Category Archives: Daily Show Interviews

Lincoln Chafee on the Daily Show

The is from the December 11, 2006 program.
(Dabble Record)
Senator Lincoln Chafee on the Daily Show (Quicktime – 14 MB)
Senator Lincoln Chafee on the Daily Show (MP3 – 10 MB)

Senator Lincoln Chafee (Wikipedia) is an outgoing Republican Senator from Rhode Island who is generally on the right side of every issue (“right” meaning I agree with him 🙂 not “to the right”).
Jon asked a lot of really frank questions, and Chafee had some really honest answers. Especially with regard to the kind of blind devotion many repubs have had toward the presidents policies – no matter how crazy they became.
Jon: It must be tough, you know. You’re a guy. You’re considered a “moderate republican.” There was yourself, Olympia Snowe (R – Maine), Jim Jeffords (I – Vermont), considered an independent switched over to be an Independent. Eh, kind of a lonely lunchtable there.
Chafee: Yes. Fewer and Fewer. We started with five when I got there. Jim Jeffords left the party. I was defeated. So there’s three left.
Jon: So three left.
Chafee: We’d have lunch every Wednesday. Arlen Spectre, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins, Jim Jeffords and myself so two down, three left.
Jon: I was kidding. I was kidding. And yet, that’s really what happened?
Chafee: Yes.
Jon: And when you would do that would they throw food at you guys? What would happen?
Chafee: Well it started in the 80’s and 90’s with a much more robust lunch of moderate Republicans. But through time, fewer and fewer and it down to when I got there in the late 90’s – 1999 – five of us.
Jon: And now three.
Chafee: Now three.
Jon: That’s maybe one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.
Chafee: Well what’s happened is the southerners have taken over the party. And all those southerners used to be conservative democrats…
Later in the interview (from 3:54 on)
Chafee: The whole caucus just lined up behind the President, and, so the agenda is set by the President. People line up in Congress.
Jon: But why? Why is it so…
Chafee: The primaries pull the contestants to the edges…
Jon: But once you get there. Once you’ve won. Why is it so antithetical to the process to stand up and say “hey this is crazy. We are not supposed to just rubber stamp this guy, even though he’s in our party. Why can’t we stand up or why can’t we work with what we think are reasonable people on the other side?”
Where does the party discipline come from? What are they threatening you with?
Chafee: That’s what has frustrated me more than anything in the time I’ve been there. Some of these senators have been there from the 70s, 80s, and been through all this Grand Rudman, “we’re gonna get out of deficits.” As soon as they come up with a big tax cut they all lined right up behind it. And I just…
Jon: But for everything?!
Chafee: Yeah. For everything!
Jon: That’s what I’m saying. You were there! I wasn’t there!
Chafee: I stood up and said “No.” And I argued with my collegues. “What are we doing here? We just got out of deficits. Why are we having a big tax cut?”
Jon: And what do they.. Do they say to you, “hey man, shut up or we’re taking away one of Rhode Island’s senators?” What do they use as a cudgel? Are people just…
Chafee: Good question. I think it’s just “loyalty to the president.” That’s what I found in my time there. It’s the president. That’s how he wants it. Get behind the president. That’s what I heard. More than threats. We’re gonna take away some project for Rhode Island. It’s just; Support the team. Fight the Democrats.
Jon: So it’s like the big game.
Chafee: Yes, but our country, you might argue, suffers.
Jon: You might argue, and in fact. I mean I think in some respects I always assumed that there was something going on behind the scenes that was far more complex that I wasn’t quite understanding. But the idea that you’ve been there, and you’re saying “yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys either,” really has me a little bit…I have to tell you I’m a little shaken up right now.
Chafee: Yes you wish that the senators would stand up in the beginning. The Chairman of the Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley from Iowa, says “we can’t have these big tax cuts.” They went down to a meeting in the White House, sat with the President, and, next thing he came out and said “I think we can afford the tax cuts.” …
Jon: So do they go down there with Cheney, and it’s like the pod people? He bites their neck and then the next day it’s like (arms extended) “we can do this!”
Jon: And are the Democrats any better? Are they fighting? Or are they just disorganized too? Are they the same?
Chafee: Well they went through being disorganized after 911. The Democratic party just didn’t stand up. They all fell in line behind the rush to war. Senator Daschle, Senator Clinton, Senator Kerry…all of em, lined up, and there was never any evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Jon: Can you point to anything in the last five years you think Congress should be proud of? In the last five years, since 911, in your mind?
Chafee: Uh…
Jon: Can I ask you this: Is that the platform you ran on?

Great week of Daily Shows from last week

Last week was a great week of Daily Shows and Colbert Reports last week.
So far I just have the Daily Shows up here (in both Quicktime and MP3s).
There were some really relevant and incredible shows last week and I want to make sure you see all the highlights.
So I’ll be putting them up one at a time starting now, too.
Here’s the playlist I’ve started for them: December Daily Show Clips.

Joe Klein On The Daily Show – The Shrub’s Social Security Plan Explained

This is from the February 3, 2005 program.
In this clip, Time magazine’s Joe Klein talks about the State of the Union address and the truth behind the Shrub’s Social Security overhaul: it’s all about benefit cuts, not increased payments due to shrewd investment of private accounts.
Joe Klein On The Daily Show (Small – 12 MB)

Audio of Joe Klein On The Daily Show (MP3 – 8 MB)

Joe Klein:
Here’s the cool thing about Social Security. Yesterday, before the speech, the White House explains it the “torters,” the private investment accounts, and here’s the way it works:
You put your money in your own private investment account. And then, when it’s time for you to retire, you give a whole lot of it back to the government so that they can dribble out little benefits to you that are the equivalent of Social Security as it now stands.
Jon Stewart:
That’s really what this plan is?
Joe Klein:
If you make more than a designated amount, you might get a little bit extra. Yes.
Jon Stewart:
That’s it?
Joe Klein:
It’s an annuity.
Jon Stewart:
But here’s what I don’t understand…
Joe Klein:
It’s really remarkable.
Jon Stewart:
But how does that save Social Security? Because the government still has to dish out the same amount of money, no?
Joe Klein:
Well, they’re going to lower our benefits it was they’re gonna actually do, and the President said he would last night.

Daily Show Comedy Clips And Interviews From November 11 – 18, 2004

Leave a reply

I hate to do this, but I’m so far behind on everything right now that I figure it’s better than you guys having to wait another week for this stuff. I promise I will post this stuff appropriately this weekend.
Here’s the daily show clip for
November 11, 2004 (just one arafat clip)
Here are all of the clips (with zip files and mirrors!) for November 15-18, 2004:

November 15, 2004

November 15 Mirror

November 16, 2004 Includes Tom Brokaw Interview.

November 16 Mirror

November 17, 2004

November 17 Mirror

November 18, 2004 Includes Woody Harrelson Interview.

November 18 Mirror
Many Thanks to Thilo Schlabach for mirroring my clips! Please use the mirrors guys!

Daily Show Comedy Clips From November 10, 2004 – Including An Interview With Tom Wolfe

This is from the November 10, 2004 program.
Note that there is a zip file of all 4 clips also available for download.

Daily Show Clips From November 10, 2004

Included in these clips:
Ashcroft’s resignation and hand written resignation letter
Ed Helms on Florida’s disenfranchisement ploy of a checkbox in which
voters had to affirm that “I have not be adjudicated mentally incapacitated
with respect to voting, or, if I have, my competency has been restored.
Science Scope – finding the 18,000 year-old remains of a man-like “hobbit”
Global Warming creating a lovely “Northern Sea Route” in Russia
(Makes global warming worth it all!)
Tom Wolfe interview about his new book: “I am Charlotte Simmons.”

Daily Show Interview With Billionaire Richard Branson – He Agrees To Put Up A Prize For The Person Who Can Get Us Off Of Oil

This is from the November 9, 2004 program.

Daily Show Interview With Richard Branson (14 MB)
This interview gets really interesting when Jon asks Branson to sponsor a contest to invent something to “get us off the internal combustion engine.”
BTW: Branson said he would do it! He also seemed rather preoccupied with the prospect for the rest of the interview. Let’s try to hold him to it!
Here’s a partial transcript:

Stewart: “What about this: putting up a prize for somebody to invent something to get us off the internal combustion engine? What do you think of that? Get uh, like an X prize type of thing like they did with space travel.”
Branson: “Hmmm.”
Stewart: “What do you think of that?”
Branson: “That makes a lot of sense.”
Stewart: “It does?”
Branson laughs.
Stewart: “How ’bout giving me some seed money?”
Branson: (leans back…) “Um. Okay.”
Stewart: “What do you think of that? You could set this thing up, and people could..it’d be like a private industry thing. There’s gotta be a way. I mean, we can fake diamonds.”
Branson: “Um hmmm.”
Stewart: “There’s gotta be a way we can make fake oil or something. You know what I’m saying? It’s just carbon for god’s sakes.”
Branson: “Water.”
Stewart: “Water? An engine that runs on water? Set up a prize!”
Branson: “Well I’ve just given you the answer. So I want the money.”
Stewart: “Or you’re gonna do it?”
Branson: “No..WATER?”
Stewart: “Cars run on water?”
Branson: “Yeah. They could do.”
Stewart: “What on hydroelectric cells or something?”
Branson: “Something like that. I don’t know. I’m trying to get my money back.”
Stewart: “I’m telling you something. This could be a great thing.”
Branson: “Okay.”
Stewart: “Seed money.”
Branson: “Alright. Would everybody chip in here?”
Stewart: “YOUR the billionaire!”
Branson: “Alright.”

Link to zip file of all November 9, 2004 clips. (39 MB)

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

Daily Show Comedy Clips From November 1, 2004 – Including An Interview With Fox News’ Chris Wallace

These clips are from the November 1, 2004 program.

Daily Show Comedy Clips and Interviews For November 1, 2004
Included in these (6) clips:
Jon Stewart Telling Us To Get out there and VOTE!
A two part interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace
(where he explains that Fox has a four person panel now that has to decide unanimously before a winner can be declared.)
Kerry and Bush respond to Bin Laden’s new tape
Cheney, Chelsea, Bruce and Arnold On The Campaign Trail
A voting report from Ed Helms and Stephen Colbert

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)