Welcome back to the show.
New York City is planning to close one
of its most famous landmarks.
And for once, nobody's complaining.
New York City will close the Rikers Island Jail Facility.
The mass incarceration crisis did not begin in New York City,
but it will end here.
Just like Alexander Hamilton and every single improv career.
Rikers is a violent hellhole where detainees can
wait a year or more for trial.
But when I visited, I found one thing they're worth keeping.
In an attempt to make jails more less horrible,
snowflakes like Mayor de Blasio are
trying to make the incarceration system better-ish,
with programs like debate class.
To learn more, I went all the way to New
York City's jail, Rikers.
Why is it important to offer programming
to the inmates at Rikers?
We need to give them something meaningful to do
with their time.
So sitting in your cell and stewing
about how unfair the system is does count as something to do.
That doesn't count as something to do.
Correct.
On average at Rikers, a not yet
proven guilty person spends 57 days
waiting for their day in court.
Good thing there's programming to make
them forget about that whole right
to a speedy trial nonsense.
There's a horticulture program, art therapy.
Stella Adler's very popular program where
they teach acting, theater.
So you can either get out of jail and get a job,
or get out of jail and be less employed
than you ever were before.
And the most popular program at Rikers is debate.
I can tell you that many of the men
and women from the debate class go back to the housing
unit and practice.
So being in the debate club is cool here.
It's cool.
They don't have skitter home, running away
from purple nurples and wedgies.
That's it.
No purple nurples or wedgies.
It teaches them the benefit of thinking about your position,
how you want to present your position,
and doing it in a positive, organized manner.
Do you think there's any way we
could send Sean Hannity to jail and make him take this class?
I used to listen to him quite a bit.
- Oh, you did. - I did.
He's gone off the rails.
He's a smart man, though.
Oh, let's not say things we can't take back.
OK.
SAMANTHA BEE: But Rikers is scary and violent.
How do the inmates debate hot button topics there?
The main way that we teach them to debate in our class
is to, first of all, focus on facts and evidence.
It's not about yelling and screaming.
It's not about their opinions.
It's actually about the facts on the issue,
and how they're able to reason through them.
OK.
You guys, you're training them for a world that no longer
exists. (WHISPERING) How are these people going to survive
when they get out of here?
I had to see this alleged civil discourse for myself.
Today's debate?
"Resolved, Donald Trump's Immigration Ban
on Muslim Countries is Unjust."
Oh, topical.
Though both teams prepared for both sides, the men,
led by reigning debate champion, Joel, will
be defending the stupid side--
I mean the Muslim ban.
And the women, led by first time debater Camilla,
will be arguing against it.
Here we go.
Trump is sacrificing the rights
of others for our security.
But does this order actually help keep us safe, or is it
an empty promise, meant to make us
feel safer without any actual measures to protect us?
SAMANTHA BEE: Parliamentary debate
dictates you show support for a position
with light table banging.
Or if you really agree, you just go full Keri
Russell in "Dark Skies."
[BANGING]
Now, yes.
We have asked for you to bring us
your downtrodden, your beaten, your enslaved, your whatever.
Bring them all here.
But we did not ask you to bring bombs in suitcases.
These jihadists are not true Muslims,
the same way violent cults are not true Christians.
To condemn an entire religion based
on the radical views of a minority
marks Trump and his colleagues as ignorant.
Trump is not our czar, and he is not our fuhrer.
Because I don't like to come to my house
and sit down and sleep over and eat with me
means that I'm a bad person?
[BANGING]
The United States is a country built
by immigrants for immigrants.
That is our legacy as a country, and one ignorant bigot
can't take it away from us.
[BANGING]
[CHEERING]
SAMANTHA BEE: The women's team won, and nobody got hurt.
Let's check in with the reigning champion to see
how he's handling his defeat.
So this is the first time that you've debated the women.
Right.
What was that like?
Well, I got--
I got the floor scraped with my forehead.
So I mean, I had an indefensible issue.
OK.
Like walking in front of a cannon with a wood
garbage can on top. - OK.
When you watch the news in a post-Trump world,
do you wish that the arguments that you are seeing
on television had the same kind of civility
that these formal debates have?
Yeah.
I do feel that there's too much of people
yelling and screaming at each other.
Because when you're combative and noisy,
nobody gets a chance to find out what you're talking about.
Tell that to Stephen Miller.
- We should do a sit-in. - OK.
You got to get out of here first.
Well, listen, the stuff you put in the cake, the file,
it doesn't really work anymore.
I need more like, a key card or something like that.
OK. I know.
- But um-- - I'm very old-timey.
Nobody can hear us, right?
No nobody's watching.
Because today, all eyes are on Camilla.
I feel good.
I felt that as soon as we got that side,
we were going to win, because that was a stronger side.
What is your favorite thing that you expressed up there?
Trump is not our czar, and he is not our fuhrer.
That was my favorite line.
I liked it too.
Steve Bannon is his Goebbels.
You're the Rikers' Samantha Bee
Trump is going to kill me if he sees this.
I just-- he can't touch you, Camilla.
You're going to be just fine.
Yeah, because I'm behind bars.
Well, he can't get to you at this moment.
Well, she is out now.
Let's here it for the Rikers debate champ, Camilla.
Camilla, thank you so much for blowing up
our stereotypes about inmates.
Of course.
And our stereotypes about all debate
club members being nerds.
Well, that part's true.
We're all huge nerds. - OK.
Excellent. I love nerds.
We will be right back.
Thank you so much.