightclub, man.
This is just what a woke bank looks like, Kal.
The first floor is a gay nightclub,
second floor is a gay bathhouse,
and the third floor is gay accounting.
OK, well, what's your impression of SVB's collapse?
Seems clear to me that it's a result
of rising interest rates forcing the bank
to sell its bonds at a loss.
That's so naive, Kal.
No, the reason the bank collapsed is because of woke.
What do you mean, woke?
How did that collapse a bank?
It just did, Kal, woke.
DEI, ESG, POC, AOC, BET.
The list is endless, and the list is woke.
I don't see what any of this has to do with a bank failing.
Well, that's because you're not a trained economist
like I am.
But once you learn the history, you
discover that every bank crisis that has ever happened
has happened because of woke.
There's no way that's true.
Oh, come on.
Women get the right to vote in 1920, nine years later,
the Great Depression?
OK.
How about this?
Segregation ends in '64.
17 years later, the recession of '81 hits.
Coincidence?
Come on, man, you can't connect these.
Women and Black people are not behind all bank collapses.
Of course not, Kal.
Sometimes it's gay people's fault, OK.
Just look at the names behind the 2008 financial crisis.
Lehman Brothers?
Goldman Sachs?
Bear Stearn?
Rusty Trombone Investments?
It's all major gay financial institutions that lost money.
I've never heard of Rusty Trombone Investments.
Well, they lost a lot of my money.
Look, forget your theories for a minute.
What can consumers do to keep their money safe?
It's easy.
Skip the banks and keep all your money in your wallet,
like I do.
That way, when I need some money,
that way when I need some, oh, my God, someone
stole my wallet.
I know who it was.
Oh, that's terrible.
Who was it?
It was woke.
All right, man, OK. Good luck with that.
Michael Kosta, everybody!
Where's my--?
All right, when we come back, my interview
with President Joe Biden.
Don't go away.
[cheering]
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
Last week, I had the opportunity
to interview the president of the United States
at the White House.
We talked about our divided country
and how young people's advocacy can affect policy on climate,
drilling, and human rights.
Mr. President, welcome to The Daily Show.
Well, welcome back to the White House.
Thank you. It's very nice to be back.
I was trying to figure out when the last time you
and I had a conversation was.
And I realized it was November 2016 at a very diverse Diwali
party that you hosted, just a few weeks after Trump
became the president-elect.
And I remember that you described that night
as an Irish Catholic vice president
and a Muslim gold star family celebrating a reception
observing a Hindu holiday.
That's America.
KAL PENN: Well, exactly, that's how I felt.
I mean, I remember just feeling so positive and so much
hope there.
And then.
JOE BIDEN: That was Mr. Khan.
That was Mr. Khan, yes, exactly.
Then I remember just four years of policy and vitriol
under Trump.
And now things feel more divided.
So I was curious how you feel that we can stay hopeful
and how can we get the country to unify.
The truth of the matter is I've never
more optimistic in my entire life about--
KAL PENN: Than now?
No, I mean it, now.
I tell you what, look, if you think about it, the reason
I had not--
I'll give my word, I hadn't planned on running again.
I had lost my son, Beau.
It was a tough, tough time.
And I wasn't going to run at all for real.
And then remember what happened in Charlottesville?
When those folks came out of the fields
at night with torches and swastikas?
Of course
And the white supremacists and a young woman was killed.
I spoke to her mom.
Then President Trump said there were very
fine people on both sides.
And I give my word, that's when I
decided I'm going to do this.
But I was worried about doing it because I
knew how bitter it would be.
And so I got a phone call from my--
true story-- from my eldest granddaughter saying,
can we have a family meeting?
You probably are aware of what's around here.
We have a tradition in the Biden family,
any child can ask for a family meeting.
It doesn't often happen, but you take it seriously.
So my grandchildren, my four granddaughters and grandson,
Beau's children and Hunter's children,
came down on a Saturday.
And we sat and talked.
And they said, trying to convince-- they said,
we know you're thinking of running, Pop.
But you ought to do it.
Daddy wants you to do it, talking about Beau and the--
and I said, well, it's going to be pretty tough.
And they said, you got to do it.
And we decided to do it.
And I did it for three reasons.
One, to restore the soul of this country.
That's not who we are.
We're a decent, honorable country that cares.
We really are.
We still are.
Second one is to, you know, begin
to take care of the middle class
because the middle class does well,
the poor have a real shot, and the wealthy do very well.
And thirdly to unite the country.
And at the time, thought-- people thought,
well, maybe the first two, but you'll
never unite the country.
But look what we did.
We got a lot done.
No one thought I could ever pass the infrastructure bill.
No one thought I could ever do anything about making sure
that we took care of people with disabilities,
and drug prices, and a whole range of-- no one
thought we could do anything on the environment.
No one thought we could do anything
about same-sex marriage.
I mean, we did-- we did not all of it,
but a significant portion of it was done in a bipartisan way.
When I was a White House aide,
I remember having meetings in this room on climate.
They didn't always go so well.
And I never would have imagined 12 years ago that something
as sweeping on climate as the Inflation Reduction Act
would have happened.
So my question, really, and I was watching
all of this unfold is who or what
created the political space for you
to take that kind of action?
Young people.
Young people, the generation-- that generation
between 18 and 35 now.
They're the ones who created the space.
They had enough of it.
And so what I did was, when I tried
to figure out whether I could put something together,
I met with them.
We had rallies.
We had-- I mean, they showed up in the 2020 election.
They showed up in the 2022 election.
And we passed the largest environmental plan in all
of history, over $368 billion.
We got it done.
And what-- and what happened was
mother nature let her wrath be seen over the last two years.
For example, I have traveled in helicopter
over more forest area burned to the ground
than the entire state of Maryland.
That's how much is burned to the ground.
Floods, droughts, all the things.
And so people can't deny it anymore.
They can't deny the fact.
And I've traveled the world.
I've gone to all the COP meetings around the world,
meaning the meetings on climate.
If we don't keep the temperature
from going above 1.5 degrees Celsius raised,
then we're in real trouble.
That whole generation is damned.
I mean, that's not hyperbole, really, truly in trouble.
And that's why the first meeting I had with
the so-called, you know, G7, the largest economies
in the world, democracies in the world,
the first thing we talked about was--
they wanted to talk about what was my initiative on energy,
on dealing with moving toward--
For example, I called all the automakers and truck makers.
And I asked them to come to the South Lawn the first year
and to try to talk them into doing something more,
going electric.
And within five weeks, all of them
agreed they're going to go electric, 50% by 2030.
And by 2050, all electric.
And I think we can do it.
You're also responsible for reviewing
drilling and oil production.
Yes.
What would you say to those young people who want you
to continue to be their champion
but might not think that you're going far enough
or fast enough on climate?
Well, first of all, we're going faster
than anyone's ever gone.
We're going to need fossil fuels for at least the next
10 years.
It's not like tomorrow we can turn it all off, number one.
And so in addition to that, we've-- things got really
complicated when Putin put 185,000 forces into Ukraine,
having a profound impact on their energy ability to be
able to keep the heat on in the winter and keep things moving.
And so we're going to need fossil fuel.
What we have to do is we have to--
I have-- I've said no more drilling off our ocean.
I mean, a whole range.
But there still has to be--
there has to be the ability to generate some energy.
But we can get rid of coal much more rapidly.
And-- and by the way, for example,
I was up in Massachusetts, one of the largest
coal-producing electric facilities in the nation.
Well, guess what, we hooked it up to wind technology.
And so now-- and it's cheaper.
We can do solar.
We can do wind cheaper than we can do fossil fuels.
So it's a matter of transitioning.
But it's not like you can cut everything off immediately.
You-- you obviously understand
the existential threat that young people
feel when it comes to climate.
JOE BIDEN: Sure.
KAL PENN: How do you balance that
with the immediate concerns of babysitting
Congress or getting 51 or 60 votes on some of this?
Well, look, I've been relatively--
I'm being careful here. KAL PENN: Sure.
[laughs]
I've been relatively successful in working
across the aisle.
There is a MAGA Republican portion of the party.
It makes up about a third of the Republican Party.
I've had more than a half a dozen Republican senators I've
known for years over the last two years
come to me individually, and I promise I'd never
mention the names, and I' go to my grave
never mentioning them. - You can tell me later.
JOE BIDEN: No, I'm not telling.
I mean, seriously, I've never broken my word.
And saying, Joe, I agree with you,
but if I do anything publicly, they're going to primary,
and I mean, I'll lose.
The Republican Party has gone through
a significant transition.
And we're going to see in the next two years
how they end up, whether the MAGA
Republicans control the party or we
get back to conservative.
Like, for example, a guy who's tough as can be
is the Majority Leader of the United States--
the Minority in the United States Senate, McConnell.
But he's straight.
He's a traditional conservative.
He's straight.
What he says he does.
He probably doesn't even want me saying this.
It would probably hurt his reputation.
But there's a lot of people in the Republican Party
who are traditional Republican--
conservative Republicans that you can deal with.
But, you know, these-- you know,
the gentlewoman from the state of Georgia
in the mountains up there and others, Gaetz, and anyway--
That's very diplomatic.
I would have used different language.
But you're-- yeah, you have different--
JOE BIDEN: But no, it's a--
there's an existential question that the Republican Party
is going to have to face.
And it's going to determine what happens
in the next couple of years.
But my focus is just stay focused, focused
on the things that matter.
We've got to deal with the climate.
We've got to deal with civil liberties and voting rights.
We've got to deal with issues relating to economic growth.
Look, in this period, I inherited,
I think it's fair to say, a gigantic mess
economically and politically.
KAL PENN: Of course.
We've created 12 million new jobs
since I've been president, more than any president
has created in four years.
We've generated so much growth.
We've created 800,000 manufacturing jobs
with the bill that became a bipartisan bill,
which no one thought could happen,
the CHIPS and Science bill.
We used to invest 2% of our GDP in research and development.
That's why we're the nation we were.
Well, guess what?
We decided to start-- we ended up being number
8 or 10 instead of number one.
Well, now we're doing it again through the CHIPS and Science
bill. Guess what?
Commitments for $300 billion in investments over the next 10
years to build these chips.
We invented the chips.
We made them.
We made them much more sophisticated.
We used to be-- anyway.
So there's so much going on that the country
is hungry to move, I think.
And I'm confident we can do it.
It's reassuring to hear you talk about the ways young
people can continue to get involved
and that you feel like there's still bipartisan hope there,
if it's--
JOE BIDEN: Oh, there is.
By the way, I mean, look, again,
if we had had this conversation immediately after Trump lost,
although he's not sure he did, but--
[laughs]
--and I told you we were going to get more done in two
years than almost any president has done, period,
and much of it in a bipartisan way,
I think everybody would have looked at me, like,
what's this guy been drinking?
What's going on here?
But we have.
We have.
And I've been able-- we've been able to.
The leadership of the Democratic Party
has been able to hold a Democratic Congress together.
And we picked up a few Republicans along the way.
And I think it's beginning to bear fruit that it's
hard to deny that it works.
Speaking of young people, the Supreme Court
is considering striking down your student
debt relief decision.
What's the plan if that happens?
Well, first of all, the constitutional scholars I've
spoken to say the people that challenged it have
no standing, meaning the court is
ultimately, as much as they want to rule,
they're going to--
I think they're going to have to rule
that it was appropriate for what I did, number one.
Number two, if you think about it,
we had this PPP program, that is the program
during the pandemic.
People lost their businesses because they had to shut down.
Restaurants closed.
And so we provided billions of dollars, significantly more
than helping students with their debt.
And a number of the very people who
are criticizing me in Congress actually
got benefits in the program.
[chuckles]
You don't hear them talking about it, right?
The average student who will benefit
from my student loan forgiveness program
is somebody making less than 70--
90% make $70,000 or less.
They're just trying to get out of the hole.
They're just trying to get started.
They're just trying to get up and running.
And so it-- there is overwhelmingly
interest in the economy.
It's a fair thing to do.
And it's going to generate economic growth
that's significant.
I understand them worrying.
I understand.
I don't know whether people realize--
well, a lot of parents realize--
how much of a burden this is.
You get out of school.
There were no jobs when you graduated because--
initially, because of the pandemic.
You got a debt that is, in most cases,
exceeding the $10,000 loan you got or grant you got.
And-- and it's really a gigantic burden.
You want to grow the economy.
You want these people being able to go out and make
a down payment on a home, make-- be able to go out
and start a business, be able to go out
and be free to the debt so they can invest in things
that they care about.
And it's just so shortsighted if they don't.
I wanted-- I wanted to ask you
a slightly different question.
So my partner, Josh, and I have been engaged for the last five
years, which really only means that every auntie and uncle
that I have is beyond disappointed that there
hasn't been a wedding yet.
But-- but Cardi B is going to marry us,
apparently, officiate our wedding, which would be nice.
But my-- my question for you, Mr.
President is you codified support
for same-sex marriage and interracial marriages like--
like ours.
I'm curious what your evolution was like on marriage equality
and what the federal government might be able to do to protect
LGBTQ Americans, especially trans kids who are dealing
with all these regressive state laws
that are popping up right now.
I can remember exactly where my epiphany was.
KAL PENN: OK.
I hadn't thought much about it, to tell you the truth.
And I was a--
I was a senior in high school.
And I wanted to get a job being--
turned out the only-- it turned out
I was the only Caucasian lifeguard
in the projects in the city of Wilmington,
the big swimming pools.
And my dad was dropping me off to go in and get
an application at the City Hall in Wilmington, Rodney Square,
it's called.
And I remember, I'm about to get out of the car,
and I look to my right.
And two well-dressed men in suits kissed each other.
I mean, they gave each other a kiss.
And then one went, looked like he was heading to the DuPont
building, and one looked like he headed to the Hercules
Corporation building.
And I'll never forget it.
I turned and looked at my dad, he said, Joey, it's simple.
They love each other.
It's simple.
No, I'm not joking.
It's simple, they love each other.
And it's never been--
it's never been.
It's just that simple.
And I remember-- you may remember because you
may have been here when I--
in the-- our last administration,
with Barack, I went on Meet the Press.
Oh, I know.
And they asked me about the show--
I was telling them I had visited
a family in another state.
And-- and I watched these two--
this gay couple raising two kids
and watching them run in and throw their arms around
daddy and so on.
And I told them, I said-- they said, well, what do you think?
Russert asked me.
I said, I think people should be able to get married.
Married.
It doesn't matter whether it's--
whether it's same sex or a heterosexual couple.
You should be able to be married.
What is the problem?
So listen to your auntie and your uncle.
Get married.
Do it now.
Don't wait.
Now, transgender kids is a really harder ding--
thing.
What's going on in Florida is, as my mother would say,
close to sinful.
I mean, it's just terrible what they're doing.
It's not like a kid wakes up one morning and says,
you know, I decided I want to become a man,
or I want to become a woman, or I want to change.
I mean, what-- what are they thinking about here?
They're human beings. They love.
They have feelings.
They have inclinations that are--
I mean, it just, to me, is--
I don't know, it's cruel.
And the way we do it is we make sure
we pass legislation like we passed on same-sex marriage.
You mess with that, you're breaking the law,
and you're going to be held accountable.
Thank you, sir.
I also can tell that, like, some auntie or my mom
probably texted you beforehand if--
JOE BIDEN: No, no, no.
If they're trying to pressure me to.
No, no.
But get moving, man.
[laughs]
I don't want to hear you can't do it.
I know we're on limited time.
So I just want to ask you, looking ahead,
there are a lot of names floated--
it's a crowded-- crowded field.
Who should be the next permanent host
of The Daily Show?
Depending on how you edit this program, you.
Yes!
OK, that's a good answer.
Solid answer.
I don't think we need to edit anything then.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for your time.
And I appreciate it. - Well, thank you.
Thank you.
All right, stay tuned because when we come back,
President Biden takes us inside the Oval Office.
Don't go away.
[cheers and applause]
[applause]
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
Let's take it back to the White House,
or as my college buddies called it when I
worked there, the tight house.
Now I've been fortunate enough to be in the Oval Office
a few times.
But, today, I get to bring you with me.
[music playing]
Well, welcome to a place you've spent some time.
Thank you, sir.
I have-- the fireplace has never been
on when I've been in here.
I tell you what.
I have it on all the time.
It's kind of humbling walking in here.
Absolutely.
I mean, for real.
I had my brother, Jimmy, come in and, you know,
pick the rug, and the desk, and all that stuff.
And, make a long story short, I come walking in, like,
5:00 on inauguration day.
And I walked in and I said, jeez.
I said, I've never seen Franklin Roosevelt. I'm
an admirer, but it was always George Washington's
small portrait there.
Right.
And Abraham Lincoln and Jon Meacham,
the presidential historian.
Jimmy had called him for some help.
And he looked and he said, because no one's
ever inherited a world economy in as much disarray as he had.
And I thought, oh, that's wonderful.
There you go. That tracks.
And I said, well, why Lincoln?
And he said, the country has never been as divided
since Lincoln was president.
But what I did was I wanted to be able to sit here at my desk
and look out.
And I only had two political heroes
when I was getting involved.
That fellow over there, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
I very admire John Kennedy.
I could never picture John Kennedy at my kitchen table.
I could kind of picture maybe.
And then the two people who I got involved, engaged with
was Cesar Chavez because I got not involved,
but I supported verbally the Farm Workers Union
they were trying to organize in Delaware when I was
running as a 29-year-old kid.
And his granddaughter works for me.
And then Rosa Parks, who's over here.
And so I tried to--
I tried to make it kind of warm, like I thought about.
The other guy never showed up on inauguration day,
so I didn't have to worry about it.
But it's kind of neat.
And the things I've done in here.
Like, for example, I the moon rock over here.
All right, I'm a huge NASA fan, a big astronomy fan.
- Are you really? - So this is very cool.
Well, this is cool.
That's an actual moon rock.
And one of the-- you know, that rover they have up there.
Yeah.
My name is in the back with other presidents.
Oh, that's cool.
It's really cool, but I want to show
you something really cool.
Come on back here.
Not many people come back this way, but come on in.
Thank you, sir.
Oh, yeah.
Not only are we seeing the Oval Office,
we're also getting a rare tour of the president's
private study.
This is like the world's most dignified episode
of MTV Cribs.
By the way, that is a Wyeth painting of--
by Jamie Wyeth, the son.
And he told me the Kennedy family
didn't like him because he made him look too contemplative.
- Oh. - But--
- He's got a smile. - I know.
I think it's great.
But anyway, and that's the house
I was raised in in Scranton.
Oh, that's awesome.
Wow.
Or as they say, Scra-on.
Scra-on.
So I went and spoke at the Kennedy Library
a couple of times.
The last time I spoke there, I get
handed this by Caroline Kennedy.
And it's that famous letter he wrote.
KAL PENN: Wow.
JOE BIDEN: And this is the actual copy.
And it's, you know, why am I going?
We chose to go to the moon in this decade
because that goal will serve the origins of measure
by the best of us.
And it goes on and on.
KAL PENN: Well, that's--
I mean, the-- just even that top line, no prejudice,
no hate in outer space.
Bingo.
I don't know if you have any tattoos.
I've got some from the NASA Voyager,
which was launched in '77.
And the Golden Record, which had science, music, art.
Yeah.
But no politics, no war, no religion.
None of the things that divide us.
And so it's just the idea of hope through exploration.
Unfortunately, before the president
showed me all of his tattoos, it was time to go.
- Thanks. - Thank you, sir.
I really appreciate your time.
And thank you so much for the stories and the Oval tour.
[applause]
OK, we're going to take a quick break,
but we'll be right back after this.
[applause]
That's our show for tonight.
But before we go, please consider supporting the Magic
City Acceptance Center.
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Now here it is, your moment of zen.
If not this time to run for president,
would you think at some time it's
safe to say that would be one of your goals?
I would only--
I would only do stuff if I thought
there was a rationale for me to accomplish things
on behalf of the people.
So it's all substance-driven about
whether I could serve or not serve
in a variety of capacities.
(SINGING) MTV.