Welcome to The Daily Show, coming to you from Atlanta,
Georgia, night three.
[cheering]
We've been having so much fun here.
Every single day, I learn something new about the place.
You know, like, yesterday, I learned that people in Georgia
have a really interesting philosophy about food.
You know?
Yeah, yesterday, I asked someone.
I said, hey, where should I eat?
And they were like, oh, yo, you got to get
the wings at JR Crickets.
And I was like, oh, yeah?
[cheering]
Yeah, people were like, yeah.
I'm like, so what should I order?
And they're like, oh, you've got
to get the lemon pepper wet, extra crispy, extra sprinkles.
And they're like, but you need, like, extra sprinkles,
extra sprinkles.
Like, extra, extra sprinkles?
Like, it sounds like a lot of sodium.
They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why you got to go to American Deli
afterwards and get the peach soda.
That's what you got to do.
[cheering]
And then she said my favorite thing.
She was like, yeah, because you see-- you see, because when
you have that much salt, you've got to cancel
it out with the sugar.
That's what we do in Atlanta.
Like, it's a balanced diet.
I appreciate that.
It was delicious.
But I slept for a week.
[laughter]
I've also learned that people in Atlanta love sports.
Wow, this is, like, a big sports town.
Like, everyone here-- everyone here
excited it for the big Georgia-Tennessee game
on Saturday.
Yeah, people are hyped for that.
It's a big sports town, I've real-- and I get it.
I get it.
I mean, the Braves won the World Series, right?
[cheering]
The University of Georgia won the national championship.
You know?
Yeah, the Falcons have really cool jerseys.
[laughter]
I see you.
[laughs] And the city--
I feel like the city has extra energy now
because the midterms are a few days away.
You can feel it, right?
I see the shirts, people out there, getting ready to vote.
Everybody's voting, breaking early voting records.
That's what's happening out here.
[cheering]
People are out there, making their voices heard.
Everybody's standing in line for hours and hours.
I stood in line yesterday four hours.
That's how long I stood.
Got to the front, turns out it was
a place called Slutty Vegan.
[cheering]
Yeah, I didn't know there was a popular restaurant in Atlanta.
I thought it was just someone who
sleeps around and likes tofu.
The line would have been longer for that.
But because the midterms-- the midterms are on, you know?
We've talked about this a little bit.
This ads everywhere in Atlanta.
And every ad-- every ad that I've watched in the city
is a campaign ad right now-- everything.
You know this.
You've seen it.
Like, I watched TV for 10 minutes last night,
and I saw 30 minutes worth of ads.
And the thing that stuck out to me was how most of them
were mean as shit.
ANNOUNCER: Georgia would be different with Abrams.
She pushed more COVID lockdowns,
wanted businesses closed and kids locked out of schools.
Abrams' crime plan-- eliminate cash bail,
the same failed liberal scheme causing crime
to surge in other states.
ANNOUNCER: Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock
support aborting babies not just at six weeks, not
just 15 weeks, when the baby can feel pain,
but up to 40 weeks.
ANNOUNCER: Talk shows, magazine covers, television cameos,
celebrity Stacey, a perfect governor
for liberal elites, just not hardworking Georgians.
Damn.
[booing]
You know, if you only knew Stacey Abrams from attack ads
in Georgia, you would think she was Darth Vader combined
with Thanos combined with that asshole who
cut you off in the traffic.
Pure evil.
Stacey Abrams does all of it.
And, by the way, I don't understand that last part.
What was that?
She's bad because she gets interviewed on TV shows?
Like, look at this.
What are they trying to say, huh?
What is this about?
What is this?
[cheering]
Why is this in an attack ad?
She hugs Trevor Noah, which means she wants
to turn America into Africa.
Nothing wrong with hugging me.
I give good hugs.
I mean, on the flip side, this is good for me.
I'm not going to lie, yeah.
No, because now I have a great excuse.
Any time I don't want to hang out with anybody,
they'll be like, hey, you want to hang out?
I'm like, ah, I would love to.
But if we're seen together, it could be used in an attack ad,
you know?
Yeah, if you ever choose to run for governor of Georgia,
it's just going to spoil your--
I can't do that to you, you know?
Maybe you should just Uber home from surgery.
I think it would be better.
And it's not just in Georgia.
This is the thing everywhere.
It's not just in Georgia.
And it's not just mean in this moment.
It's getting meaner every single day.
Every campaign in America right now is flooding
the airwaves with attack ads--
everyone.
My opponent will raise your tax.
My opponent will cut your health care.
My opponent.
And it's always that voice, too, right?
It's always that attack ad voice.
I feel like you can say anything in that voice, and it
sounds terrible, you know? (ATTACK AD VOICE)
My opponent will donate his kidney to you.
[gasps] That son of a bitch!
Wait, what?
I need a kidney.
If you ask me, honestly, I think
attack ads should be illegal.
Yeah.
I mean it.
I think attack ads should be illegal-- not campaign ads,
not campaign ads-- attack ads.
I'll tell you why.
First of all-- first of all, I think
it's because they only drive up polarization and hate.
That's what they do, right?
And, secondly, politicians should be earning your vote
by telling you what they're going to do,
not just by shitting on other candidates.
[cheering]
Just tell me what you'll do if you want me to vote.
Don't tell me about the other person.
Because you realize, they're auditioning for the job.
We don't accept this shit in any other job, right?
There's no other job where you can apply for it,
and then your resume isn't what you do.
It's just the list of other reasons
that the other people suck.
You can't do that anywhere else.
You can't just be sitting there and be like, oh,
what are my strengths?
Well, I think you should be focusing
on Anthony's weaknesses.
Yeah.
That guy types with his index fingers.
Yeah.
So when do I start?
You realize that's not campaigning.
That's not winning votes, right?
It shouldn't be a part of democracy.
It's basically the same strategy every R&B
song from the '90s used.
You remember that?
Every song would just be some guy, just coming out
there like, girl, you know your man ain't treating you right.
He never buys you flowers.
He's never taking you to Disney World.
[cheering]
She's like, well, are you going to take me to Disney World.
Girl, this ain't about me right now.
This is about your man and how he ain't doing you right.
And, by the way, my car's in the shop.
So I might need to borrow yours.
[laughter]
It's not helpful.
[cheering]
It's not healthy.
And here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
It would be one thing if attack ads
were just highlighting policy differences
between candidates.
My opponent wants to raise your taxes,
but I want to lower them.
That's one thing.
But that's not what attack ads do.
Because like everything else in America,
it has to be supersized.
ANNOUNCER: Left-wing politicians are pushing sexual
agendas on our children--
X-rated drag shows for kids, pornography
in elementary schools.
ANNOUNCER: Mehmet Oz doesn't want
you to know about his deadly experiments on puppies.
ANNOUNCER: Katie Hobbs organized
a mock slave auction.
ANNOUNCER: Katie Hobbs, guilty of racism.
ANNOUNCER: No one is safe with liberal Emilia Sykes.
ANNOUNCER: Babies have to watch their backs
because of Tina Kotek.
Tina Kotek-- too extreme for Oregon.
[laughter]
I'm sorry.
What?
Babies have to watch their backs?
If you're a baby watching that, you are crapping
your pants more than usual.
You are shitting yourself.
I've never seen an attack ad trying to scare babies.
It's like, watch out, babies, Tina Kotek is here.
And now she's not.
[laughter]
And now she's here.
And now she's not.
And now she's here.
[applause]
And, by the way, I know.
I know there's some people who are thinking right now, oh,
but, Trevor, don't I deserve to know
the bad things about someone who's running for office?
Yes, I think you do.
I think you do.
And, ideally, you would get that information
from America's responsible, objective news media.
That's where you should be getting it from.
Doesn't need to be in an attack ad because here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
In my opinion, these ads are not helping.
They don't help. They don't help, right?
Because they don't just attack policy.
They portray opponents as evil, inherently evil monsters.
That poisons the entire country.
Because what happens to bipartisanship after that?
Do people ever think of that, huh?
You can't be like, yes, I said my opponent wants to drink
the blood of children.
But now that the election is over,
that doesn't mean we can't work together on infrastructure.
Get on in here, you pedophile.
Let's do this deal.
You can't do that.
Why would anyone support that?
And what's even worse is that many attack ads are
just straight-up lies, right?
Straight-up lies.
Like, for instance, there's an ad in Texas.
Greg Abbott put out this ad, right?
A TV ad that spliced together different quotes from Beto
O'Rourke to make it seem like he said something
that he didn't say, right?
Yeah, campaign fliers in North Carolina,
they show candidates wearing defund the police T-shirts
that they never actually wore.
Yeah, and I'm like, OK, well, as
long as you're photoshopping pics, why not go all the way?
Just go all the way.
Yeah, just be like, look, he's not just
throwing out a garbage bag.
He's throwing out the new Taylor Swift album.
You monster!
There's drinking children's blood, and then there's evil.
Oh, and if you want to see just how bad the lies in these ads
can get, look no further than this race in California.
We want to show you perhaps the most dishonest TV
campaign ad we've ever seen.
ANNOUNCER: Some politicians think they should control
your child's education.
We're trying to indoctrinate our students in communism.
REPORTER: Jay Chen is running for Congress to represent
Southern Californians.
Here's what Chen actually said.
I'm going to be a recipient of some of these
attacks, unfortunately.
They're going to be claiming that because our school
district was teaching Chinese, that
meant we were trying to indoctrinate
our students in communism.
Literally, that will be one of the points of attack.
Huh?
Look at that.
He even called it.
He said, these people are probably
going to claim that we are teaching kids communism.
And I guess his opponents saw that,
and they were like, well, that's a great idea.
We should do that.
Yeah, we should do that.
Because here's the thing.
It's bad enough-- it's bad enough to attack someone.
But to pretend they said something
they didn't say and attack them for that, that's even worse.
You're attacking them for something they didn't say.
You realize, if you edit it, the context
is out of everything, right?
That Cardi B, song "WAP," that's
a song about female sexual empowerment.
But if you edit out the P, now it's
just a song about wet ass.
[laughter]
No one's going to be dancing in the club to that song.
Get a bucket and a mop for this wet ass.
Oh, please, do not back that thing up on me.
[laughter]
You can't do that.
It's not good for democracy.
[applause]
And here's the thing that may blow your mind--
I know because it blew mine-- is that it's not
illegal to lie in attack ads.
Did you know this?
Yeah, it is not illegal.
The courts have said that the government cannot
ban lying in political ads because it
falls under free speech.
Yeah, and, look, maybe you agree.
Maybe you're one of those people who thinks, oh,
the government shouldn't get involved in policing
what's true or false in ads.
But here's the thing.
It already does, right?
If you lie in an ad for a car or for a cell phone
or for even toilet paper, the FTC
will ban that ad, yeah, which is a weird set of
priorities, right?
Because if you lie in an election ad,
that could undermine your democracy.
But if you lie about how many sheets are in a roll of toilet
paper, I mean, the worst that could happen
is you end up with a wet ass.
[laughter]
[cheering]
So if you ask me, America has everything backwards.
If there's one type of ad you're not allowed to lie in,
it should be your political ads, right?
Not only is that better for democracy--
[cheering]
Not only is it better for democracy,
but it means you would be allowed
to lie in commercial ads.
And I think that would be funny as hell.
ANNOUNCER: Chef Boyardee says his Beefaroni
is quick and convenient.
But 40% of all people who ate Beefaroni immediately died.
And the other 60% became transgender.
And what's Chef Boyardee hiding under his hat?
Is it critical race theory?
[scream]
He won't say.
Chef Boyardee, wrong for dinner, wrong for America.
Paid for by Concerned Citizens for Spaghetti-Os.
[laughter]
See, now that's what we need more of.