You're listening to Comedy Central.
This is doctor Laurie Santos.
In a world that sometimes feels uncertain, there are beacons of hope in your neighborhood.
Introducing Neighbor to Neighbor, a California volunteers network.
We believe that the people living all around you are your best bet at creating meaningful social bonds and preparing you for the next big weather event.
Whether it's lending a helping hand to a neighbor in need or standing together in times of natural disaster, Neighbor to Neighbor empowers you to grow your community.
Visit c a neighbors.com to learn how you can build a more connected community.
Neighbor to neighbor, it takes a neighborhood.
Rise and shine football fans.
Start your day the right way with Morning Footy, a podcast that covers every aspect of the global game, headlines, match previews, analysis, interviews, culture, fashion, and plenty of banter.
Join as we track the thrills and spills of Europe's biggest title races, the business end of the Champions League season, a summer pack with international competitions, MLS, NWSL, and much more.
Subscribe to Morning Footy.
From Comedy Central's World News Headquarters in New York, this is The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
Welcome to The Daily Show.
Our guest tonight our guest tonight, the star of Law and Order, SVU, and the producer of the new HBO documentary, I am Evidence, Marishka Hangerter is here, everybody.
Michael Cohen, president Trump's personal lawyer and VIP customer at Joseph a Bank.
Yesterday, thanks to the FBI, he had a really, really bad day.
Let's start with those dramatic raids on the office and home of president Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
The referral from special counsel Robert Mueller led to these search warrants targeting Michael Cohen, and investigators found emails, financial documents, and some client communications possibly involving president Trump.
We're told that Cohen is under investigation for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and other potential crimes connected to the 2016 election.
Man, I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous.
Even Trump's lawyer is being investigated?
Like, how corrupt is your circle if your lawyer uses his one phone call to call you?
It seems like everyone in Trump's world is corrupt.
Like, I bet even when he goes to confession,
he's like, forgive me, father, for I have sinned.
And his priest is like, yo.
You should hear the shit I've been getting into just the way I tell I tell you.
Trump doesn't know about church.
Now, now any anytime the FBI raids a lawyer's office, it's a really, really big deal.
But it's an even bigger deal when that lawyer is Michael Cohen.
Because to president Trump, he's more than just a lawyer.
My job is, I protect mister Trump.
If there's an issue that relates to mister Trump that, is of concern to him, it's of of course concern to me.
And I will use my legal skills within which to protect mister Trump to the best of my ability.
At the Trump Organization, he's done a bit of everything, running a mixed martial
plane, There was an engine issue, that he actually took care of and got a really good deal on.
Just what you want in an airplane, a discount engine.
You're gonna be crashing like, oh, we're gonna die, but at a greatly reduced rate.
Basically, Michael Cohen is Trump's go to guy for everything.
So if Trump has ever done anything shady, which I know sounds ridiculous, but stick with me here.
This FBI raid has a good chance of finding it, which is why yesterday, President Baby got a little cranky.
So I just heard that, they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and, it's a disgraceful situation.
It's a an attack on our country in a true sense.
It's an an attack on what we all stand for.
It's an attack on what we all stand for.
You know, the American ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of having a lawyer pay off your shy chick.
Now, in in Trump world, what's happening here is a giant conspiracy.
It's Robert Mueller trying to take Trump down for political reasons.
The only issue with that argument is that the conspiracy would have to involve every single person in law enforcement.
Explain how many hoops they had to go through to get this raid of Michael Cohen's offices.
Robert Mueller did not make this decision.
It seems he came upon, some sort of potential criminal activity.
He then hands it off effectively to Rod Rosenstein, who's the deputy attorney general.
Says, look, we found this.
You decide what to do with it.
Rod Rosenstein then makes a referral, meaning basically says to the, Southern District of New York, look, here's what we got.
You decide what to do with this.
Then the the US attorney for the Southern District of New York makes a decision to then seek out a search warrant.
A judge then signs off on it.
The standard for a judge to sign off on this is high.
That doesn't sound like a witch hunt to me because witch hunts were really simple.
Back then, it was just like, she shrank my penis.
That's pretty much all you needed.
Like, it's just like what we're hearing here is just way too much legal procedure to be considered a witch hunt.
Like, if people in Salem had this kind of due process, they would have never burned anyone.
Like, no one would have died.
They'll be like, she shrank my penis.
Let's burn her at the stake.
But first, you must fill out this official complaint.
Then we have to, see what the witnesses, in this case, say, and we have to see how big your penis originally used to be.
to know how big your penis actually was.
I, I actually made up the witch thing because, Hester wouldn't let me smash.
I'm gonna I'm gonna tell the truth.
You can you can tell that this raid has got Trump rattled because this morning, the president tweeted this.
The president went to bed fuming and he woke up ranting.
This morning, the president wrote this, attorney client privilege is dead.
Just the way they said it.
He went to bed ranting and woke up fuming.
It's just like, he was like It was like, poor Trump.
I imagine him in bed this morning just tears streaming down his face like, no.
My attorney client privilege is dead.
At least I've still got you white privilege.
The fact is attorney client privilege doesn't apply when prosecutors have probable cause to believe that you and your lawyer were committing a crime together.
So I think it's pretty clear that Trump is probably just shouting out legal terms that he's heard on law and order.
Double jeopardy, your honor.
In a world that sometimes feels uncertain, where communities can be disconnected, there are beacons of hope in your neighborhood.
Introducing Neighbor to Neighbor, a California volunteer's network.
They believe that the people living all around you are your best bet at creating meaningful social bonds and preparing you for the next big weather event.
Whether it's lending a helping hand to a neighbor in need or standing together in times of natural disaster, Neighbor to Neighbor empowers you to grow your community.
Visitcanebors.com to learn how you can help build a more connected community.
Neighbor to neighbor, it takes a neighborhood.
Mtv's official challenge podcast is back for another season.
All Stars 4 is finally here.
And this season takes it to a whole new level.
Old school legends, modern power players, and ex lovers are all competing in Cape Town, South Africa for the prize of $300,000.
And we're going to be right here along with you fans covering every episode on the podcast.
Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Inside every California avocado is a story.
It's shaped by idyllic conditions, full of rich soil, gentle rain, and friendly California sunshine, where avocados flourish.
Crafted with care by dedicated local farmers who are committed to responsible sustainable growing.
The best avocados have California in them.
To understand why, all you have to do is open one up.
In season now, visit californiaavocado.com to learn more.
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
My guest tonight is an award winning actor, an advocate for sexual assault survivors, and the producer of the new HBO documentary, I am evidence.
Marishka Welcome to the show.
I am very happy to be here.
This is so much fun having you because, I mean, like law and order, I've watched my whole life, and I watch your show in South Africa.
I I always wonder, like, when you've played a character like Olivia Benson for as long as you have, do you sometimes feel like you, like, know the law?
Like, do you ever feel like you are in law enforcement sometimes?
I feel like I do, and I'm also somebody that jumps in and gets confused about what my real job is.
There there have been times in my life where I've seen something on the street and I jump in like, hey, put that down.
And I've done it so many times.
I'm like, Marsha, you need to calm down.
I feel like you play your character so convincingly that if you did that to me in real life, I'd be like, yeah.
I'd be like, it's Law and Order.
This this when you do something
For 19 years I started the show when I was 4.
But when you do some why is he laughing?
Anyway, I I, when you do something for this long, you know, your body sort of reacts to it.
So when I get when there's crisis, I go into crisis mode.
I go into lieutenant mode.
I'm not in that mode right now.
The, the the show is is an interesting one because, you know, law and order has so many different spin spin offs, but special victims unit is one that connected with so many people in a visceral way.
Because we were we were used to glamorous crimes.
It was always all the murder.
It was the but special victims unit tackled something that, like, a lot of people have experienced, unfortunately.
You know, the Me Too movement has has exposed how pervasive sexual assault and harassment have been.
And that's that's what your show has been covering covering for so long.
You went through an interesting experience where people who were victims, and survivors of sexual assault or harassment reached out to your character, like they wrote you fan mail and asked you for help.
Like they actually went, I need your help.
Did people not know that your character wasn't real or or or was it something else?
You know, I think that for so long, survivors have been living in a culture of shame and isolation.
When I started the show I started, I come off ER.
And so when you're you know getting normal fan mail, you get, Hi.
Can I get an autographed photo?
And all of a sudden when I started SVU after the show had been airing for a while, I started getting a very different kind of fan letter, with victims actually disclosing their stories of abuse, and many for the first time.
And in those letters, there always was the same theme, again, of shame, stigma, and isolation.
And then saying I've never told anyone before and not feeling safe to tell anyone or feeling scared that it wouldn't they wouldn't be believed or it wouldn't be received right.
So I think that they went to this fictionalized character that maybe was the first person that showed empathy and compassion, and they knew that Olivia was always for the victim first and felt safe there.
And, hopefully, now that is indeed changing.
And that's a powerful connection for people to have with a character and with a with with a show.
And it's something that I think many people would find overwhelming.
I don't know if I'd be able to handle that.
I don't know how I would handle it.
But you you took it and turned it into something really positive.
You started your foundation, Joyful Heart.
What is Joyful Heart all about?
Well, I you know, when I started getting these letters, as you can imagine, I was shocked and wanted to respond and was so, it was very painful receiving these letters, and I I didn't know how to respond so I tried to to educate myself.
And, I was so enraged when I learned about the statistics of sexual assault that that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will be abused in their lifetime.
I mean, this these were crazy statistics, and I thought if if those were the statistics, 1 in 4 women will be assaulted by her 18th birthday.
How is it that everybody wasn't talking about this?
So that's when I started educating myself and when I did, my research for the role of of playing Olivia besides hanging out in police, you know, precincts and with cops and doing ride alongs, I also went through a 40 hour training to become a rape crisis advocate, which taught me how to deal with survivors because I knew I wanted to play this character, in in a different way with all of myself and all of my humanity and empathy and and and femininity and not in, you know, a a female in a man's world and not in a in a sort of male way.
You know, playing this hard ass, you know, badass detective who, as we all have different sides of us, also has compassion, empathy, and humanity, as I said.
So, that's when I sort of put a structure to to my anger and started the Joyful Heart Foundation to help victims reclaim, you know, their reclaim their lives or claim possibility and joy.
And then in 2009, I learned about the rape kit backlog.
In 2009, I learned about, there was a study done by Human Rights Watch that exposed this unbelievable travesty in our nation that when a woman was brave enough and courageous enough to come forward after being assaulted and would go through a 4 to 6 hour, often completely invasive and often re traumatizing examination.
And they would do, you know, a sexual assault evidence, you know, collection kit and poke them and prod them and, you know, it's a humiliating, painful process.
And then we found out that these kits were sitting on shelves in police storage facilities.
And you would assume that in America, in this country, obviously, if the evidence collection kit was was was taken, it would be processed.
And we found that that that wasn't the case.
And I found out the first case was, the first time I found out about was the study done in in in California, in Los Angeles, that there were 12,000, I think, 669 kits.
So the following year, I went to testify before congress, and that's when I met this amazing badass of a woman named Kim Worthy, who was the Wayne County prosecutor
And when we met, it was we were done.
What you To know, it was a little bit of a match Right.
And you you've been on a journey ever since.
This documentary, I think, is in many ways a culmination of that journey because this story is illuminating in so many different ways.
We learn about these rape kits that are taken.
We learn about the experiences of these women who have survived these horrific incidents.
And then we learn that there are just backlogs.
There are kits that are sitting on shelves, and rapists are walking free in the streets.
Some people may say, okay, that that that's bad.
But there's there's a story in particular where one woman's rape was tied to another woman's rape 13 years later.
Is is this a story that you come across often?
Well, you know, the the rape kit backlog, which, of course, after we found that there were you know, this was the same the same story in every city.
And there are estimated 100 of 1,000 of of rape kits sitting in police storage facility, and there are so many reasons to test these kits.
But not testing them clearly sends a message to survivors saying you don't matter and your kit doesn't matter and your case doesn't matter.
And it certainly tells perpetrators, well, doesn't matter.
What we learned is that by putting the DNA in the in the CODIS, which is the national database, we kept finding hits and that there were so many serial rapists.
Kim found in Detroit, I think out of 11,000 kits, there were 80879 serial rapists.
So in the movie, which was very, you know, difficult to put together this was my first documentary, and we interviewed 14 women, all with the most who were so extraordinarily brave, but with these compelling stories.
And I'll tell you, I could have made a documentary on each one of these women
Their with their stories.
But, you know, a documentary, how do you tell the story?
How do you weave it together?
And then we found that one of one of the rapists was indeed a a trick driver who, had hadn't been apprehended
And one of the women was waiting, 11 years, 14 years for the precinct to call her back.
And in the meantime, he was busy assaulting other women.
It's it's a story that that is enraging.
It's frustrating, and at the same time, uplifting because of what we see in the documentary.
We see the work that your organization is doing.
We see the work that these women are doing fighting this process.
What can be done, though?
Some people go it's a backlog.
The police department cannot do anything, but New York City has done something.
And I I'm I wanted to make this movie because it's so hard hard hitting.
And and, again, when I found out about it in 2009, you know, my head almost exploded.
I I just remember going, this can't this cannot be.
And I remember doing a satellite media tour the following year, and and none of the journalists nobody knew.
They would stop me and say, you're telling me that the woman goes through this examination and they're not testing the kids?
And so this is an incredibly you know, how do you measure sexual assault in this country?
How do you measure how women are being treated?
And that's what I thought.
This is a perfect sort of microcosm Right.
Of how we treat women, how we treat survivors.
And, it sort of like sort of holds a mirror up to the country and says, this is what we're doing, so let's change it.
The good news is it's fixable.
The good news is that Joyful Heart, my foundation that I that I founded in 2004, has been has made the rape kit, backlog our number one advocacy priority.
And so we have made these 6 pillars of legislation that we're trying to push through, and and and we are changing legislation in every state.
New York doesn't have a backlog.
And, certain certain states by states and cities by cities are cleaning up their backlog.
So you can go to end the backlog.org and find out what you can do right to your legislators, right to your congressmen, and we can change it.
We just have to be persistent and never give up.
I think that sounds amazing.
I am Evidence debuts Monday, April 16th at 8 PM on HBO.
And for more information about how you can help, visit end the backlog.org.
Marishka Hogate, everybody.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Ears Edition.
Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and the Comedy Central app.
Watch full episodes and videos at the daily show.com, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for exclusive content and more.
This has been a Comedy Central podcast.
In a world that sometimes feels uncertain where communities can be disconnected, there are beacons of hope in your neighborhood.
Introducing Neighbor to Neighbor, a California volunteer's network.
They believe that the people living all around you are your best bet at creating meaningful social bonds and preparing you for the next big weather event.
Whether it's lending a helping hand to a neighbor in need or standing together in times of natural disaster, neighbor to neighbor empowers you to grow your community.
Visitcanebors.com to learn how you can help build a more connected community.
Neighbor to neighbor, it takes a neighborhood.
Rise and shine football fans.
Start your day the right way with Morning Footy, a podcast that covers every aspect of the global game, headlines, match previews, analysis, interviews, culture, fashion, and plenty of banter.
Join as we track the thrills and spills of Europe's biggest title races, the business end of the Champions League season, a summer pack with international competitions, MLS, NWSL, and much more.
Subscribe to Morning Footy.