-I want to ask, on a day like today,
where there is so much news --
-Oh. -You have a show on Wednesday.
-We do. -Are you happy to have the time
to process it, or are you chomping at the bit to do one?
-Well, we -- I felt so sorry for you today.
-Yeah. -I did.
You know, because it roils the news, and then --
But it's nice for us to be able to sit back
and kind of be a little more analytical
and just kind of wait to see what's happening.
We get to take a step back a little bit.
-Of course, stuff then also --
It's not like things don't happen on Wednesday
that tip your apple cart over, as well.
-Yeah, I know.
Well, you know, you have to be nimble.
The news changed within every hour.
-He's made us very fit. He's made us so aerobically fit.
-Flexing such fun muscles all the time.
-You addressed Kavanaugh last week in your show.
-We did. -And obviously I'm gonna assume
you're going to address him again this Wednesday.
-For sure. -Because that will be the eve
of this testimony that we don't quite know
how it's gonna look. -Yep.
-Is it -- Have you found it
a difficult thing to write comedy about?
-We have. You know, it's something
that we're all really wrestling with at the show.
I think it's really been very upsetting
and triggering for a lot of people who work in the office.
I'm sure it has here, too.
I think that women, in general, are just furious.
We totally took -- We took to the streets today.
We were, like, wearing all black.
We were like, "Let's just go and walk around the block."
And that's what we did, and it felt good for a moment.
-Yeah, I mean, you also find --
I mean, I know we found as a writing staff,
when things happen in the news that are depressing,
it is nice to be in a room full of comedy writers.
-Yes. -You must find that, as well.
-For sure. I do think that we achieve
some kind -- we achieve catharsis within the office.
Like, I don't know that there is another job
that all of us could be doing.
It's kind of the only job we're capable of now,
and we help each other. -Yeah.
There's no matching skill sets outside of comedy right now.
-We are definitely useless in every other endeavor.
-Yeah. We would all be the worst person at any other job.
[ Laughter ] -Oh. Definitely. Yes.
-But I want to talk, 'cause we've -- we had
previous jobs, like a lot of people in comedy,
which is that we -- I know I waited tables.
You also waited tables. -I definitely did.
-I've heard you say, and I would think anybody would assume
your time at "The Daily Show" has made you very --
helped train you for what you're doing now.
-Sure.
-But that being a waiter was very helpful for Donald Trump.
-Very. Don't you think that --
Well, I mean, you see the best and the worst of humanity
when you work in the service industry.
And I feel like when I see him I'm like, "Oh, I know you."
[ Laughter ] Like, "I've seen you."
You're 100% the guy who comes in, and he's like,
"I'm an amazing tipper.
Take care of all of my friends."
And all his friends are like, horrible,
and they're all gropers, and then, right at the end,
he gives you, like, a nice 8% tip.
[ Laughter ]
For sure, like a lot of talk.
Lots of talk, very little rock.
[ Laughter ]
-You have a new app that is a game.
-We do! We're so excited about it!
-This is very exciting. -It's very fun.
-And this is to encourage voter registration.
-Yes. Well, okay.
I had this idea that we should apply the principles
of gamification to incentivize voter turnout.
Because as we are discovering, voting is extremely important.
[ Laughter ]
And so, I went to Silicon Valley,
and I met with a bunch of geeks,
and they helped us to craft this amazing game,
which I really don't know if it's ever been done before.
It's really a political comedy game,
and you win cash prizes,
and you sign up for voting reminders,
and it's all meant to trick you into caring about voting,
and I think it's working. -That's very exciting.
-We have 200,000 users, and, actually, when we launched,
it was very -- it was very successful
right out of the gate.
And so the game crashed a little bit,
but we're very much working on the bugs,
but people are winning money, and it's very cool.
It's really funny. -Well, it's great,
because the two things that are true about Americans...
-Yes. -...one, we don't like voting,
and, two, we're easily tricked. -Easily tricked.
-So, if you can lure us into anything...
-Oh, we love to win a prize. -Yeah.
What is -- I want to ask,
'cause that would be intimidating to me.
You have an idea, and then you go to Silicon Valley.
I have never sort of entered that room with an idea.
Was it intimidating for you? -It was very intimidating,
because they work in such a different way.
I mean, they literally -- we started at nothing,
and we assembled a really amazing group of people.
But the way that they work --
And I know that there's a term for it,
but I don't remember what it is.
You all sit in a room, and you do these massively long
brainstorming sessions with, like, props,
and somebody's got dice, and there's a bunch of bananas
and post-it notes, and they all just
throw out the worst ideas humanly possible,
and it's a very humiliating process.
You really just -- You have to give over
to the process and let everybody share
everybody's horrible ideas.
And you end the day, you've been humiliated,
and you're like, "Why are we doing this?"
And then, a year later, you have a game.
-Wow! -Yeah. That's how it's --
It's just that simple.
-Okay. So that's also helpful to hear.
If you want to have an app,
you can't just think about it like a day.
-No, it's a very long process.
It's been a really interesting journey.
It's been an incredible learning curve.
I'm ultimately incredible happy with the product.
I think it's so funny.
It's in the voice of the show. -That's great.
-Yeah, super shrill. -And I know it's --
You can win cash prizes. -Yes.
-But it does not count as gambling,
which would be illegal, because you cannot lose money.
-You cannot lose money. -You cannot lose money.
-Got it. -Techni--
No, you cannot lose money. [ Laughter ]
We will not take your -- We will not take your --
-"I voted, and then I went back to my app,
and I had lost $1,000!" -I know!
-We will not take your money, and we will not abuse your data.
We know how that goes. -Oh, yes, absolutely.
People like that. -Yeah.
-You actually did have -- You briefly --
You ventured a little down the path
into a life in the gambling industry.
-I did. I worked --
I trained when I was in college --
Um, I trained to become a blackjack dealer
in an illegal casino in an industrial park.
-Wow! -Yes.
-So the kind of illegal casino where truly
only really shady people even knew where it was.
-Definitely. And you have to pay with your limbs.
I don't really know. I could not do it.
I actually -- How far down the path
to being a blackjack dealer did you get before you realized?
-Like, three days in. And then I was like,
"This is not --" -That's a lot of days.
-It was a lot of days. It was --
-What was the day where they were like,
"And then, if they can't pay, you need to hold their wrist
like this, and then someone else will have the cleaver"...
-It was a very scary and very serious crowd of people.
It really was not --
It did not speak to my strengths.
You should not -- I didn't want to go to --
I was like, "This job starts at midnight.
Over here is a factory where they make
wooden pallets for boxes."
So it did not -- It was not safe.
-Do you ever wonder -- 'Cause you did three days there.
You probably met some other trainees.
-I did. -Do you ever think that
there's like, at the illegal gambling warehouse,
somebody goes, "You know, she used to be here."
[ Laughter ] -"She's one of us."
-Yeah! -"She was incompetent."
I've been terrible at every job I've ever done.
-They're like, "I tell you, when she was here,
I would not have said she'd make an app."
[ Laughter ] -That's right.
Yes. Yes.
I hope that everybody is connecting those.
-Always so great to see you.