- How do you balance the seriousness of a topic like this,
with trying to be funny and make jokes about it?
- I feel like you're thinking that I wrote that question.
(Host laughs)
Because the first thing I said
to everybody who brought this...
Because this is my third or fourth Southern border piece.
I did a piece with Dulse, when Trump,
with the Tijuana San-Diego border.
I did a piece where I dressed as a part of Trump's wall,
called "Bricky the Border Wall,"
and went to a Trump rally.
I did a border piece with you,
where Americans were crossing daily into Mexico,
in Yuma, Arizona to get dental care.
- And you had dental surgery in that piece.
- Yeah. Dental surgery in that piece.
And then I did this piece.
And my initial reaction when when someone says,
"Hey, it's a southern border piece, San Costa."
I go, "It's, it is really hard to be funny."
It's really hard to be funny with this topic.
There's baby shoes next to the Rio Grande River.
As all "Daily Show" pieces,
I think we did get some funny moments,
but it's hard because it's real.
This isn't like, it's not a light subject,
but the hypocrisy of claiming it's a problem
and then refusing to solve it is,
is- - A good target.
- Yeah. There's, there's,
there's good room there for comedy.
- And I think in this case,
we had the whole,
all of the hype and the propaganda around the invasion,
and the "Fox News" angle,
and the politicians saying
the same thing again and again.
And we could sort of play off of that.
So we weren't actually really talking about
the actual sad, tragic reality.
We're talking about the fake bullshit reality.
- [Guest] Yeah. Yeah. - And it's good that we
had that conversation many times before the piece,
because we had a clear hook to hang our hat on.
I mean, ladies and gentlemen,
the fucking like North Dakota governor is down there.
Governors that believe the border is a,
is a campaign strategy for them,
go down there, even though their state is 3000 miles away.
I mean, it's just like 100% they use this
little park that had to cancel its Bratzo festival,
to get real reelection in Louisiana.
It's insane. - Right.
- It's almost like you have to go
if you're a Republican governor.
- [Guest] Right, right. - And you have to send
fish and game or whatever random office you have left.
- Yeah. I think what did it for me,
'cause I was a little bit hesitant
about the piece in the beginning,
like not going, you know, before we went,
was that 13 or 14 Republican governors showing up.
It just, it's such a photo op.
- [Host] Right. - It's not,
they don't give a shit.
They're not trying to solve the problem.
They're there to show their most extreme base.
"I'm a hardass. I support putting barbed wire down."
So I thought Biden might have had something
when he had gotten this bipartisan bill,
at least part of it moving forward.
I was excited about that.
But then obviously it got killed.
So then I'm back to my,
back to being a little pessimistic about it.
- Yeah. One thing I want to jump back to is you
talked about how hard it is to be funny in this pieces,
in these pieces. - Yeah.
- And I think it is, it is a bit trickier,
because it's, it's kind of a risk.
You don't wanna seem glib,
or come off like an asshole by making jokes around the,
something that is very painful and, you know, sad.
But I think there are some very funny moments in the piece.
- Are there? Tell me about 'em. (laughing)
- I would think that some of the organic conversations
with the people we talked to,
like the Democratic chairwoman who
was calling the politicians, Pendejos.
And then the back and forth between what is a Pendejo?
- It's a political stunt.
The Republican Pendejos who don't give a damn.
(audience laughs and applauds)
- I minored in Spanish, but I forgot Pendejo.
Does you mean politicians?
- Well, it's kind of a heavier word than idiots.
(censored)
- Not as heavy. - Not as heavy as (censored),
but heavier than idiot, stupid.
- Somewhere between mother (censored) and idiot.
- Uh-huh. I would say so. (laughing)
- You know, that is a funny,
absurd thing that you're not gonna see
in any other news story that's true about the border crisis.
And it kind of says something about
how people see the politicians.
You know.
- Well, and you know, look, I made my own bed.
I've told Jen Flans, the executive producer,
many, many times, I want the hard pieces.
I want this show to rely on me
to be able to pull off these things.
- Right.
- Because, though my favorite comics can do that.
But when you're boarding the flight for Eagle Pass,
you go, "Why did I say that?" (laughs)
(upbeat music)