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We have so much to talk about tonight. Trump shows he's unqualified to comfort a nation. All his nominees are unqualified for their jobs, and Lewis Black's qualified to start drinking. So let's get to the latest news on the Trump administration in another edition of the Second Coming of Donald J. Trump.
Trump's been busy these last few days, signing orders, reinstalling the Diet Coke button, grabbing Panama by the canal. But it was only a matter of time until he had to start presidenting for real. This morning, he held a press conference to address the tragic plane crash in Washington, D.C. last night. And remember, one of the most important things a leader can do in a rapidly developing, difficult situation is to calm people down
Stick to the facts and keep your uninformed opinions to yourself. We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now. I mean, or we can just speculate wildly. Why not? I get a little bit nervous when Trump has a strong opinion. You know, it's never something unifying. Like, sunsets are beautiful, or love is the answer.
This is a new term, and he's only a few days in, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt. What's Trump's opinion about what happened in D.C.? The FAA's diversity push, a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program. The agency's guidance on diversity hiring, the FAA's diversity and inclusion hiring plan.
Damn you, diversity initiatives. Why are you responsible for every historical tragedy? The fires in Los Angeles, DEI, the bridge collapse in Baltimore, DEI, the Irish potato famine, DEI, slavery, DEI. Did you ever notice how many minorities were at slavery? It's all DEI. Just to be clear, Mr. President, you have evidence that diversity initiatives are responsible for this tragic crash. You're not just saying this, right?
Right? I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash. Because I have common sense. There you go. No, no, no, no. There you go. There you go. Here's common sense. It's just a coincidence that his common sense happens to align with his long-held prejudices.
So let's spin the big wheel of blame to see which minorities are responsible for this crash. Who will it be this time? Black people, lesbians, trans-Arminians. The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe.
intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, and dwarfism. Dwarfism?
I can't believe it's only day 10, and Trump is already this far down his list of scapegoats. He's blown past race and gender, and now he's hitting dwarves? You see, really suggesting there is a plane crash because someone with dwarfism worked in air traffic control. Does Trump think they couldn't see the control panel, and they were just... Reaching up and pushing, bumping buttons, hoping it would work out.
I just want to say that people with dwarfism are just like everyone else. In fact, their penises are normal size, which means proportionally they're huge. So in a way, you could say that I'm the one looking up to them.
That's a thinker. That's a thinker. A lot of different layers in there. You might be thinking, well, that's progress. You know, he used to blame everything on past administrations, but don't worry, he got them in there too. We had a very good policy, and then Biden came in, and he changed it, and Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite. The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
A real winner. You know, badly everything's run since he's run the Department of Transportation. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats, they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. I'm sorry. You're blaming Obama? The guy from three presidents ago?
Forget blaming a fart on your dog. This is blaming the fart on your dog that died when you were eight. I still think about you, Henry.
Such stinky farts he had. Look, Mr. President, I know you're scared that people might hold you responsible now that you're president because you're the president, Mr. President. And it's time to just be a man, okay? Real men don't point fingers. Real men find solutions. Real men show leadership. Real men moisturize. Guys, you gotta take care of your skin. You gotta take care of your skin. Yeah.
The skin is the biggest organ on the body. Unless you're dwarf and it's the second baby. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right, let's move on, okay? Because while Trump is demanding meritocracy in government, he's trying to fill his cabinet with a whole bunch of just real f***ing geniuses.
Today, the Senate held hearings for Cash Patel, who Trump wants to lead the FBI because of qualifications like this. My name is Cash Patel, and I have written the first-ever Children's Russiagate book. It's called The Plot Against the King. It is a fantastical telling by me, the Russiagate Chief Investigator. Wow. I mean, that's a great reason to not teach your kids to read.
At the same time, the Senate held hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump wants as director of national intelligence, even though she's friendly with dictators like Bashar al-Assad, and looks like the head of the Galactic Council in a bad sci-fi movie. For more on those Senate confirmation hearings, we go to Jordan Klepper, Desilidik, and Josh Johnson. Let's go first. Let's go first to Jordan.
Let's go first to Jordan. Jordan, you've been covering the cast for Taylor hearing. How do you come across? How do you think, casta? Patel's a conspiracy theorist who believes the 2020 election was rigged, follows QAnon, and most shockingly thinks toddlers want to read a pop-up book about Russia gates. I mean, just listening to him speak gave me brain damage so much that I think listening to him speak gave me brain damage.
Clearly, Cash Patel is the least qualified of all of Trump's nominees. I'm sorry, but can I just, can I butt in here? Yes, does he, does he? You're covering the Tulsi Gabbard hearings. How did she come across? But how do you think, Costa? I haven't been that uncomfortable since Klepper asked if I liked his haircut.
She wants to be director of intelligence. Have you seen her friends? Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, Justin Baldoni, heartburn, upset stomach, diarrhea? It's too much. She is clearly the least qualified Trump nominee. What are you talking about, Desi? First, my head looks fantastic. And Tulsi was at least in Congress. She spent time in the government. The only thing Patel has spent time in is the comment section of the Pizza Gate subreddit.
He's the most unqualified. No. No way. You cannot trust Tulsi with state secrets. I wouldn't even trust her with secret brand deodorant. CVF blocked it up now because of her. I'm sorry, can I hop in here? Yes, Josh, you're covering RFK Jr.'s hearing. Yeah, and obviously he's the least qualified candidate because he is RFK Jr. He wants to run the Department of Health and Human Services. He's not qualified for health. He's barely qualified for human. All right?
He's basically a leather bag full of coughs. For someone who might be in charge of all the drugs, he acts like someone in charge of all the side effects, nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea.
Baldoni. No, no. Look, my guy wrote a children's book about Russiagate. The only reason you write a children's book about Russiagate is you can't write an adult book about Russiagate. He used more exclamation points than a white woman's email. I deleted that. And Tulsi is the least qualified. She couldn't be more of a Russian mole if she was dangling from Rasputin's back. Josh, do you really think RFK is less qualified than Tulsi?
Does a bear carcass get dumped in the Central Park woods? Cash Patel, if you're watching, a bear is the one that goes gurr. Please, Tulsi makes Cash Patel look like Stephen Hawking. Yeah, current day Stephen Hawking, because Cash Patel is brain dead. At least they have brains. R.K. Junger's brain got eaten by a worm.
in his hand. Guys, guys, hey, why are we fighting over this? Okay, they're all unqualified. Why does it matter who the least qualified is? Michael, because the reporter covering that specific hearing gets the right to use a somber, but serious Pulitzer-contending voice when they say in the opinion of this reporter, Cash Patel, is the least qualified nominee in American history.
No, no, no, no, no. Tulsi Gabbard is the least qualified nominee in American history. You're both wrong. R.F.K. Junger is the least qualified nominee
in American art, in American history. Josh, are you putting in contacts? I don't have glasses, but I need to look smart. God, I never touched my eye before. Look, I don't think any of you are qualified for this job. Jordan, Desi, and Josh, everyone, when we come back, Lewis Black will try not to treat everybody right now.
Welcome back to the episode. With a new story followed through the cracks, the Lewis Black catches it for a segment we call Back in Black. Ah, alcohol. It's why I get up in the morning. How my mom made it through her pregnancy. And why I'm not allowed within 50 feet of a horse.
The booze is the most committed relationship I'll ever have, but some people know nothing about commitment. Dry January, the challenge of giving of drinking for the first month of the year is growing in popularity. Happy Dry January. It's the month where folks ditch the booze and go alcohol-free. One report found that 25% of American adults completed Dry January last year. A lot of people are going to be doing Dry January. I have done Dry January every year now for three years.
Well, goody-goody for you! It must be nice to have the luxury of giving up booze while the rest of us are trapped in f***ing reality. Wildfires, bird flu, crippling gambling debts. If you're not blacking out every single night, you're not paying attention.
And by the way, why are we giving up alcohol in January? It's colder than Jack Frost's dick. All your fat friends are posting gym selfies, and it gets dark faster than Justin Trudeau's face on Halloween. Oh, please. Me, I'd much rather give up booze in May. The weather is warm, and I'm already coked up for Cinco de Mayo.
But for those of you not sure about dry January, don't worry. There's something even dumber. For some people, that looks dry. For others, it might look damp. A damp January would mean only drinking on special occasions, adding more dry days to your month, or consuming fewer drinks in each sitting.
Gimp January? Are you shitting me? Gimp January sounds like someone I paid for a lap dance in the 80s. Just say drinking less. Not everything needs a label. I'm in a short-term situationship. No, you got a hand job from a coach at girl. Now move on with your life.
Quitting booze may seem like a good idea today, but once TikTok goes away, you're going to be getting hammered at Dave and Buster's with me in Pete's exit. Fair warning, I tend to shit my pants on Dance Dance Revolution.
Now I get it, some of you don't like fun, but if you're out with your dipshit friends and you can't drink booze, surely there must be something you can drink.
During dry January, people sip on mocktails, cocktails without any alcohol content. There are great non-alcoholic wines, beers, and spirits that are on the market today. Global sales of no and low alcohol products reaching more than $13 billion last year. Companies are cashing into stars, releasing non-alcoholic products like Katy Perry's Booze Free Beverage Line Day Squad. A great time. And Tom Hollins, non-alcoholic beer company Bureau.
This is from Proxies. This is their bubbly rosé. Could you add alcohol if you wanted to? You could. You could. Wowie! An alcohol-free drink that you can add alcohol to. If only Thomas Edison were alive to see this.
Look, if I ever order an elderberry hibiscus fizz, be sure to garnish it. With a loaded gun, these drinks sound almost as fun as getting an animal, enema. Which, by the way, you can also add alcohol, too. It's called boofing. Go, Alex!
But listen, if the eighth best spider-man can cash in on the cocktail booth, so can I. Introducing Louis Black's dry January vodka. It's just regular vodka. And you can sit in the corner and watch me drink it.
It even comes with a blanket to throw over me once I pass out. Now, that's what I call a situation ship. Wow, Lewis. Lewis Black, everyone. When we come back, this visor will be going on the show. We don't go along.
Welcome back to Daily Show. My guest tonight is an award-winning journalist and author whose latest book is called Power Metal, the race for the resources that will shape the future. Please welcome Vince Beiser.
Power metal. Power metal. You sure this isn't a book about Metallica? You know, I'm going for the broadest audience I can get. What is power metal? So what it's about is it's about the terrible paradox of electric vehicles and renewable energy. That's all the time we have for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much.
Please continue. All right, so the paradox is this. So we are moving towards those things, right? EVs and renewable energy, which is great because we need those things to avoid climate change, which is the biggest threat that we face. But there's a catch. And the catch is metal, because to build all those things, to build all those millions of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, and by the way, all of the digital gadgets that we all rely on, our phones and our laptops, everything about the internet. My phone has metal in it? Your phone has metal in it, my friend.
I don't know about your phone personally. Yeah, I actually have a wooden phone with a, there you go. Okay, so everybody here has metal on themselves right now. Yeah, yeah. So we need billions of tons of those metals. So there's a worldwide rush on to get those, they're called critical metals, the same basket of metals that we need for renewable energy and for digital tech. And as a result of that, we are cutting rainforests to the ground. Children are being put to work in mines.
I'm fine with the children, but the rainforest stuff. I know. But I'm throwing out a list. Are you telling me? Honestly, I have young kids, and I would love for them to have a job. I mean, it's like...
That's funny because of, you know, we know my kids are okay, but when you see the footage and you read about these minds, it's really f***ed up. It's really, really f***ed up. And it's even more f***ed when you go, oh, I might be contributing to that in a way. You might, the cobalt that those kids mind might be in your pocket right now. Not yours, because your phone is wooden. Right.
So you're essentially saying there's no such thing as clean energy. Correct. What liberal friend are you trying to piss off right now?
Well, I'm just, you know, I'm a journalist, so my job is to just try to tell the truth as best as I can. And there is, you know, renewable energy is much better than fossil fuel-powered energy, but it comes with its own cost. It has its own serious downsides, which is not to say that, you know, you shouldn't buy an EV that we shouldn't be turning on to renewables. We should be. We have to understand they come with serious costs, and we have to do what we can to minimize those costs.
Let's talk about China a little bit, because every single chapter of your book, China shows up. Are they better than us with, I say, us meeting North Americans with their mining? Let me start over. Let me ask a better question. China, go.
It's such a big topic, it's such a big country, it's hard to really pinpoint. So in a nutshell, what's happened is, so every single one of these metals that we're talking about, that we absolutely need for EVs, for renewables, and for digital tech, China dominates the entire supply chain of these things. From digging them out of the ground, to refining them into metals, to building the actual, to manufacturing them into the actual car batteries and digital gadgets and all the rest of it.
That is a big problem because it gives them enormous geopolitical leverage. They've really got us over a barrel with this stuff. You tell a great story. You follow a man around Vancouver who essentially scraps metal. What are the more valuable metals that are around cobalt?
nickel, cobalt, nickel, yep. So for copper, so for a guy like Steve Nelson, who's this scrapper that I've been following around in Vancouver, Canada. I think my wild pieces were tough. I mean, you're literally in Vancouver following a guy in a dumpster picking up metal.
Sexy stuff. That's right. That's right. That's the glamorous world of journalism, friend. So for those guys, Copper is the most valuable thing. But Steve is a guy. He's a super entrepreneurial guy who has basically been spending the last 20 years or so just digging through dumpsters in the back alleys of Vancouver for any kind of metal that he can find and sell and recycle. Not just like raw metal, but like old toasters, old light fixtures. He can look at practically any
you know, electronic thing and tell you, oh, there's going to be, you know, this much aluminum. There's probably about six ounces of copper I can get. Two bucks for it at today's price. He carries it all on his bicycle. He's got a little cart hooked up to his bike and he just rides around collecting all this metal and then taking it to his scrapyard. I don't think about metal every day. I don't think I want to, but now I think I have to.
Metal should be more on the forefront of our brains. Should we be more concerned with reusing or refurbishing the American consumer? This doesn't seem to match up. There's only so much metal we can use, right? It turns out there's pretty much no limit to how much stuff we can can buy and use.
Exactly, exactly. But this is where we get into how we can do things better. So we need metals, right? That's what our, you know, so much of our civilization depends on. But we can be way more efficient with how we use it. We can do a lot more recycling, which is exactly what a guy like Steve is doing.
We can also be reusing and repairing our gadgets, right? Like, for a long time, all these manufacturers have deliberately made their things difficult to repair. So now there's a movement on to force them to basically make Apple and Samsung and everybody else to make it easier to fix their stuff so that it lasts longer. And you know, as consumers, we can also take some responsibility, right? You don't have to get a new iPhone every single year.
Well, you've got that wooden one. I understand you need to upgrade. Recycling man is recycling perfect the way we have it now. I throw it in a blue bin. I'm a hero. I don't have to think about it ever again. But talk a little bit about the depth you go in, how, what it costs, and the resources it takes to recycle.
Yeah, so recycling too turns out to have some serious downsides to it. It's really energy intensive, it's really polluting, and it's often done on the backs of the poorest people in the world. So one of the places I went was Lagos, Nigeria, the biggest city in Africa, and I spent some time there with guys who were recycling digital
junk, our old cell phones, laptops, these are guys sitting around with hammers and screwdrivers just cracking open those things like walnuts and picking out the little bits of metal. You tell a story about people burning, standing around, burning electrical wire to be able to later dig into the metal that's in the charging cord.
Exactly. All our cables, you know, they've got plastic and rubber outside and copper inside. They want the copper. They burn the rest of the stuff. And these guys are just standing around this incredibly like thick, toxic, oily, reeking smoke. And, you know, I asked one of them. I was like, well, aren't you worried? I mean, these guys are just like in flip flops and t-shirts. No safety equipment. Nothing. And I asked one of them.
And she, you know, and she worried about breathing in all this smoke. And he just said, like, you know, it's a job. I'm living in Nigeria. This is the only job I've got. And I said, well, how long have you been doing it? He said, since I was eight. Jesus. He said, how old are you now? He was 35 years old. Right. Man, I have a drawer at home that has 100 wires in it. Mm-hmm. Six iPhones. And don't judge, because you have the same **** going on.
We all have this draw. I don't know what to do with the phone, right? This is such a North American problem, right? But it is a rich guy problem. Well, it's a real problem for the world, right? Because all that stuff is just going to waste, right? We should be. We could be recycling it, right? But the problem is there just isn't an easy way to do that.
So the good news is like actually in places like Nigeria and the developing world turns out they're way more efficient at it. They recycle something like 90% of their e-waste. Whereas here, only one out of every six cell phones gets recycled, gets recycled, gets junked. So there's a lot we can learn from those places.
It's an easy punchline Trump wanting to take Greenland. Then I read your book, then I read about Greenland's vast resources of minerals and metals, and I go, oh, this might not be a joke. Is this what America has to do to keep up so we can all get the new iPhone all the time? It's the new you support Trump taking over Greenland through military force.
I do not. I'm from Canada, my friend. And I know we're next after Greenland. That's true. I know. You wrote like a Canadian. This has hope and sympathy. But you spelled color with a U. I spelled color with a U.
This might not be a joke about Greenland. We need these metals. We need these metals, for sure. And Greenland does have an awful lot of them. There are other places in the world, we can get them. So the thing about Greenland, though, it's chock full of especially a bunch of metals called rare earths, which we need for wind turbines, we need them for electric car motors. We also need them for our cell phones, the color red in your cell phone is thanks to one particular metal called europium. No europium, no red in your cell phone. Anyway, what?
Yeah. Uropium? Uropium. That's so funny. Now that sign makes sense that said a Uropium-free cell phone for sale. No, I've never seen such a thing. Anyway, but Greenland. Editors, please edit out that entire set.
So there are a lot of these medals there, but number one, really hard to get them. Greenland's really far away. The weather's incredibly harsh. Also, the people living in Greenland aren't really that hard on the idea. They've already shot down one rare earth mine that folks tried to open up there. Because they didn't want all the environmental chaos that comes with it. There was a few things in this book that were promising to me. One of them was that there have been successful
communities that have pushed off or fought off mining, at least that you mentioned. You might have been lying. Some really cool things like experimenting with plants that absorb metals. And then also this whole idea of someone mining in space. This was some cool shit. Which one of those do you want to talk about?
Well, let's talk about the plants, because I love if plants are the answer to all of us. Isn't that a great idea? That is so cool. So I absolutely love this. It's one of the many solutions that I talk about. And basically, there are several dozen kinds of plants which suck up different kinds of metal, nickel and other stuff from the soil. And in theory, like who knew, right? Who knew? But so in theory, you can plant a bunch of these plants in a place where you have that metal, especially like places that are already polluted, like where there used to be a mine or whatever.
They draw it up, and then you burn the plants, or you somehow pull the metal out of the plants. And it can be done. There are a couple of startups and a couple of research labs working on it. I love the idea. So far, sad to say it's a long way from any kind of commercial scale. And you talked about how that was planted somewhere, and then the plant took over and screwed up the whole environment. So that's a bummer. There's always a downside somewhere. How would we mind in space? And how is this not a movie yet? Yeah.
But there is someone trying to mine in space. There are some, there are quite a few people trying to mine in space. I'm glad you hate your family. If you're like, honey, I got this new idea. I'm gonna mine in space. Okay, last question. How can I, how can you
be a better consumer. So I can't take on a mining company. But how can I do this better? I mean, this is really scary shit you're talking about here. Yeah. So I mean, so all those things we've been talking about, which is really what most of the second half of the book is about, but also the number one thing that we as individuals can do is, if possible, don't buy a car. I know. That was a heavy sentence I read. I know. As a man who has six cars and nine motorcycles. That's not true.
Why? Why should we not buy a car? Well, because cars are by far the most material and energy-intensive thing that most of us own, unless except for your house, if you own a house. Right. And I'm not saying you're a bad person if you own a car, even if you own nine cars.
I own a car myself. What I am saying is we need to get to a place, we need to reduce the number of cars that are out there. Because if we swap all 1 billion gas cars that are already out there for 1 billion electric vehicles, we're going to swap one set of problems for another. Much better is we got to reduce the number of cars by giving people the freedom to choose whether or not to have a car. Because right now, most places in America, you've got to have a car. You need one.
But if we can, you know, promote things like bicycling, public transit, getting around by foot, so that fewer people need to own cars, so that more people can choose whether or not they want to own a car, we'll all be much better off. Thank you for writing a great book. It's a great read. Power Metal is available now. Vince Bizer. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back after this.
That's our show for tonight. But before we go, this Sunday, I'm headed to Asheville, North Carolina to participate in a charity tennis event to support Hurricane Helene relief efforts in Western North Carolina. You can support this cause by going to the link below to make a donation or bid on great auction items like even an autograph book from me available now. Now here it is, your moment of zen.
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