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o h for terms.

1:02

Hey,

1:02

everyone. John here, and welcome to Helen High

1:04

Water. My podcast about politics and culture

1:06

on the edge of Armageddon. It's

1:08

determined if dubious, committed,

1:11

if Kukui for cocoa puffs often wrong,

1:14

but rarely in doubt exercise, in

1:16

elevated gas baggery. And

1:18

neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom

1:20

of night nor the toxic

1:22

rantings of the not house right, a

1:25

attempting to invalidate a legitimate election and

1:27

stage an auto coup complete with

1:29

an armed disruption of the United States capital,

1:31

nor more broadly and arguably

1:33

even more disturbingly, The capture

1:36

of a decent sized chunk of our political, social,

1:38

and civic spheres by a cadre of

1:40

incoherent, insidious, conspiracy

1:42

adiled, autocracy craving, authoritarian

1:45

worshiping lunatics, hustlers, grocers, nihilists,

1:47

and nint compoops. None of it. None

1:50

of it kept us from our

1:52

duly sworn duty and obligations.

1:54

Giving you our listeners a fresh

1:56

episode of this podcast week after

1:58

week after week after week. Maybe

2:01

not without fail you

2:03

know, hashtag epic fail

2:05

is one of our many Mottos around here,

2:07

but certainly without a pause. We've

2:10

been doing that for more than two

2:12

years. Haven't had a break, all

2:14

of which is to say that

2:16

I am plumb shagged

2:19

out and desperately in need

2:21

of some R and R. And with the midterm

2:24

election now comfortably in the

2:26

rearview mirror in our democracy, Amazingly,

2:29

if I will admit a little unexpectedly, still

2:31

intact, it seems like a

2:33

suitable time for the Heilemann Water

2:36

home office to give itself

2:38

a fucking break. And so for the

2:40

next few weeks, that is exactly

2:42

what we are gonna do. And we'll see you back

2:44

here on the other side of the holidays. Tanned,

2:46

rested, refreshed, revitalized, and raring

2:48

to go. Ready to get back

2:51

to cranking out more tasty

2:53

content. In the meantime, Don't

2:56

despair. We're not leaving you

2:58

entirely in the lurch for these weeks.

3:00

To the contrary, every Tuesday morning,

3:03

per usual, You will find a

3:05

hopefully unfamiliar episode

3:07

of the podcast doing the backstroke

3:09

in your feed. Drop there by the

3:11

Abel AI fact totems who'll

3:13

be mining the store while we're away. And

3:15

while these episodes come

3:17

over the next few weeks, may not be fresh

3:20

or strictly speaking new, they

3:22

will be piping hot, a carefully

3:24

curated series of hell in high water golden

3:26

oldies, which those of you

3:28

who've been around from the start may remember,

3:32

I hope fondly. And those of you who

3:34

came along sometime later may never have

3:36

encountered at all. Given

3:38

our focus on politics these past few months

3:40

and our desire not to take a dump on

3:42

your mood of holiday inspired good cheer, we've

3:44

decided these encore presentations will avoid

3:46

that topic like the plague. And focuses

3:48

dead on culture, entertainment, technology, and such

3:50

with a run of some of our most favorite guests in

3:52

those realms over the past two years, including

3:55

this beauty right here, which

3:57

whether or not you've heard it before, you

3:59

will not want to miss. And so with

4:01

that, we leave it to it with a

4:03

hearty and heartfelt Nalaste. Hey,

4:20

everyone, John here, and welcome to

4:22

Helen High are my podcasts from the recap about

4:24

politics and culture on the edge of armageddon

4:26

with big ups to my pal Riza, the presiding

4:28

genius behind the sound of Butane clan and

4:30

the producer of our dope theme music, and

4:32

I am back here again with

4:34

my friend, the cocreator of Hellfire Water,

4:37

Grace, Weinstein, Grace. I have a special

4:39

treat for you today on this

4:40

episode. I

4:41

know I'm excited. Why don't you tell us what it

4:43

is? Well, it's Minajin.

4:45

You've been enthusiastic about a lot of guests on

4:47

this show. But I don't know if there's everyone

4:49

you've been more enthusiastic about that Hassan he

4:51

really resonates with a lot of people in your

4:52

generation, and I'm curious, like, how did you discover

4:55

him and why do you love him so much?

4:57

My my love for him is really solidified

4:59

with paid Dredact. I wake up every

5:01

Hasan look at our horrible information

5:04

and media landscape and wish

5:06

that I had it. Every single day.

5:08

That show just really set

5:10

a different tone and brought my

5:12

understanding of so many different jets

5:14

to a different level of nuance and

5:16

a different level of like fury in

5:19

the good way about all of these

5:21

things play our

5:21

world, and that's what made me love in

5:23

more than anything. We go kinda chronologically

5:25

in the podcast. We place a very early stand

5:28

up when he was. Just a kid

5:30

really in Northern California, which

5:32

was good and interesting and different because

5:34

he's as he points out, he looks not

5:36

like a lot of other stand up comedians. He's a brown

5:38

stand up comedian, not a black one, not white one, but

5:40

a brown one. And then there's the kind

5:42

of the move where he goes to the Daily Show.

5:44

And the Daily Show and the

5:46

Patriot actor kind of a piece in the pod. Right?

5:48

Where he's really doing topical political

5:50

commentary and comedy together.

5:53

And I talked to him about what it was like, how

5:55

much he felt odds and not have that

5:57

platform. Like, wouldn't you like to hear

5:59

Austin doing either a thing on the daily

6:01

show or more on, like, the Patreon about

6:03

Roskoda's situation in Ruby

6:05

Way. You want him on that. Right?

6:06

Desperately, and I would shell out incredible

6:09

amounts of amounts of money

6:10

to get that. I think he really misses it

6:12

and he talks about that. He misses that platform.

6:15

He's an enormously generous guy and

6:17

he gives a lot credit to the

6:19

comedians who shaped him. And and

6:21

then he talks about the trajectory that took it

6:23

from straight stand up to

6:25

this kind of political commentary stuff and

6:27

then to what he's now doing. But here's a really

6:29

interesting clip that I want you to hear. I said,

6:31

who are the comedians who've most influenced you?

6:33

And this is what he said.

6:42

I'll tell them in terms of superpowers.

6:45

Yeah. Richard Pryor for his vulnerability.

6:47

Okay. Chris Rock for

6:49

his argumentation. Yeah. Cat

6:51

Williams for his physicality and freedom

6:53

and performance, Michelle Wolf for her

6:55

joke structure, Mike Burbiglia

6:57

for his timing, pacing, and how tight.

6:59

He puts his storytelling the basket weave --

7:01

Yeah. -- chappell for his candor

7:04

and John Stewart for his decency. Those

7:06

are my

7:06

favorites. Okay. That's that's about the biggest impact

7:09

on on me. So that's

7:09

a pretty good list. Right? Don't you think? Not

7:12

only a good list. I love the way that he's so

7:14

confidently and clearly rattles

7:16

it off. And my favorite thing

7:18

about that is there is really someone in

7:21

there for everyone. You can

7:23

kind of identify no matter who you are with

7:25

somebody in that list for any of the

7:27

different reasons that he listed. As you

7:29

said, he's different. In in the world

7:31

of comedy. So he has to look to people

7:34

for specific things that speak to him

7:36

other than just like their front facing identity

7:38

of what they look like and how they grew up.

7:39

Totally. The place where it gets really interesting

7:42

in this podcast, I think, is when he

7:44

gets to a level of fame around the

7:46

daily show. He does the White House correspondent's dinner.

7:48

And he basically decides that it's just

7:50

stand up comedy, although he's good at it,

7:52

isn't enough. He mentions Berbiglia who

7:54

we've had on Hell and High Water. You start to

7:56

see the Berbigli influence in the first special

7:58

which is homecoming king. Right? It's just

8:00

not like that first Netflix special and

8:02

he says he really decided

8:05

that he was gonna try to do something he

8:07

calls it in the podcast, a calling card

8:09

for the new Brown America. And the stories

8:11

he tells are dramatic. There's

8:13

not Alcomedy, storyteller, he's doing a

8:15

monologue and and a lot of the stuff that hits hardest

8:17

in that show is the stuff

8:19

that's about wearing weight what he says is

8:21

wearing the away jersey. He's not wearing the home jersey.

8:23

And what that means for his comedy, that

8:25

representation of not just groups

8:27

that haven't been represented before, but the

8:29

sense of being the other and and

8:31

kinda kind of using that to unlock a kind of set

8:33

of

8:33

perceptions. Is that part of why you think he resonates

8:36

so strongly with your generation? Yes,

8:38

but I think what he's able to do on a

8:40

stage is that he's not hitting

8:42

you over the head with it. It's the kind

8:44

of delayed reaction that you watch

8:46

his comedy, it could be ninety minutes. It could be two

8:48

hours. It could be fifteen minutes of Minhaj Act.

8:51

And you walk away realizing

8:53

that the otherness that

8:55

you're coming to understand is like an after

8:58

effect. It lingers on the palate

9:00

rather than being kind of the first thing that hits you over the

9:02

head. So I think that's what allows

9:04

a much wider group of people to

9:06

feel comfortable coming into it and then

9:08

xing it out of it with with a much

9:10

bigger idea of what comedy

9:12

could be and who comedians should

9:14

be. I knew a little bit. We've been on

9:16

a couple TV shows together, and and, wait, I

9:18

know him through various friends and stuff, but I I

9:20

didn't really grokhed what a phenomenon he's

9:22

become until I went to this tour he's

9:24

been on now for the last six months or so, which

9:26

is the show that's called The Kings Jester.

9:28

It is coming to an end right now. He is getting ready

9:30

to go to bam here in Brooklyn in June

9:33

shoot his next Netflix special. First of

9:35

all, I was rated city music hall. He sold

9:37

out many nights the

9:39

crowd was more and more

9:41

interestingly diverse than almost anything I've ever seen.

9:43

Certainly anything I've ever seen in radio city music hall,

9:45

and I will say this. This is a

9:47

show that's about him

9:49

examining his own narcissism. And

9:51

the moment when he really blew up,

9:53

and he starts chasing as he puts it

9:56

fame and clickbait and

9:58

cloud rather than staying true to himself as an

10:00

artist and coming to grips with that and the risks

10:02

it pose some of them tangible for

10:04

him and his family is what that show

10:06

turns

10:06

on. I'm not gonna say anything more, but as I describe it

10:08

to you like that, don't you think I think I'd like to see

10:11

that? Oh, I'd be desperate to see that. And I'm

10:13

also thinking, wow, there are so many other

10:15

comedians who I wish would examine their

10:17

narcissism in this

10:17

life. I gotta say again,

10:20

Anybody who's not already a fan Heilemann is gonna love

10:22

this podcast. He is brilliant and

10:25

funny. And I think more than anything else

10:27

what comes across in this podcast incredibly,

10:29

incredibly authentic, incredibly real, and incredibly

10:31

willing to look hard not just in

10:33

America, which he does with a sharp incisive

10:36

mind and a gimlet eye, but also to look the same

10:38

weight himself. You're gonna come see the show with me a bam

10:40

for the network special?

10:41

Hundred percent. You're in. You're in. I got I got

10:43

myself a date. Alright. Fantastic. As

10:46

for a more present tense date, everyone

10:48

should just sit down, settle in,

10:50

get ready for Heilemann

10:52

here on this episode. Appellings

10:59

one. Hassen

11:05

Minaj, my friend, welcome to the podcast.

11:07

We've been trying to get you in here for a while, and it's

11:09

great. You find they're able to make it in. We got a lot to

11:11

cover today. We're gonna cover basically your

11:13

entire career, which is quite a

11:15

thing to to address. But before we do that, I wanna

11:17

kinda just talk a little bit about what we in the

11:19

in the journalism business call news of

11:21

day because there's been some pretty big news in

11:23

recent days that, like, has everybody

11:25

in America talking. And I you made

11:27

me think about, you know, what you would

11:29

have done with this news related to

11:31

the supreme court, and Robbie Wade, and abortion

11:33

rights. If you still had the platform that

11:35

you had, at at the Patriot Act and

11:37

and the the kind of topical platform.

11:39

And, you know, even on the daily show, and I wanna

11:41

ask you about that. But before we do

11:43

that, I go back in time and play

11:45

a very early clip of your very early

11:47

stand up from way back in, like, two thousand

11:49

nine, where you are addressing

11:51

a much younger Minhaj addressing

11:53

in comedy the issue that

11:55

I'm talking about that's consuming a lot of political

11:58

conversation right now, which is, of course, the fate of

12:00

abortion rights in America. So let's listen to this Hossi

12:02

Manage from two thousand nine, a very

12:04

early, very young man riffing

12:06

on a very controversial social issue. Traveling

12:08

a lot doing stand up and I

12:10

travel through the Midwest like doing all these colleges. And I

12:13

was driving through Missouri, and I see, like, a lot of

12:15

religious fervor there. I saw this pro life

12:17

billboard on the side of the road. Right?

12:19

It had a picture of a baby on

12:20

it. Right? And it said this baby would have

12:22

cured cancer, but

12:25

someone aborted it. And it's like,

12:27

That's

12:28

kinda dark. Right? Like, and like,

12:31

what's the likelihood that that specific

12:33

baby would have grown up to cure cancer. That's a

12:35

lot of expectation to put on

12:37

one baby. I wish they had,

12:39

like, a billboard showing the other side of the

12:40

argument. Right? Like, this baby would have grown

12:43

up to be a serial killer, but

12:45

someone aborted it. Good job. Mom wouldn't come

12:47

through in the

12:47

clutch. Like wow. -- I don't

12:48

even remember that yet. Okay. It's

12:51

pretty good. Yeah. It's it's it's

12:53

it's it's it's pretty good. It's

12:55

funny. I was thinking about it because Before

12:57

I talk about anything else, I just wanna talk about this.

12:59

You know, for a

12:59

while, with First of

13:02

Daily Show and then with Patrik, we're, like, in the

13:04

middle of topical political

13:06

conversations all the

13:06

time and

13:06

making comedy about that.

13:07

Right? Yeah. The thing that happened last

13:10

week is such a big

13:12

thing think in my history of covering politics, thirty

13:14

years. Yeah. I've never seen a stubby or

13:16

single scoop. Now, Elite,

13:18

to signed Supreme

13:20

Court opinion. Yes. I've

13:22

said that never happened before. There have been more impactful things

13:24

you can say all of Woodward and Bernstein news breaks, they

13:26

just didn't participate. But as a single scoop,

13:28

reporters thought that was an unattainable thing.

13:30

And -- Right. -- on along with

13:32

brown meat board, like, one of the two most famous supreme

13:34

court systems is that most Americans actually know what it is. Right?

13:36

How would you classify what happened? Is that

13:38

technically whistle blowing a leaked document?

13:40

Nobody knows I mean, at this stage, not knowing who the

13:42

source of it, maybe we'll never know, but not

13:44

knowing what the source of their intention

13:45

was. It depends on what they're trying to do. Yeah.

13:47

I mean, there's

13:47

plausible theories about a

13:50

conservative clerk who's trying to apply

13:52

pressure to keep all five of their conservatives on

13:54

board. There's theories about liberal clerks who are

13:56

trying to alert the public that disaster was

13:58

coming. Yeah.

13:58

You know, it kinda depends. And I think the

14:01

intentionality will determine, if we ever know, would

14:03

Heilemann, what how you we would call it. But

14:05

it's a giant thing. Right? And everyone in America is talking

14:07

about it. Right? Yes. At that moment, do you miss having

14:09

a platform where you're able to

14:11

just be making comedy a very

14:13

topical, huge political news story where I'm sure you

14:15

have plenty of thoughts and things that

14:16

you miss it. And it's one of those things where

14:18

there'd be so many stories we'd

14:21

be sitting on for quite a bit of

14:23

time, where it just is missing that

14:25

last yeah. But why is this

14:27

relevant or important now? What's the pack?

14:29

Exactly. Right. What's the pack? Exactly.

14:31

And I remember funny enough your friends with

14:33

a mutual friend who was a showrunner for some time at Patriot

14:35

ex Steve Boto. Steve Boto had

14:37

a pitch in one of the later seasons of Patriot

14:39

Act on Trump and Civil Rights. Right. This would

14:41

have been such a great, you know, the

14:43

rolling back of certain civil rights and civil

14:45

liberties. Yeah. And you're always waiting

14:47

for that, like, For better,

14:50

for worse, why should I care

14:52

about this right now? Because there's so

14:54

many sort of existential threats that

14:56

exist on the horizon, climate,

14:59

etcetera, what happened just this

15:01

past week is a prime example of that. We would

15:03

be sitting on already

15:05

seventeen, eighteen minutes of a script and being like,

15:07

yep, that's our top of the show. And then dive

15:09

into the sort of deeper information

15:11

dive. Right. So you really would have at that for

15:13

Patriot Act, you would have had, like -- Yes. -- speed

15:15

matter based newspaper business will not be married.

15:17

Wait for a lead. Yeah. But you so you'll have basically a

15:19

run to Obit. It's like what your Obit's written in.

15:21

Right. It's waiting for cause of death. Now

15:22

funny enough that clip that you just played

15:25

from two thousand and nine, holy shit.

15:27

Yeah. That would have been something that I would

15:29

have pitched as an act one or act two chat

15:31

on the daily show. Right. So Trevor

15:34

or John at the time, we would

15:36

do probably like an act one seven and a

15:38

half minute sort of

15:40

analysis. Here's what happened. And

15:42

generally, then in an act two or the tail end of an

15:44

act one, he would throw to a correspondent.

15:46

And my comedic take there would

15:48

be like, well, Right.

15:51

Should every baby be alive or whatever my

15:53

sort of satyrical -- Yeah. -- week,

15:55

week, take is. That then lets us

15:57

land with then a more poignant salient

15:59

sort of argument where John or Trevor's playing the

16:01

straight

16:01

man, and then I get to kind of be the

16:04

satirical goofy knitwear. There's one answer to

16:06

that question, which is sort of like, Oh, yeah. If I

16:08

think about it, it would have been cool if this story

16:10

happened when I was doing those things. Yes. There's

16:12

another, like, slightly different version of that of the question

16:14

and answer, which is, do you miss it? Like, do you

16:16

wake up at home in

16:18

Greenwich Connecticut and go, fuck, I really wish I

16:20

had a place to go talk about this. Or do you

16:22

basically go, like, I'm kinda out of that business

16:24

now. I obviously still care about

16:25

politics, but Yes. I don't miss the platform. Yeah.

16:27

Yes or no. So here's what deeply kind of

16:29

disappoints me and where I I feel a deep sense of

16:31

disillusionment. And I'd love your take on

16:33

this and and the work you're currently doing.

16:36

Something that's so deeply frustrating is

16:38

it's funny that you said, you know, this is

16:40

one of the biggest stories and everyone's talking about

16:42

it. Yeah. Yes.

16:44

And what's also

16:46

taking up fifty to sixty percent of the discourse

16:48

is Dave Chappell getting tackled at the

16:50

Hollywood Bowl. Like, those

16:52

two having equal amount

16:54

of airspace in the sort of

16:56

Twitter News Feed or the sort

16:58

of cultural zeitgeist

17:00

and Millio is

17:02

kind of disappointing. And so it's part of that that makes

17:04

me feel like,

17:05

yeah, I don't miss also being

17:07

entrenched in other culture

17:10

war issues that I

17:12

don't care about. I like doing the kind of deep meaningful work

17:14

-- Right. -- that I'm getting to do with Kings

17:16

Jester and other projects that I'm working

17:17

on. Yeah. You also You know what I

17:20

mean? Yes. Time, you would also I mean, this whole

17:22

thing even seems serious compared to

17:24

Olivia Wild or whatever, and it was getting

17:26

served custody papers by Jason Dick because I had comic

17:28

con or whatever, you're like.

17:30

Really? When I open up my Google

17:30

search, it's like, you know, Rovi Way being

17:33

struck down. Dave's developing a tag. Yeah.

17:35

Yeah. And Netflix thing. And Is this

17:36

appropriate? We're opening up

17:38

couple embarrassing each other with their

17:40

custody papers. It's like a little And it and it becomes

17:42

this, you know, Rorsheim test where

17:44

the event itself, I don't think, is

17:47

wildly impactful on a lot of people's

17:49

lives, and yet it becomes this

17:51

larger Rorschach test about, you know, I guess, in

17:53

the case of the little wild thing of just like

17:56

power dynamics, relationships? What's

17:58

Jason Sedeka's life? What is Olivia Wildlike?

18:00

An an analysis of her

18:02

relationship with Harry Styles? It's all these things that, you know,

18:04

just candidly, I don't really care for, but

18:06

I would get inadvertently pulled into

18:08

it. We'd have to do a joke, TKA joke to

18:10

come -- Right. -- some topical joke to

18:12

get into a store. It's stuff like that where

18:14

I'm like, yeah, I don't miss this

18:16

part of it, but I do miss moments

18:18

like that to have a deep meaningful kind

18:21

of conversation through

18:22

comedy. It's funny because, like, on a

18:24

thing like Scotis. Right? You get scolded

18:26

sometimes by people because you're, like, trying to figure

18:28

out the question of what are the theories about why I was

18:30

late? What were they trying to accomplish? What's going on here.

18:32

Right? Yeah. And people say, don't forget about that. It's gonna

18:34

impact the lives of millions of women to which I

18:36

say, but yes, that's two hundred percent true

18:38

and we should cover it that way. Yeah. What does this mean for

18:40

in America? But we can also have another discussion about

18:43

the power dynamics of the

18:44

court. I think you can do both of those things. So

18:45

I'm sure appropriate about it. I mean, when

18:47

I think about the way you did what you did

18:49

when you're at they only show it in one form and then a

18:51

patriot act in a different form. Like, you

18:54

were doing a mix of analysis

18:56

commentary and comedy all kind of rolled up into

18:58

one at that place. Right? Yeah. This, so we just

19:00

play it. It's just very, really standoff. Yeah.

19:02

But it's still to abortion.

19:04

To make anything funny about it. Yeah. It's hard. So how would you think

19:06

about that? Like, in any of those roles,

19:08

this is a big thing. Everyone's talking about

19:10

it right now. Right. But I'm basically a

19:13

comedian. I'm other things maybe, but I caught

19:15

it

19:15

hard. I wanna make people laugh. Yeah.

19:16

So how do

19:16

you think about a really tough issue like

19:19

abortion and think, here's how we could go at it and

19:21

make it funny. Sure. I think one of

19:23

the best exercises that I was given

19:25

later in my career by this

19:27

amazing stage director named Greg Wallach, he

19:29

directed my first special homecoming king. Yeah. And

19:31

that kind of was my first claim

19:33

to fame, so to speak, in the stand up

19:35

touring storytelling space. But

19:37

he gave me this exercise whenever we

19:39

would work through the show and we trim

19:41

it down. How does this make you think and how

19:43

does it make you feel? Yeah. What are you thinking

19:46

right now? And how does it make you feel?

19:48

And I think some of my best jokes,

19:51

that's the starting point. And if I

19:53

can really break that down in a new,

19:55

clever, innovative way, Those are

19:57

my favorite types of jokes. There's a comic right now. I

19:59

don't know if you've seen her work. I I really love her

20:01

work Taylor Thomaston. She's

20:03

just whips aren't so funny. Have you seen her

20:05

work? She's so

20:06

hilarious. Watch your special on Netflix. Yeah.

20:08

What I love about Taylor's work is

20:10

she is covering topics that

20:12

I've heard a million different takes

20:15

on but the way it makes her think and feel she's talking

20:17

about it in a whole new

20:17

way. Yeah. It's the

20:18

thing we all felt when we saw Gaffigan in some

20:20

of his break -- Yeah. -- like, oh,

20:23

hot pockets and food and McDonald's French fries. They've

20:25

been here for decades and a

20:27

very long time. Yeah. And he found a new

20:29

way to talk about food

20:31

in in a really interesting innovative way, but what Taylor's

20:34

doing with mental health or

20:36

therapy and just all these new

20:38

spaces that I've I've heard a ton of

20:40

takes on. The way she talks about the way

20:42

she thinks about it and the way it makes her feel

20:44

is really innovative and new and

20:46

interesting. So with difficult topics

20:48

like that, yeah, the first thing I'm

20:50

going is What do I feel about this

20:52

right now? Yeah. And it's a very just

20:55

personal thing. That's what I love most about

20:56

comedy, that active introspection,

21:00

something sitting with me here,

21:02

how do I feel this way? Why do I feel

21:04

this way about it? I have to get that out. It's

21:06

funny because when Robikli was

21:07

here, we're talking about Tikmataro and

21:09

her breast cancer thing, which is -- Yeah. --

21:10

time in that same zone of, like, you know,

21:13

do a comedy act about about

21:15

having breast cancer and, like, and goes

21:17

there and somehow like the high wire at quality of

21:19

that. Perfect. I think it's true with a a thing like abortion

21:21

if you're a dude. You know,

21:22

in this world we live in now, you don't have

21:24

full scale permission to talk and this is where the

21:26

two things come together, the cancel culture started. Like, you're

21:29

like, how do I do something that's brave and

21:31

interesting and new? Right. But now there's all these

21:33

trip hires all over the

21:34

place. We'll talk about this more later. But on

21:36

a topic like that, would that be something

21:37

that we would be like, you know what? This is not

21:40

gonna be worth of fucking trouble. There are things like this in

21:42

my life doing political commentary where

21:44

I go. I just you know,

21:46

I'm never gonna be able to explain myself

21:48

adequately. If I over dinner, I explained the nuance of my

21:50

thing with my friends, they would go, like, totally Sure. But

21:52

III know a cable hit little on

21:54

Twitter. Yeah. I can't talk about this without in a way

21:56

that's gonna be adequate to

21:56

it. So I'm just like, it's not gonna be worth the

21:59

trouble. I hear what you're saying in

22:01

One of the things I feel right now is that

22:03

we're drowning an opinion in Twitter and

22:05

Twitter commentary in the speed at

22:08

which everyone is pumping out takes.

22:10

Yeah. And short form

22:12

premise punch line kind of

22:14

quickly takes on every topic.

22:16

I would rather focus

22:18

my energy if I don't have a show

22:21

focus on storytelling. Right. Sure. And

22:23

storytelling allows me to talk about something with a level

22:25

of sincerity and authenticity. It may

22:27

not be as trendy and hot in the

22:28

moment. Yeah. But I do think it

22:31

allows the listener and the

22:33

viewer to go,

22:34

he's speaking from a real place.

22:36

Yes. And so at least authentic and genuine. Minhaj.

22:38

And that to me is a

22:40

little bit more interesting if I don't have

22:43

a show. Now Trevor, he has to carry that. Steven --

22:45

Yes. -- to be they have to carry that.

22:47

How are we gonna talk about

22:48

this? Yeah. Given the premise

22:51

in the sort of expectation they have with their audience -- Right. -- during the

22:53

show, which they I can't not talk about it. You can't talk

22:55

about it. And you also know it's

22:56

super dangerous, particularly, it was like, hey, that's

22:59

the job you signed up for, you know. No. No. Don't

23:00

whine about it. And I think, obviously, that's the right thing,

23:02

especially with the lot of people are making a ton of money to do this. like,

23:04

well, that's the risk you got. You're not breaking rocks

23:06

on son so, like, you know, man up and or

23:08

lady up and do it. But it's it's

23:10

tricky. So, you know, hopefully, this thing, you did an interview

23:12

with just the last thing on abortion because it raises

23:14

this issue about another thing that artists have to contend

23:16

with. You did this interview with a lot of Glaser a couple

23:19

of years ago. May twenty nineteen -- Wow. -- and

23:21

she was says in this interview -- Yeah. -- on

23:23

she said that Georgia had just passed a newly restrictive law.

23:25

Uh-huh. And she was supposed to be making a movie in Georgia,

23:27

and she said, I'm not gonna make that movie. I'm not gonna make

23:29

it there. I'm sure we're gonna move it to play sales. Okay.

23:32

And you who were interviewing

23:34

her, she was really talking, talking, talking, and

23:36

all of a sudden you kind of weighed in when she said this thing about how

23:38

she would now make the movie in in a a --

23:39

Yeah. -- you had a different opinion. So I wanna hear I wanna

23:41

I'm sorry.

23:42

I'm talking about. Let's hear it. Yeah. It's interesting. You

23:44

know, like, I know the NBA very actively

23:47

with the the bathroom bill stuff was just like,

23:48

hey, we're not gonna, you know, participate, or

23:50

we're not gonna endorse this. That

23:51

is so cool.

23:52

Yeah. Adam Solar is a great commissioner.

23:54

Eddie, Adam Solar do

23:56

that? Remember what the when when the bathroom bill

23:58

happened, it was it was in North

23:59

Carolina. Right?

24:00

The

24:00

All Star game. Right? Right. And they

24:03

threatened to pull the All Star

24:05

game. That is

24:05

so funny. Yeah. And so they ended up delaying it.

24:07

Right? Adam as the commissioner was hey, we don't

24:09

stand for this. But I've I've oftentimes thought

24:12

as artists, do we just brooding the work there? Do

24:14

we do we try to change the culture there from because

24:17

I know there's people on the ground that

24:19

would like want us to be there. That would be like,

24:21

I would love for a long place to be there. I'd love for

24:24

Usmanage to come shoot his show there. It

24:26

would you know what I

24:26

mean? It could be like a lightning rod moment. So

24:28

as you sit here today, like -- Yeah. -- you know, I mean, you've just

24:30

been on tour. You're still kind of on tour. Yeah. I

24:32

mean, we have

24:32

the our last few dates. We're closing it out now. You

24:35

started

24:35

when? September. September. How many dates have

24:38

you done? Ish,

24:38

hundred plus And a lot of shows all over the

24:40

country. Yes. So, you know, have you

24:42

resolved your because there you're ambivalent. You're

24:45

kinda

24:45

like, can see argument either direction -- Sure.

24:47

-- then you didn't come to conclusion. She's sitting here

24:49

today in the wake of the repeal of Ruby Way,

24:51

if there's some city or some there will be

24:52

states. A lot of them, if it's fully repealed, though, whether

24:55

they're, like, Full abortion ban. Like, do you

24:56

take the next tour there? Or no? Oh, that's

24:58

really interesting. You know somebody who

25:00

shaped my perspective on this, and I'd always

25:02

turn to people who have more

25:05

wisdom and lived experience

25:07

than me. I was talking to Trevor Noah about

25:09

this. And Trevor was the one

25:11

who expanded my worldview on

25:13

this funny enough. Outside of

25:16

domestic politics, the question I had for him is, should I

25:18

go perform in the Middle East? It's

25:20

a thing I talk about in the Kings Jester, but I

25:22

also on Patriot Act -- Mhmm. -- made fun

25:24

of, you

25:24

know, Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,

25:26

the crown prince. It seemed more like, like, wasn't made fun

25:28

of

25:29

Well, poor skating hot battery acid on

25:31

yet. So Sure. And one of the

25:33

things I was asking him is, know,

25:35

the crown prince through this thing called Vision two thousand and thirty is really trying to

25:37

bring a lot of artists to the

25:39

Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia

25:41

and Riyadh to perform Swiss

25:44

beats, musical artists,

25:46

hip hop artists, comedians, they

25:48

are really trying to change the

25:50

face in their image around the world. I go

25:52

Trevor, what should I do? And

25:54

he presented an interesting question and

25:56

he said, well, to what

25:59

extent is your performance a

26:01

reflection and an endorsement of the government. And to what

26:03

extent is your performance a desire

26:05

to connect to the civilian population

26:07

that don't get to choose

26:10

the rules and the the sort of the society, the

26:12

current society that they live in. Yeah. And this get

26:14

becomes a very complicated question. Do I perform

26:16

in China? I wanna perform in China? But as a

26:18

Muslim, do I do that? Knowing that there's over too

26:20

many Uighur Muslims, they're

26:22

just currently in reeducation camps as you like

26:24

to come? It's a super

26:26

complicated question. And that's what I was

26:28

presenting to Alana. I don't have a I

26:29

mean, I don't know. It's so

26:32

tricky. Yeah. Because

26:32

there's, again, lightning rod moments where someone like Adam

26:35

Silver tells Charlotte,

26:37

hey, we're not gonna do the All Star

26:38

game. Right? If you keep doing this, this

26:40

is a reflection on the state and the

26:42

state leadership. Yeah. Or

26:44

You could also say, are you punishing the

26:46

fans? Are you punishing the people of Charlotte? Right?

26:48

It's it's really complicated. I mean, you know,

26:50

Trevor makes me think about it, although things would too.

26:52

But this was the debate, you know, in South Africa,

26:55

pre the fall of apartheid, which was a lot of

26:57

people wouldn't played SunCiti for a long time.

26:59

Yeah. Music Glass wouldn't play studies.

27:01

And finally, there was, you know, little Steven and a

27:03

bunch of people said, this is not

27:05

helping this government to fall. We wanna help this government to

27:07

fall. And the only way to do that is to not any

27:09

kind of constructive engagement cut you, like, be part of an

27:11

economic boycott. Yeah. The government down. Yes. And that impact

27:13

is part of what happened. Yes. So

27:16

it's, like, don't know that there's any perfect

27:18

precedent that you would say, you know. This is

27:20

the -- This is the exact -- -- this is the thing about all. I

27:22

systematized I

27:24

mean, I can't think of anything maybe more blatant than

27:26

I'm in the system of parts in South Africa and trying to

27:28

bring that old slave nation -- Yeah. -- or

27:30

the majority or the majority or the majority were enslaved by the

27:32

white minority. Yes. That's a wild fucking

27:35

thing. So you can make an argument that's so

27:36

extreme. And I think

27:37

the mistake that gets made sometimes whether

27:39

it's apartheid or there's also been a boycott

27:41

with performing in Tel Aviv and Israel. Right.

27:44

And believe it or not, there were

27:46

particular boycotts in conversations. I mean,

27:48

already you can tell these are apples and oranges.

27:50

If you go from South Africa to Tel Aviv and

27:52

Israel to reout in Saudi

27:54

Arabia early in September in the early parts of

27:56

my tour, there was even discussions in regards

27:58

to not performing in states that

28:00

will not have masks mandates. Yeah. Yes.

28:02

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So that also was on the

28:04

table. And artists were having conversations

28:06

kinda via eye message and

28:08

WhatsApp of, like, should we do it? we mean,

28:10

but you can see in each of these four buckets that I

28:12

just mentioned -- Right. -- the circumstances are

28:14

so unique and different. And you can't say

28:16

they're the same in all of them. But

28:18

it's really interesting to see how things will unfold.

28:21

What's happening right now specifically with abortion

28:23

is so reprehensible in terms of civil liberties

28:25

and civil rights. I'm really interested to see

28:27

how this unfolds, you know. And whatever

28:30

pressure that can be applied, I think

28:32

those options are worth considering and

28:34

weighing

28:34

out. Did you just because you raised it, did

28:36

the questions around masking and

28:38

policy around asking that. Any effect on where you ended

28:40

up going on the

28:41

tour?

28:41

Yeah. So you'll notice there were certain places where

28:44

if they did not have a mass mandate --

28:46

Yeah.

28:46

-- and again,

28:47

I'm very privileged and lucky that I have the leverage

28:49

to do this because I was able to hold

28:52

sold out shows over the promoter's

28:53

head. If you don't have a mass mandate

28:56

or a vaccine mandate, I just won't perform

28:58

until you do. Right. So we

29:00

were able to get certain states like South

29:02

Carolina and Florida to play ball. And

29:04

so that to me is an

29:06

example of a small amount of

29:08

pressure in regards to a public health

29:10

and safety issue. But after I saw

29:12

some of the early tours that were going

29:14

out before me, folks were

29:16

getting COVID artists were getting COVID, some people in the

29:18

crowd were. In that early fall

29:20

run, I definitely leveraged that as much as I

29:22

possibly

29:22

could. I wanna ask you one more thing that's

29:24

sort of topical before I do a little deeper dive here. Sure. But it

29:26

it goes again to this thing of, like, how there's

29:29

an overarching theme here, like, how you've evolved

29:31

as a person in the world And

29:33

when I think about the abortion thing, another way

29:35

in which an unusual thing happened to you because

29:37

you're engaged with the public issue was on the student

29:39

death thing. So I wanna play the the Patriot

29:42

Act piece from that, a little chunk of that. And

29:44

then what happened because of

29:45

it? How to talk about that? Student

29:47

loan debt. It affects pretty

29:49

much everyone

29:50

I know. If you're one of the ten people it doesn't

29:53

affect, congratulations

29:55

on being a candidate.

29:56

Student loans are crippling

29:59

millions of people. Many of

30:01

them fresh out of college. Imagine starting a race. And

30:03

then the guy with the starter pistol uses

30:05

the gun to shoot you in the

30:07

like. The

30:09

student at crisis is so big. There's even

30:12

a

30:12

game show to help people with their

30:14

loans. Welcome to pay it off. This is the

30:16

game show dedicated to helping you pay

30:19

off your student loans. For his correct answer, we'll pay

30:21

you a percentage of your

30:22

debt. If you get eight correct, we'll pay

30:24

the whole amount. This is a

30:25

real show.

30:26

He turned a

30:27

national crisis into a game

30:29

show. I can't wait to see how Howie Mandel

30:32

solves the opioid epidemic.

30:33

The best

30:34

part of paid off is the tagline. I know

30:37

it's not everything. I hope that helps

30:38

take off the credit for a little bit. I know it's

30:40

not everything, and I hope it takes the pressure off a

30:43

little bit. That's not

30:45

a tagline. That's what a

30:47

plastic surgeon says to someone after

30:49

a chimp attack. I

30:51

know it's not

30:52

everything. But I hope it helps take off

30:54

the pressure for a little

30:55

bit. Now get

30:56

out there

30:57

and start dating scarface.

31:00

Wow. You

31:00

know, shout out to the

31:03

archival team. That's a great shot to open with. I

31:05

mean, we have young people here who have a lot

31:06

of student edits. Yeah. I gotta play

31:09

that one. Uh-huh. I can think of things that you

31:11

did in Patrik who were more

31:12

controversial. Okay. And we'll talk about Kashoggi and then send

31:14

you a paper. That's one example. And you talk about

31:16

it in Manchester. The ramifications and the calculus is in

31:19

doing the news industry thing with Alton

31:20

Capital. Right.

31:21

Was there anything that had more of a,

31:24

like, resonance among your audience than

31:26

that? No. This was probably the deepest.

31:28

Right. I would say the

31:30

deepest resonating in terms of again,

31:33

scale, like the sheer number of people that

31:35

I know in my life and specifically for

31:37

my generation that are just hobbled by

31:38

that. Yeah. And so, like, what did that look like? What did the residents

31:41

look like? Like, that social media

31:43

reaction, people coming up to you on the street.

31:44

Yeah. Do you know on a show like that when

31:47

something like that really breaks you can

31:49

kind of feel and and you know this when you're

31:51

walking around New York just the way especially

31:53

when you work in media and

31:55

the type of show, whether it's daily show,

31:58

paychecks, SNL, can tell when something really

32:00

penetrated. People would just grab me in the street and go

32:02

fucking Aviant. And I'm like, yeah, I

32:04

know. And then there's, like, income based

32:06

for payment plan telling you, yes, don't

32:08

defer your payments. It's stuff like that

32:10

where people social media but also

32:12

coming up to you just being like, hey, thank you for

32:14

doing that. You identify with that? Well, you had

32:16

a last student? No. I looked out. So

32:18

I didn't because I went to UC Davis. So I

32:20

went to a local school and I had lived

32:22

at home funny enough. So I was able I didn't have

32:24

crippling student loan debt, but I had crippling

32:26

emotional debt. That being said,

32:28

that being said, I have so

32:30

many friends my sister, my

32:32

brother-in-law, that it's just like It's it's

32:34

it's it's yeah. It's

32:36

financial

32:36

HPV. Everybody kind of has it, and nobody's

32:38

really talking about it. That's

32:40

pretty good. Yeah. So let's see. I've used

32:42

that one. No. No. I just kinda just thought of the

32:44

rain up. Okay. So then you get called to Congress. Yes.

32:46

And I I wanna show that just because, again,

32:48

not that many comedians. Get to

32:50

go -- Sure. -- test the life and get assessments. Let's

32:52

play that.

32:53

My name is Hassan

32:55

Minhaj. I'm a

32:57

Muslim. An eye condemn

33:00

radical Islamic terrorism.

33:05

That

33:05

has nothing to do with anything. I just want that on the record.

33:07

It's good to get

33:08

ahead of these

33:09

things. Now,

33:11

Chairwoman Waters invited me here today because

33:13

I host a political comedy show on Netflix called

33:16

Patriot Act, which

33:17

means I may owe

33:19

some of you guys royalties.

33:22

DM, we

33:22

can talk

33:23

later. Now, we recently did an episode on the

33:26

student loan crisis and it really hit home

33:28

with our audience because forty four million

33:30

Americans owe more than one point six

33:32

trillion dollars of student loan

33:34

debt. In fact, the day we shot

33:36

our episode, we pulled our studio audience, it was

33:38

only about two hundred people

33:40

in that room alone had

33:42

over six million dollars of student

33:44

loan debt. Now granted, Our

33:46

audience is mainly unemployed polycyte majors, but

33:48

that's still a lot of money. Tough

33:51

room. Very tough room. I was I bombed

33:53

so bad. It would

33:54

be really well. I gotta say, like, I watched the

33:56

whole thing and you made powerful points on

33:58

the policy issues. Yeah.

33:59

The combination of the jokes were airballs. Yeah.

34:01

And

34:01

I say if you told someone who'd spent a

34:04

man amount of time in congressional hearings. I've been

34:06

like, oh, don't do the house. I was like, you're you're not gonna

34:08

get the last seat. Yeah. People are like, what's

34:10

the zero six million related

34:12

success. Yeah. What was the experience

34:13

like? You know what's funny? So maybe

34:15

it's the comic, and there

34:18

is something very titillating

34:20

about doing that, about air balling.

34:22

Yes. As a comedian committing

34:24

to the bit and going there and

34:26

not

34:27

breaking, that actually was the test for

34:29

me of like, hey, can you do

34:31

the whole testimony without breaking

34:33

and that

34:34

is very funny to me. Right.

34:36

I mean, when you watch, I mean, a huge, you know, inspiring performance for

34:38

me was Colbert's, I believe, it was the

34:40

two thousand four White House monisterister. Speech.

34:43

But he just commits --

34:46

Yes. -- the full set -- Yes. -- you

34:48

know, and I remember talking to

34:50

Steven for advice before I hosted in

34:52

twenty seventeen. And yeah, he was just

34:54

like, commit. You're not

34:56

playing to the room. Yeah. Right. You're playing to

34:58

everybody at the house. And so, you

35:00

know, I

35:02

realized, okay, eventually someone's gonna clip this out from Seaspan three and

35:04

put it on YouTube

35:05

channel. People

35:05

will laugh. Yeah. And it will and it and it will

35:08

resonate both the satire

35:10

and this uncertainty of it will

35:12

both resonate. It's hard to bubble in the

35:13

room. It's in the room. Yeah. And I can't

35:16

help but think that, like I mean, I've done enough public

35:18

speeches where I have, like, my little tiny attempts

35:20

of humor. And, like, when people are laughing at the first one, I'm, like, self editing as I

35:22

go through. I'm, like, I'm not gonna make that joke in that

35:24

joke. That joke. Sure. Like, your

35:26

instinct is

35:28

maybe I shouldn't start to change. But you're not My fucking I gotta stay

35:30

tuned. I think I've been,

35:31

you know, I'm lucky enough to do it. I've

35:33

been doing comedy long

35:36

enough where I'm still a pet of one, but I've gotten to see the Jedi's up

35:38

close. In the best

35:40

comics, this is a

35:42

weird thing, the comics that I love

35:44

the most, truly do

35:46

not give a fuck. Like, they really

35:48

don't care. And my buddy,

35:49

Prashant, who's the director of the King's Jester, tells me

35:51

this all the time. Sometimes when he goes,

35:53

you're talking too

35:54

fast. He'll

35:55

give me this note during performances. Let them

35:57

come to you. You don't have

35:59

to impart your will on them. Let them

36:01

come to you. And

36:04

the longer you sit in it, they will

36:06

come to you. So even later when during

36:09

the question and answer session,

36:11

the little oozievert references and all those things,

36:14

like, I was very clear to go, no, I'm

36:16

gonna stay the course and stay in character

36:18

and not not capitulate,

36:21

not

36:21

fold. Unless them come

36:22

to you. You just said

36:23

a thing I that has a like, some comics

36:25

you love the most. Yeah. For the comics you

36:28

love the

36:28

most. I mean, this is just

36:31

the -- Yeah. -- all time. If you put

36:33

it on the table, I'm gonna go there. It's a terrible question to

36:35

ask. I mean, like, there's a reason why the words,

36:37

my favorite albums never come out of my mouth.

36:39

Because she's just saying, like, well, you're fed off some

36:40

shit. Fuck it. I can't say shit. So I'll tell them

36:43

in terms of superpowers. Yeah. Richard Pryor

36:45

for his vulnerability. K. Chris

36:48

Rock for his argumentation.

36:50

Yeah. Cat

36:51

Williams for his physicality and freedom

36:54

and performance. Michelle Wolf, for her joke

36:56

structure, Mike Burbiglia for

36:57

his timing, pacing, and how tight he

36:59

puts his storytelling the basket

37:02

weave. Yeah.

37:03

Chappell for his

37:05

candor and John Stewart for his

37:08

decency. Those are my favorites. Okay.

37:10

That's that I've had the biggest impact on

37:12

on me. That's something that even if you've never made that list exactly like

37:13

that,

37:13

you've thought about that though. I'm a huge basketball fan, and

37:16

and one of the things I think about all the

37:18

time is, It's my

37:20

favorite players have the most amount of

37:22

tools in their Batman utility

37:23

belt. Right. One of my

37:24

favorite players to watch right now. He's not playing in the playoffs

37:26

is Kyrie. Yeah. So if you look at Kyrie,

37:30

speed handling, body control,

37:32

ability to hit shots in the paint. Mhmm.

37:34

He's like an NBA 2K player. Like, circle circle

37:36

spin spin, XXXR1R to, like,

37:38

he's that. He has the most amount of tricks I've seen in

37:40

his bag. Luca right now has an incredible amount of tricks in his

37:43

bag. And so when I think about comedy that

37:45

way, I'm like, what are

37:47

the different tools that I would wanna have in my bag.

37:50

Apparently, like this, not that we don't know this bad

37:52

athletes, but in Kyrie's case, all the things you just I'm sure

37:54

that you're,

37:56

like, is it that someone has all those tools, but when do they It's not

37:58

it's not it's not it's the it's the brain powered up. It's just

38:00

gonna get a fucking share. Yeah. Yeah.

38:04

Yeah. Yeah. Know what I was thinking about the

38:06

other day, and then I'm gonna talk about your

38:08

poll comedy thing, but -- Sure. -- because of Judd

38:10

and the movie coming out is Carlin movie.

38:12

Mhmm. The thing about Carlin, you

38:14

know, for my generation. Sure. It's just like it's not

38:16

I'm not a student of comedy the way you are. Like, you

38:18

think about this stuff in a very, like, a That's a

38:20

very That's a very rigorous deep way

38:22

because your thinking. That's my life. Of

38:24

course, you think about it that way. I'm not surprised that

38:26

in that that case. But a lot of us love

38:28

comedy and don't think about it quite that way.

38:31

And the thing about watching the trailer, I haven't watched they sent me the link.

38:33

I've watched the movie yet. I will, you know, tonight. But

38:35

watching the trailer work.

38:38

Colbert says he was the Beatles of comedy. And, like, it

38:40

reminds me of how just big

38:42

he was and, you know, it was a political comic

38:44

in a way. He did other stuff that

38:47

wasn't political, but there was pervasiveness to

38:50

Carlin was everywhere in

38:52

the sense that, like, everybody I know.

38:55

Because

38:55

they ship this back on fox harbor the worker tits. Like, that

38:57

like,

38:57

they knew it and their parents would get mad at

39:00

them. But everybody could do it because he was

39:02

the atmosphere at that point. Supreme

39:04

Court case, He was like a cultural like, you can't almost be that

39:06

anymore. There's no one like that anymore. That's

39:08

that kinda much I mean, it makes

39:09

sense. Singular and stretching. Well, it's

39:10

just his it's just his it's just

39:13

Minhaj comedy where they intersect with, like, you know, his skills as

39:16

a comic, the choice of topic, and

39:18

then getting elevated in a way where, like, Supreme

39:20

Court and all of the entire media and

39:22

entertainment industry's way the verdict. It's

39:24

like, I don't know. And in the culture that's more a

39:26

wild culture back then when stuff like that was

39:28

on, you know, you couldn't avoid it. You couldn't get

39:30

away with it. You didn't go hide

39:32

your little bubble -- Right. -- your old gamer bubble around. You're always about

39:34

another thing. Yeah. I know. I guess chappell sort of

39:36

like that

39:36

now. Well, you know, believe it or not. I just think there's a lot

39:38

of people doing a lot of important things.

39:41

And it's interesting, during that period of time, you

39:43

look at Carlin Pryor,

39:46

Cosby, Jones Rivers,

39:48

there's probably maybe ten comedians

39:51

that are pushing culture that way. Right.

39:53

If you look at the

39:56

number of comedians that are touring at that

39:58

level now -- Yeah. It's twenty,

40:00

thirty, forty, Tom Segura and

40:02

Nate Vargas, I can list you so

40:04

many names. Yeah. Bert Kreisher. Guys that

40:06

are doing arenas that you may have not heard of --

40:08

Yeah. -- or that a lot of people have heard

40:11

of. Yeah. But we we don't

40:13

live in a monoculture anymore, but

40:15

there are a lot of comedians, I think stretching

40:17

the genre in very unique, interesting ways.

40:19

Boper, I'm missing an example

40:22

of someone who's stretching it

40:24

in a certain way. Yeah. A lot of blazer. There's

40:26

I can name so many different comics

40:28

that are stretching culture in their own unique

40:30

way. So that's what I'm most interested in. Yeah. And I agree with what

40:33

you just said. I think it's almost like it highlights

40:35

the way in which my observation it's

40:37

more about the world we live in

40:38

now, more than about them. It's not like I'm saying there

40:40

aren't people as good as Carlin now. That's not my point.

40:42

My point is to, like, that have that

40:44

level of

40:45

attention and focus and

40:47

Nobody can't like why, you know Don't don't you feel

40:49

that way with your industry? I Dan

40:52

rather -- Sure. -- there was three Like, no. No.

40:54

No. No. No. No.

40:55

No. One gives who's the anchor of the network evening news anymore? Yeah. With

40:57

all due respect to whoever those people are, the speaker.

40:59

I can't even name the CBS evening news anchor right

41:01

now. This is Nora O'Donnell. Yes. No disrespect to

41:03

Nora.

41:03

Yeah. It's like, don't live in that culture

41:06

anymore. Yeah. There used to be rock bands

41:08

-- Yeah. -- who in the summer came, they

41:10

would make us record that you would hear play out of

41:12

every Right. A car in Times Square

41:14

with a window roll down. Right. That doesn't happen anymore. It's

41:16

like it's all the poll culture has been shattered and it's

41:18

a million little pieces around your feet. And it's like

41:20

harder to move the culture

41:22

--

41:22

Yes.

41:22

Not impossible, but harder to move the culture in a way that you could

41:24

back in the early seven inch or eight sixties where

41:26

that was. When you think about what you're

41:29

doing, do you think I'm

41:31

trying to tell jokes. I'm trying to tell stories. I'm

41:34

trying to tell stories. Jokes are I'm trying to move the

41:36

culture. Does that even crush your Does that seem

41:38

like totally Like

41:39

like, I would never be quite that presumptions to think I

41:42

could move the company. Yeah. I think for me,

41:44

it's just how far

41:46

can I stretch myself. Yeah. And how far can

41:48

I push myself as a creative person and

41:50

hopefully the genre just a little bit.

41:52

And it's funny. I talk about this in Kings Jester. If

41:54

I try to play the fame and clout

41:58

game, like, That's a losing battle. That's a losing battle. And I think

42:00

as some someone like yourself

42:02

through the work that you've done with the

42:04

Showtime series, when you

42:06

cover the quite literally the

42:08

circus show of politics and

42:10

politicians that are called

42:12

the personality. To me, the professional wrestling aspect of

42:14

that is very dangerous. I I

42:16

don't wanna be and it's it's

42:18

consumed

42:19

yet times and I don't wanna play that game. It is a losing

42:22

battle. We're gonna take quick break. We'll be right back

42:24

with more Hassan Minaj on. high

42:28

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43:49

Welcome

43:51

back to Helen Water. So I'm

43:54

about I'll play another old thing of yours. It's not

43:56

as old as thing we played before. If this thing, you're

43:58

talking about being Muslim in America from the last factory. I think around two

44:00

thousand thirteen or so, play Hasan, and

44:02

then we can talk about why you decided to start

44:04

doing this

44:05

in the first place. I'm Muslim.

44:07

Thank you. And I

44:10

love board

44:12

games. And

44:14

I think the hardest thing about being Muslim is not being able to play Jengkong nine eleven.

44:16

You know what I mean? Because the last thing I could

44:18

do is just cheer his

44:19

building. So Jengkong, I look

44:22

like it now. Some of you guys

44:24

aren't laughing at that token. That's

44:26

because you're wrong. Because

44:28

I love my country. I

44:30

love it. Fly

44:32

every Thursday. Every

44:33

Thursday. I wear a god bless America shirt because

44:35

it's made in Pakistan. Now, our lives

44:37

are inherently different. Okay?

44:40

There's certain things that you guys

44:42

can enjoy, white people that I can't, like

44:44

going to the beach and running through

44:46

sandcastles, I can't do

44:47

that. It'll be like daddy, Brian destroyed our

44:49

buildings. Never forget. That's my life forever. If

44:51

you get it, I'm So the next time

44:53

you're

44:53

just like, oh, it takes me three days to get my

44:56

Netflix. Really, can't buy envelopes

44:58

at the same time. Do you get

44:59

it? I need

45:00

to slow down.

45:01

You're fast, though. Yeah. You're just like

45:04

But you're young. It's okay. Yeah.

45:06

I'm just

45:06

These are relatively early, but when did you say to yourself I

45:07

wanna do

45:08

comedy and why? Yeah. I was

45:11

a speech and debate

45:13

kid. Yes. I know. A fucking dork. Yeah.

45:16

A fast. Real one or two.

45:18

I was I was

45:20

very

45:21

fast. My event was impromptu. I

45:23

don't know if he had impressed with that. Yeah. So

45:25

I'm I was, you know Another

45:27

generation I was senior Redlands. My

45:29

son. Yeah. I'm from

45:32

LA. Same to Bay Camping. Yep. We would have seen each

45:34

other at at state qualifiers and the whole

45:36

thing. Look, III was just a troublemaker in

45:38

class, and I was funny enough. I was in computer class, and my teacher, Takahuchi,

45:40

would just catch me. I

45:42

was just being a smart

45:46

ass. I was in the back of class shooting

45:48

spitballs, just being a goof. And she

45:50

kept giving me the

45:51

attention, and she said, if I can get

45:53

you to be quiet,

45:55

I won't give you detention, but you gotta

45:57

join this thing called forensics,

46:00

public speaking. Right. And so I started

46:02

competing in that and then public speaking with

46:04

academic

46:04

Decathlon, and that was my

46:06

kind of my high. Yeah.

46:08

I realized that being

46:10

irreverent pushing the

46:12

boundaries of what is socially acceptable to

46:14

say, i. E. That Jenga joke would

46:16

sometimes get a reaction and

46:20

that reaction gave me a sense of control -- Yeah. -- in a way that I

46:22

and a lot of different ways in my life, I

46:24

felt like I didn't have

46:25

control. Yeah. And Comedy

46:28

and Discovering comedy in college

46:30

was this feeling of for the first time in

46:32

my life I feel a sense of control because there's

46:34

so many times in my life I just did not

46:36

feel control. What were the factors in not feeling control? Like, normal

46:38

adolescent? Like, I'm just, like, you

46:39

know, insecure or race or How

46:41

are raised or what? Yeah. I think all of it.

46:43

I think it

46:46

was a lot of the adolescent angst and, hey, I don't

46:48

get a say in my life -- Yeah. -- you know,

46:50

overbearing immigrant parents that want you to

46:52

fit in a certain box and be a

46:54

certain way. The lack of

46:56

control over your own emotions and feelings. These

46:58

things aren't making sense, and I wish I had an

47:00

outlet to express them. I came

47:02

of age in in post nine eleven,

47:04

Bush America. So, you know,

47:06

my dad was very involved at the mosque. I'd have

47:08

to go to the mosque as a kid

47:10

and just I grew up in the air of the

47:12

Patriot Act. And that became, you know, I tell my kind of Batman

47:14

origin story in the King Jester.

47:16

But being a reverent, poking

47:18

fun at those things, being like, this doesn't

47:20

make

47:21

sense,

47:22

in a weird way that kind of naive troll energy gave

47:24

me a sense of control and

47:26

agency of my life. I would come

47:28

to find out later in life you

47:31

can take that too far. Yeah. But it is

47:33

something that I deeply

47:36

feel it was that moment that I

47:38

wanna chase this for the rest of

47:40

my life. That feeling that I had just it was just like

47:42

this moment where I the

47:44

matrix, everything all the binary

47:46

code lines up in that

47:47

moment. Yeah. When I can crack a joke and I can get people to laugh, I feel

47:50

it. I can just it's the

47:52

few times in my

47:53

life I feel

47:53

like everything makes

47:56

sense. Was there a particular moment where you said you were discovering comedy in college? Was

47:58

there a particular moment or a particular performance? Or was

48:00

it a kind of a a thing in accretion of

48:02

of different moments where you're like, okay, this could

48:04

actually be my life not

48:06

just this is a satisfying thing that gives me that sense of all those things you just said

48:09

--

48:09

Yeah. -- those psychological payoffs,

48:10

but you're like, this could be a career I

48:12

could go and do this. This is why I wanna

48:16

do at a singular

48:17

passion. Was there a a real watershed moment for that? Yeah. There's a

48:19

story that I

48:19

have in the Kings Jester where I

48:22

talk about when I was

48:23

in high school and college, it

48:26

was very popular in California

48:28

specifically and this became a supreme

48:30

court case. Where FBI agents would start hanging out at the mosque, and

48:32

they would hang out with young teenagers.

48:34

Yeah. And funny enough there was a this American

48:36

life about this, but there'd

48:38

be these Fed's that

48:40

were Italian dudes who tend

48:42

or like Hispanic dudes who would just all of a sudden

48:44

try to hang out with like

48:46

young brown kids and basketball

48:48

shorts and be like, hey, let's work out. Let's let's hang

48:50

out. And and I

48:52

remember I was very popular amongst my friends because

48:54

I would just point out these masks. And we would kinda troll

48:56

them and make fun of them. Yeah. And I tell a story

48:58

about how making fun of them and landing those

49:00

jokes made me feel powerful

49:04

-- Yeah. -- in a time that I didn't feel

49:06

powerful. Yeah. When I was in college, more

49:08

specifically in the stand up community, San

49:10

Francisco had a burgeoning booming

49:12

stand up comedy scene. And it and it has had a booming scene long

49:14

time. Some of my favorite comics came up

49:16

in the eighties there, Margaret Cho,

49:20

Robin Williams, It had a very booming scene in the eighties, but in the early two

49:22

thousands, it had another booming scene

49:24

where people like W. Kamal Bell,

49:26

Arch Barker,

49:28

Allie Wong, Moshe Cashier, and Brent Weinbach. We're doing just

49:30

like incredible work, pushing again stretching

49:32

-- Yeah. -- the genre of comedy.

49:35

All five of those comedians that I listed were very different

49:38

styles to. And what I loved about the

49:40

San Francisco comedy scene at that

49:42

time is that San Francisco as

49:44

a city embraced all of that. Right. It's why

49:46

it's one of my favorite comedy cities in the

49:48

country. Yeah. A watershed moment for

49:50

me was around two thousand eight. There was a

49:52

competition put together by the radio station while ninety

49:54

49I don't know if anyone is familiar with

49:56

that radio station, but they have a thing called best

49:58

comic standing, and I

50:00

won that. And I had to kind

50:02

of compete against all my older brothers and sisters that I

50:04

looked up to. Yeah. And I was able to

50:06

win that. And that was

50:08

a moment for me a few years

50:10

and I was about four years and at the

50:11

time, that made me go, maybe I could actually

50:13

really do this. Yeah. Outside

50:14

of my

50:15

day job at OfficeMax, which would really do this

50:17

for the rest of my life. Mean,

50:18

it's interesting just like, I've obviously have not seen everything you've ever done.

50:21

Yeah. I haven't ever claimed to have

50:22

it. Sure.

50:22

Sure. But it does seem like everything from the very

50:25

and you said this thing

50:28

about Kimpage of the Patriot Act era. Yeah. It seems like that politics

50:30

with a small key

50:32

and identity --

50:33

Yeah. -- that those

50:36

were, like, cornerstones of your work from the very beginning. There was never

50:38

a time where you had

50:38

knocked knocked jokes. So the equivalent of grown up knocked, I

50:41

was like, oh, let's just get up. There was a joke I

50:43

can tell her that's not rooted in

50:46

my autobiography and my autobiography being part

50:48

of the class of the other -- Yeah. -- targeted

50:50

and the politics of that era.

50:52

The power was partly about pushing back against

50:55

what that power was doing to someone who was not

50:57

a white person and someone was living in that

50:59

era. Is that right? I think one of

51:02

the defining things, and I

51:04

didn't realize this until recently, but it

51:06

was constantly feeling like I was wearing an away

51:08

jersey. Everybody around

51:10

me is wearing a home jersey. I think

51:12

I should be wearing a home jersey, but I feel like

51:14

I'm wearing an away jersey. Yeah. And this is just kind of my analysis of the world

51:16

as I wear this away jersey.

51:19

For whatever reason, I'm not

51:21

this enough. I'm not that enough. Right.

51:24

But that was kind of the lens to which

51:26

I saw the world. And I didn't realize that you're

51:28

playing these old clips. I don't know how you found

51:30

them, but I didn't realize I didn't

51:32

see that connective tissue, but I do know that from the moment I started

51:34

doing open

51:35

mics, I really was

51:38

seeking that feeling of control and understanding. Understanding

51:41

why I believed the things I believed

51:43

and comedy was a way for me

51:45

to do that. Make

51:46

sense of the human condition. You know, so if it wasn't for the

51:48

Bush administration, we might not Hasan you.

51:50

I really not as we currently

51:52

know and love you. I mean, that's another thing

51:54

that George will be Bush. Take credit for

51:56

one of the few, I guess. So let's do one more from that

51:59

period. There's a piece here that

52:01

you talk about related to a widely

52:03

publicized shooting at the time. Back

52:05

in two thousand twelve at a Sik temple.

52:07

This is not just good comedy but

52:09

also crazy prescient about

52:12

a whole bunch of things. So let's play it. Nearly

52:14

a

52:14

decade after nine eleven, the biggest threat to our own domestic security

52:17

and safety is

52:19

homegrown domestic terrorism. Arizona, Aurora,

52:22

Wisconsin. I don't wanna talk about what race these

52:24

people are, but it ain't brown dudes with

52:26

beards and turbines. So the next time you wanna pat me down

52:28

at the airport, for carrying contact lens solution, why

52:30

don't you pat down Larry the cable guy

52:32

with the NRA shirt and the deer

52:34

hat? Wow. So that's from the truth. Right?

52:36

Yeah. I just heard you. The web series. Yeah. But I

52:37

think the date on that is you said two hundred twelve?

52:39

You're making it by two thousand twelve. Yeah. Two

52:41

thousand twelve. That's ten years ago.

52:43

And nine years before the

52:46

insurrection. Hearing FBI director Chris Ray say as

52:49

he's has over the course of the last

52:51

few years repeatedly. The greatest threat to

52:53

American political and domestic stability

52:56

is not four in terrorists, but it's domestic terrorists, particularly white extremist. Yeah. That's

52:58

like I'm not trying to say you were like a suit seriously. No.

53:00

No. You were just reading the writing of the wall, but -- Yeah. -- that's

53:02

not a

53:04

common trope in

53:06

comedy or in political commentary in twenty twelve when I had that

53:08

conversation. So I'm curious where that came

53:10

from. So I have a deep respect for the

53:12

seat community growing up in Northern California

53:15

forgotten part of Callie, by the way, I just want to say

53:17

that. A lot of people shit on us. I grew up in

53:19

Davis, which is ripe by Sacramento. I myself have

53:21

shit on you. Yeah. Yeah,

53:24

Davis. Yes. Not -- Yeah. -- that is Los

53:26

Angeles. We should know Davis

53:26

routinely. Yeah. Yeah. This is gonna

53:27

shit on Davis too.

53:27

Every day, man. Yeah. We get it on

53:30

Davis. We'll get it

53:31

from all

53:34

sides. Okay. But further up north

53:35

of five, there's a city called Huba City, and they have

53:37

a huge seat community. And

53:40

I grew

53:42

up in that area growing up around

53:44

sick Americans. And the sick

53:46

community, those uncles aunties

53:49

and their kids they're some of

53:51

the oldest American citizens from the Daisy Diaspora. They

53:54

arrived even before my parents

53:56

came. My parents came in eighty two.

53:58

Yeah. So one

54:00

of the things that I feel a strong kinship for their community for two reasons

54:02

is first of all, after nine eleven, a lot

54:05

of sick people were targeted. Because

54:08

they were assumed to be Muslim, and they never threw us under the

54:11

bus. So I tipped my

54:13

hat to them. Yeah. And

54:15

I did a few piece about them on the daily show,

54:17

and I said to sit periodically joking,

54:19

not joking, I would have thrown you

54:21

guys under the bus in

54:23

a heartbeat like how could you guys do this for us? And they

54:25

said it's part of our sick values. They're such a

54:28

small minority community in

54:30

India and in

54:32

the country. So when that seek temple shooting happened, I just felt like I had to say

54:34

something about it. And I think another

54:36

thing, again, and it just comes from my

54:38

personal

54:39

experience was I felt

54:42

that through my lived experience. So I

54:44

wanted to kind of put

54:45

that on wax. Again, and it's

54:47

so wild that you you play that clip. The

54:49

director of that clip Aristotle Athari, who is now a

54:52

cast member of SNL. Mhmm. And he

54:54

is, you know, one of

54:56

the few Middle Eastern cast

54:58

members on SNL and the

55:00

cast. It's wild that

55:02

I didn't know this at the time. Now you're putting this to

55:04

get I mean, kudos to all

55:06

of you for putting that together, but the

55:08

people that I was also happen

55:10

to be my my contemporaries in

55:13

comedy at that time pushed me and inspired

55:15

me to do work like

55:15

that. Well, I will say also though. I mean, earlier this

55:17

the hoodie was kind of okay. Like, whatever the fuck it

55:19

is you're wearing on the shirt is that weird silk, red,

55:21

bathroom. That's why

55:21

I think

55:24

it was that wasn't the right move. That being said, we had to shoot that in my

55:26

apartment building. And you know how, like, certain,

55:28

like, fancy apartment buildings will be, like, we

55:30

have a communal library. So I remember

55:32

we saw

55:34

it in the apartment buildings called the Visconte, which is

55:36

on Third and Pixel in Downtown LA,

55:38

it's this kind of like

55:40

fake Venetian apartment

55:42

building where USC kids like Sellweid. But I thought

55:44

it was really nice and so, yep. It

55:46

was Ari and I thought, okay, like,

55:48

dress up in this, like, regal

55:52

smoking jacket. I don't think it

55:53

translates, but hopefully the joke stops. It's one of those things

55:55

where, like, you think that you you have for a child

55:57

of the Internet. Yeah. You would have thought, like, maybe this

55:59

will live

56:01

on long that I

56:02

wanna You know, there's a dankness to it that I appreciate. That's what I like. There's

56:04

you know, there's sometimes you go that far and

56:06

it's like, okay. It's like it's like committing

56:09

with a bit.

56:10

Yeah. By the way, you know, so

56:12

sad when I look at these jokes and bits. Yeah. How, like,

56:14

I appreciate the soul of what

56:16

I'm saying, but I still cringe a little

56:20

bit. But then I think about someone like Nas who made like Ilimatic when he

56:22

was

56:22

nineteen, and you can still play Ilimatic

56:24

now. I don't have a

56:26

nomadic,

56:27

like all my stuff is

56:29

very kind of well, there's seeds

56:31

in it, but there's like a a lot

56:33

of naive and weird fashion

56:34

choices. I don't know anything about classic music, but there's

56:36

people who do what I was like, well, you know, Beethoven wrote. There's not these.

56:39

There's fucking kids. Dan Morrison made actual weeks at,

56:41

like, the age of nineteen

56:41

adults. Yeah. And you're like saying It's like it's odd

56:44

speaking through his how was

56:46

everything all Oh, perfect. At that point, art

56:48

design, set design, costume design,

56:50

voice,

56:50

like, take -- Yes. Again,

56:53

I'm I'm speaking as a comedian and maybe as apples and oranges, but I'm like, how did

56:55

you have all of that just figured out? In

56:57

passing, I'll say this. I

56:59

haven't watched the second half of Ozark yet. But there's an

57:02

entire episode built around Almatic. They

57:04

made it one of the last episode. The other day where

57:06

they made entirely around The album is the only music on the

57:08

album. I read about it the other day. I was like, fuck, I

57:10

gotta watch that. Yeah. There's a fucking record that says

57:12

this time.

57:14

They're making premium scripts. I drive

57:15

it. And really high quality around I fucking recommend you

57:17

guys. Do you think this show's good? You know

57:19

what's really fucking good? Naza's

57:22

nineteen ninety three hit

57:23

album, film addict. Yes. Yeah. Alright. So I wanna

57:25

play

57:25

here's what the thing is not you. It's twenty

57:28

fourteen. Sure. October, November,

57:30

twenty fourteen. Okay. You're

57:30

getting called in to go to your audition for the Daily

57:32

Show. And this becomes a controversial thing that, again,

57:35

then becomes a an important part of how you

57:37

guys jump to the Daily

57:37

Show. Sure. Here's a Ben Affleck, Bill Martin, Sam Harris, on real time in October

57:40

twenty fourteen. Talking about Islamophobia.

57:42

Alright. Yeah. You're saying

57:43

that Islamophobia

57:44

is not a real thing. That if you're

57:46

critical, something What's not

57:48

a real thing when we do

57:49

it?

57:49

Right. Well, no. It's really it's I'm not

57:52

denying that that certain people are bigoted

57:54

against Muslims as people. Right. And that's

57:56

a problem.

57:56

Big of you. But the

57:57

Why not we feel about this? It's gross.

57:59

It's racist. It's not it's but

58:02

it's so it's like saying, so

58:04

that you're shifty Jews.

58:06

You're not listening to it or not. We are

58:08

saying You guys are saying, if you wanna be Liberals,

58:10

believe in liberal principles. Right? I mean,

58:12

speech like

58:12

mom,

58:12

you know,

58:13

we are endowed by our forefathers of the male black object on men or create a no. Ben,

58:15

we have to be able to criticize bad ideas. And Of

58:17

course, we do. No. That brought us away.

58:20

Okay. But is Why

58:22

when is the mother load of bad ideas?

58:24

Jeez. But we have it. We have It's

58:26

just like like flying out of me.

58:28

No. It is a ugly a apostasy. How

58:30

about you? More than a billion

58:32

people. Those any

58:38

of the things that you're saying almost There's no way we will hear you. I'm not

58:40

waiting to hear you. Things. And you're paying

58:43

away the whole group religion with

58:46

that. No. Yeah.

58:47

This is surreal. So so there's this is surreal. There's a lot of crosstalk there and and I'll say

58:49

something out here, but thought I would say every day in my

58:51

life, then I would probably never

58:53

say it again. Wanna just read the words of bad Aflac, so

58:55

everyone can hear them. Because, really, we're

58:58

talking about is, like, pinning with the broad brush is, how about the more

59:00

than a billion people who aren't fanatical who don't

59:02

punch women

59:04

wanna go to school and have some sandwiches at the end of the day, and don't do any things you're

59:06

saying about all Muslims. Like, that half like,

59:08

I'm like, I'm doing a hundred percent a

59:10

hundred percent right. You know? This became

59:13

a thing. This was about a viral thing. People talked about it. It was a controversy,

59:15

and you basically did an audition. Yeah.

59:17

You changed what you were planning to do

59:19

as your audition totally. To

59:21

do a thing based on It was such a seminal

59:23

moment for a couple

59:24

reasons. Well, first of all, I had to go in and

59:26

screen test very quickly. And one of the things

59:28

that I had to think about was What

59:32

can I add to the show? You

59:34

know, there are so many great correspondents on the

59:36

show already at the time that John

59:38

Oliver had just left. Michael Shea had

59:40

just left. You have Jordan Kleber

59:42

Jessica Williams. Samantha b, Jason

59:44

Jones. What can I add to the show? Yeah.

59:46

And it was one of those things where

59:48

I felt I could add this perspective. This was

59:50

incredibly prescient and kind of jaw

59:52

dropping. I don't think

59:54

I can put words on how

59:56

important this was for us as a

59:58

community. You know, we

1:00:00

don't have a lot of people speaking out

1:00:02

for us. So for Ben

1:00:04

Affleck, you know, Batman,

1:00:06

albeit his performance

1:00:09

wasn't great. And Batman to be

1:00:12

superman, but Batman to be like, hey, I spent

1:00:14

time

1:00:14

around a ton of Muslims when I was

1:00:17

directing Argo. Yeah. And I'm

1:00:19

telling you the way you're describing them, this

1:00:22

very like niche, extremist,

1:00:26

bogeyman, like they all dress

1:00:28

like ninjas and they live in the desert

1:00:30

and this kind of like they're all like

1:00:32

ISIS for him to be like, yeah,

1:00:34

they're just

1:00:36

regular people. And I've spent time with them, why don't you

1:00:38

convey what ninety nine point nine

1:00:40

nine percent of them are like,

1:00:42

is dangerous. You're

1:00:44

creating this very broad

1:00:46

brush that you're painting them with.

1:00:48

That Batman versus Bill Marr moment was

1:00:50

like, yeah, I need to talk about this. Yeah.

1:00:52

And it kind of might Comedy take was, yeah,

1:00:54

like, we tend to be Dorics. We're not dangerous. We're

1:00:56

studying for the DAT not,

1:00:58

you know, we're not gonna destroy buildings

1:01:00

and stuff like that. And that was

1:01:02

It was just a very what watching as sad as that

1:01:05

is to say. Yeah. I hadn't seen a

1:01:07

prominent A List celebrity kind of

1:01:09

speak out on our

1:01:10

behalf. It

1:01:12

was very powerful and meaningful to me. You got there, you did four

1:01:14

years of the Daily Show. Yeah. Right? And and

1:01:16

most of it Trevor -- Mhmm. -- and

1:01:18

it

1:01:19

you know, was an important thing in your evolution as an

1:01:22

artist in in your career. Just watching

1:01:24

you at the end when you did your film film as I

1:01:26

obviously had and great time doing

1:01:28

it. But just talk about being the Daily Show by that

1:01:30

point, wasn't obviously a huge institution?

1:01:32

Yes. But John's leaving. And there was a lot of

1:01:34

questions says. There always always is when a new host

1:01:36

comes in trevor. Was it like to be in that space? And

1:01:38

what do you think you learned

1:01:39

there? And what did it do for you?

1:01:41

Yeah. I think the John Years that

1:01:43

I was there I

1:01:45

get there, and it's kind of his

1:01:48

Chicago Bulls last dance moment. Mhmm.

1:01:50

And it was the John

1:01:52

voyage year but getting to see

1:01:54

him up close. I got to see him do act ones,

1:01:56

and I really got to see his greatness

1:01:58

as a comedian. And one of the things

1:02:01

I think that is a testament to a great comedian

1:02:03

or satyrist, is when you

1:02:06

are able to provide moral clarity

1:02:08

in times of social

1:02:10

panic. So when

1:02:11

the Sandy Hook shooting happened, when all of

1:02:14

these really horrible, horrific

1:02:16

events happen, generally we

1:02:18

turn to the daily

1:02:20

or nightly saderest show --

1:02:21

Yeah. -- to see who has the best take

1:02:24

or kind of moment

1:02:26

of clarity. I

1:02:28

got to see John do that several times, and that was just, yeah,

1:02:31

I'm seeing magic, I'm

1:02:33

seeing greatness in action. Nobody

1:02:35

can plan that. Nobody can plan and I saw

1:02:38

him do some things where they didn't even load it up

1:02:40

in the prompter. They would load up parts

1:02:42

of it, Yeah. But his ability to stitch it all together was pretty

1:02:44

incredible. The second thing that I saw that I think

1:02:46

is missing and I still long for deeply

1:02:48

is that he is a good faith

1:02:50

actor. Yeah. And if media

1:02:52

long enough, there's not a lot of good

1:02:54

faith actors. There's a lot of,

1:02:56

unfortunately, sociopathic, sycophantic, clickbait

1:03:00

type actors that are

1:03:02

out here grifting. Yeah. And and

1:03:04

they're here for the quote tweets and

1:03:06

the dunks and the retweets. John

1:03:09

wasn't that he kinda showed

1:03:12

me a decent path

1:03:13

forward. Yeah. And I could

1:03:15

have studied under a person who had

1:03:17

a very different MO. I'm really lucky

1:03:18

that he came to me at a period of time

1:03:21

in my life. I'm thirty years old. I'm

1:03:23

just getting married. Like

1:03:25

he really shaped how I want to

1:03:27

carry myself and show business. The Trevor years what Trevor taught

1:03:30

me, he

1:03:31

is such an incredible I

1:03:33

don't think a lot of people give them credit because they see the dimples and

1:03:35

how handsome he is and they don't know how talented he

1:03:37

is. His perspective, his voice, his

1:03:40

impressions, there's things that he

1:03:42

has that I think the daily show in the

1:03:44

landscape needed. I know you chatted

1:03:46

with Larry Wilmore. Larry is also one of

1:03:48

those guys. We need people like that

1:03:50

in this space. And for the

1:03:52

longest time, you know, we were operating a

1:03:54

space with two Jimmy's, a Steven and John.

1:03:56

There were no

1:03:56

Trevor's. Yeah. And we need that. And I think America

1:03:59

needed that and needs that. I just like to see

1:04:01

him, like, it's finally it's, you know, that it

1:04:03

was a rough rough I mean, I just always felt

1:04:05

like the hot

1:04:06

poll. John Stewart It's really rough. I mean, it's awesome when

1:04:08

you follow someone who sucks. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he's a

1:04:10

fucking, you know, the same thing. Yeah. With diddy.

1:04:12

With Kjellborn, it was, you know, when John took

1:04:14

that over, it was a a middling show.

1:04:17

Yeah. It was a Middle East show on Comedy Central. But I remember

1:04:19

there was this photo campaign that Comedy Central used, I'll never forget this.

1:04:21

They didn't end up using it, but

1:04:23

it was just so telling

1:04:26

of what Trevor would have to go through. It was him in the suit, he's standing in

1:04:28

the studio, and he's wearing gigantic

1:04:32

shoes. And that's it. He's

1:04:34

got huge shoes to fill up. And that was

1:04:36

the defining thing that Trevor had to go through. Yeah.

1:04:38

And what Trevor what I got to witness

1:04:41

up close is he could have turned that office upside

1:04:43

down and he didn't.

1:04:45

Right. The media was ripping him,

1:04:48

the opinion columns were ripping

1:04:50

him, and I'll be honest, I had

1:04:52

private conversation with my wife, Bina.

1:04:54

I was like, hey, I don't think we're gonna be able to

1:04:56

renew the lease. Right. We had just

1:04:58

gotten married. And I was like,

1:05:00

there's a pretty good chance that he cleans

1:05:02

house. Or after these reviews come

1:05:04

in, he's just like, I gotta shake things up.

1:05:06

Right. Who wouldn't? And

1:05:08

he didn't. And he stayed the course and he let me Roy Wood

1:05:10

Jr. Klepper, Ronnie

1:05:11

Chang, Jessica Williams, really grow and and

1:05:14

become who we were gonna become. And

1:05:16

he never

1:05:18

stopped me from

1:05:18

becoming who I wanted to become, and I owe him a lot.

1:05:20

Well, that's part of why it's great to see. He's

1:05:23

finally like, like, that's happened

1:05:25

now of I got turned, the digital team is

1:05:27

incredible. And and the stuff he And he's

1:05:29

had He's he's broke

1:05:30

through. He's had his tentpole moments. Yeah. He's

1:05:33

had

1:05:33

his moments again of moral

1:05:35

clarity in times of social panic. Yeah. I

1:05:37

mean, he really was one of

1:05:40

the the go to voices

1:05:42

I think the

1:05:42

summer of twenty twenty when the George Floyd stuff was happening. And

1:05:45

the aha moment for me Minhaj with him when

1:05:47

he he had his act one Trump

1:05:50

is an African dictator. I thought that was such a great

1:05:52

-- Yeah. -- like, hey, you're not seeing this

1:05:54

this way. Let me stretch the way you

1:05:56

think about the

1:05:57

world. But when I saw that, I was

1:05:59

like, yeah, this guy is really special. To go to the

1:06:01

thing you said earlier, at the very beginning when you're

1:06:03

talking about, like, why having more time and

1:06:05

being able to kind of show various

1:06:08

things like that you're you're acting in good faith, that

1:06:10

you're sincere, that allows people to appreciate things.

1:06:12

Like, there's a formats that work better for some

1:06:14

people than for others. Yeah. There's a thing that that stuff

1:06:16

really is enhanced kind of create a good

1:06:18

feedback loop. Right? Where it's like he's doing stuff there that he

1:06:20

couldn't do on the show, but it kind of reflects

1:06:22

back on the show. It makes him bigger and and gives

1:06:24

him credibility and -- Yeah. -- builds the audience on the

1:06:25

show. It's really sites to find to see them finding a new model how

1:06:28

to make that work. Yeah. And I think that

1:06:30

is another thing that it's interesting when we

1:06:33

talk about comedy, Even as you're

1:06:35

playing old clips from many jokes per second you kind of have to

1:06:38

have? Yeah. It's like, exposition joke.

1:06:40

Exposition joke.

1:06:42

And one

1:06:44

of the things that's so tantamount to becoming a

1:06:46

great comedian is you can't just be

1:06:48

funny. Right. How interesting are you? Yeah.

1:06:51

And Trevor is a very interesting

1:06:54

person and a deeply interested person.

1:06:56

Yeah. He's interested in a lot of things. He's

1:06:58

very curious and

1:07:00

very thoughtful. And those those between the scenes convey

1:07:01

that. So I wanna play one daily show thing,

1:07:04

Hasson. Do you obviously did tons and tons of skits

1:07:06

on the

1:07:08

daily show? There was, thankfully, when you left in twenty eighteen,

1:07:10

there were some compilation tapes that were put

1:07:12

together that were kind of best

1:07:14

of asaminage on the Daily Show, and

1:07:16

and this popped up in one of those. It's

1:07:18

a a famous report that you did

1:07:20

with Justin Trudeau. And anything that gets

1:07:22

both you and Justin Trudeau into a

1:07:24

single

1:07:24

clip, that's something that our listeners wanna hear.

1:07:26

So let's play that and we'll talk about it on the other side. Okay. Canada. From

1:07:28

their awful beer to their god awful

1:07:32

Canadian tuxedos, they've got a lot to

1:07:34

apologize for. But now,

1:07:36

they've got a new reason to say sorry,

1:07:38

and it's coming to destroy a

1:07:40

mirror. I'm

1:07:41

talking about myriad refugees. Canada's

1:07:44

super progressive prime minister

1:07:45

Justin Trudeau has

1:07:48

already allowed more than twenty five thousand of these potential terrorists

1:07:51

into Canada. I decided to seek out

1:07:53

the man who started this mess. The

1:07:55

one Canadian

1:07:57

who could shut this whole thing down. Why are you trying to destroy

1:08:00

North America? You're letting anyone

1:08:02

walk in and

1:08:04

just up. North America was

1:08:06

built with people fleeing,

1:08:08

persecution, conflicts, wars, trying

1:08:10

to build a better life for themselves and their family.

1:08:12

It's too open. It's too free. Mister

1:08:14

JT, I went two customs. And they were like, what are you here to do? And I'm like, I am here

1:08:16

to roast Prime minister Justin Trudeau.

1:08:18

And do you know what the guy

1:08:20

said? Have

1:08:23

a nice day. Yeah. What

1:08:25

if I came here

1:08:28

to literally

1:08:29

roast you? You might find that a little more

1:08:32

difficult than you

1:08:35

than you think. Are

1:08:37

you gonna kick my ass

1:08:39

right now? Are you

1:08:41

gonna literally roast

1:08:42

me? No. Then we're fine. Those

1:08:45

are

1:08:45

the best moments on the show by the way. So much fun. Yeah. Those

1:08:47

are the best. Right? I mean, you're head John, the

1:08:47

head of state. Lisa, I mean, it's kind

1:08:49

of like Hasan It was

1:08:52

the best. It's the

1:08:54

best. Was that the first time you've heard anything like

1:08:56

that? Yeah. It was, like, not a good way through it, but I mean, going

1:08:58

out of doing those. Yeah. Yeah. And where you're sitting down with we're

1:09:02

the prime minister of the country. Yes. Right? Yeah. And

1:09:04

he's kind of like if you try to roast

1:09:06

me, I will kick your ass. Yeah. It's

1:09:09

a very Even the reaction shot on that, it's

1:09:11

a sincere reaction. To me, that's the best comedy where it's grounded in very real yet

1:09:13

funny

1:09:14

moment. The invention of that

1:09:18

part, that's which Colbert also -- Yes. --

1:09:20

and others have done many famous people have

1:09:22

done daily show correspondents. Like, with that

1:09:24

model --

1:09:25

Yeah. -- format, Hasan served them

1:09:26

really kind of idiot abroad, and you have

1:09:29

to commit to the bit. And you have

1:09:31

a satirical comedic click on flipping

1:09:33

the sort of local news package. You were

1:09:35

just, like, naturally, really good at it. I mean, to

1:09:37

the point where, like, there's a handful of people very

1:09:39

quickly. I mean, look, you you ended up talking to

1:09:41

White House correspondent in twenty seventeen. Right. Right. You started the Daily

1:09:43

Show in twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen. Right? Very I was

1:09:45

like, that's a very that that deserves your

1:09:47

speed --

1:09:48

Right. -- of, like, you went like, basically, no

1:09:50

one knew you in

1:09:51

America. Yes. Someone giving a speech to the White House correspondents.

1:09:53

Right. Is that weird? I mean, I was just a team and

1:09:55

a team and because, like, a lot of the King's

1:09:58

Jester is about exactly this and a much greater

1:09:59

scale, but -- Yeah. -- like with that, like, was like, wow. Like, all of a

1:10:01

sudden, I'm -- Yeah. -- this person is very

1:10:03

shocking because and

1:10:06

I didn't realize this. And when you talk to people who work at SNL, it's the

1:10:08

same thing too. When you work at

1:10:10

these sort of New York comedy

1:10:15

institutions, you don't see the light of day. Like, I mean that's sincerely. You get

1:10:17

to the office at nine fifteen and

1:10:19

you'll just stay there. And sometimes you'd stay

1:10:21

there through taping and when you're a young

1:10:23

correspondent and you're not getting on

1:10:25

the show and I went through that, you'll stay longer and be like, okay, I have to

1:10:27

research and I have to write pitches for tomorrow's nine fifteen.

1:10:30

So you won't leave And

1:10:33

so I didn't get an

1:10:35

understanding of the resonance, the

1:10:37

pieces we're having until several

1:10:40

years in. And then people are starting to recognize you

1:10:42

when you're, you know, in the West village or you're not the comedy seller. I'm like, oh my god, you're you're

1:10:44

on the daily show. You

1:10:46

just think you're doing a black

1:10:48

box theater show every night. Sure. The set is tiny on

1:10:50

604 What do you mean? It's just this tiny little Yeah. And you're just you're you're scrapping.

1:10:52

And you you talked to anybody

1:10:54

that's gonna let the daily

1:10:56

show. Every correspondent

1:10:58

or cast members, like, I'm just scrapping to get on this week. Right. And I think, you know, when you get to the point where

1:11:00

you're well enough

1:11:03

to other people

1:11:05

street. No. It kinda sucks. It's, like, always a weird

1:11:07

thing for anybody. Yeah. Like, this I mean, there's another thing though. You're suddenly being invited to

1:11:07

go and speak

1:11:10

at the White House course.

1:11:12

Like, did that surprise

1:11:13

you? When they asked you that you had gotten to that point that point. So

1:11:15

the year before I had done something called the RTCA dinner, the radio television,

1:11:17

the Earthcon Association. Yeah. Which is --

1:11:19

Yeah. --

1:11:20

like, It's

1:11:22

like the Sort of the bargain basement debase.

1:11:24

Yeah. The d league -- Yeah. -- before you

1:11:25

and you try to play it and maybe you get some of

1:11:28

the halls of like, brought way. Yeah. Way

1:11:30

off, Robert. Yeah. He's over in Jersey. Yeah. And I did that funny enough. And

1:11:32

it's it's weird. I don't

1:11:34

know if it's destiny or kissimate.

1:11:37

I had to do that the week

1:11:39

the Pulse nightclub shooting happened. And so it was this weird

1:11:41

thing of, like, how are we gonna be funny in this

1:11:44

very tense

1:11:47

strange moment in the country. And again, it's This

1:11:50

is where

1:11:50

timing and being a comedian and

1:11:54

understanding how to convey the right message

1:11:56

at the right time. Funny enough, so

1:11:58

many city members of Congress were

1:12:01

there and connecting the dots between, yeah, I'm

1:12:03

gonna do fifteen minutes of jokes, but I would be

1:12:05

remiss if I did not point out

1:12:07

the NRA's involvement

1:12:10

with Congress. Right. And the decision makers that could have prevented something

1:12:12

as terrible as the Pulse nightclub

1:12:14

shooting -- Mhmm. -- happening that

1:12:18

week. Yeah. You know? And that became

1:12:20

again another lunch pen

1:12:22

moment. And I think the WHCA saw

1:12:24

that -- Yeah. -- Jeff Hasan, and

1:12:26

then invited me the next year to do So

1:12:28

you go to do it. It's it's

1:12:30

talking about timing. It's the first correspondence to her. Yeah. The age of Trump. Yes.

1:12:32

Trump is not

1:12:35

in attendance. Right? I'll set the stage for

1:12:37

this just because, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna play just a little bit of it, but -- Yeah. -- you

1:12:39

say it's verbatim. You have to ask

1:12:42

not to order Donald

1:12:43

Trump? Yes. Yes. Which is like,

1:12:45

okay. Like, wait, what? Because I've been doing some of those dinners.

1:12:47

I'll never go again. If God, there's smiles

1:12:47

on me. I'll never have to go to one of those dinners again.

1:12:49

But but that's a weird

1:12:51

request. Yeah. Number one. To

1:12:55

the president's not there. So that's also weird. Yes. Not Rosa, which is

1:12:57

not there. Yeah. Very strange set of things. And

1:12:59

then you do a great smart thing,

1:13:01

which you've made fun of the press. A lot, which is

1:13:03

always all good. And you did this thing where you

1:13:05

talked about how the press were basically now, like, honoring

1:13:08

minorities. Alright. And

1:13:10

kind of in the core I thought that in some ways was kind of the

1:13:12

heart of it and some ways to sort of sense. Right. What's

1:13:14

the point? Yeah. How did you get to

1:13:17

that?

1:13:17

It's always working backwards.

1:13:19

Yeah. It's the hey, so what is

1:13:21

the thing I'm really

1:13:23

trying to say? And we actually started with that. And it's funny,

1:13:25

Prashanth and I, we kind of

1:13:27

wrote that down. Yeah. Of

1:13:31

the, hey, your job is more

1:13:33

important than ever. You're in a contentious relationship

1:13:35

with the president. When one of you

1:13:37

messes up, it somehow is reflective of

1:13:39

the entire Which was the Gerada Rivera joke. Yes. And

1:13:41

I was like, oh, this is what it feels like to be

1:13:44

most of them is what it feels like to

1:13:46

be a minority. Mhmm. Again, comedy is all about

1:13:49

similarly a metaphor. This is like that. Right. And the the fastest you can get

1:13:51

to that core distillation, that espresso -- Right. -- once

1:13:54

you have that grab onto it,

1:13:56

man, and

1:13:59

then start building from there funny enough for a friend, Steve Boto.

1:14:01

Mhmm. He was a person. He was a big adviser to

1:14:03

me. He was a show runner at the

1:14:05

Daily Show at the time. And he was this is

1:14:07

what's most interest Yeah. I'm here asked Steve all the time and I

1:14:09

and shout out to all the OG's who have, like,

1:14:11

helped me and mentored me, hey,

1:14:13

am I on the fast

1:14:15

train to naivetown?

1:14:17

Because young comics do have that. And Steve was like, this is good. Yeah. There

1:14:19

were some other takes we had. He's

1:14:21

like, cut that. That's not

1:14:24

great. Yeah. And

1:14:26

I'm not even gonna get into that

1:14:27

stuff, but he was like, this is really interesting and

1:14:29

unique, and only you can pull it off. Everybody in

1:14:31

their life needs to see Boto. Yes.

1:14:33

You do. Still

1:14:34

do the

1:14:34

last edit. You really do. You really do. Steve's really great at that. This this thing, you're basically like

1:14:37

you know. Trump

1:14:40

has made made for the press and

1:14:41

anime. Very basic level. The press and anime is more. So we're by no worries in that sense. And --

1:14:43

Yeah. -- the treats was

1:14:43

if you're all the

1:14:46

same, we can't it's sanctioned. All the

1:14:48

president's, all big news. Right. And the joke that you mentioned, which is I hate

1:14:50

to say it right now, you're all being represented by her all over

1:14:54

the country. That's right. Also, the not seeing Steve Bannon. Not Steve Bannon.

1:14:56

Not Steve Bannon. Fantastic. You had a

1:14:58

funny, good idea. Right? Just a little

1:15:00

clever. And you went after

1:15:02

a CNN. You went after Then you

1:15:04

get to the

1:15:05

end, and this is what happens. I'll play this part, which is you have said,

1:15:07

you then repeat that you rise not to roast Donald Trump. And

1:15:09

then this is what happens at the very

1:15:11

end of this

1:15:13

We are

1:15:14

in a very strange situation where there's a very

1:15:15

combative relationship between the press

1:15:19

and the president. But

1:15:24

now that you guys are

1:15:26

minorities, just

1:15:27

for this

1:15:27

moment, you might understand

1:15:29

the position I was in it, and

1:15:31

it's the

1:15:31

same position a

1:15:32

lot of minority kids feel

1:15:34

in this country. And it's You know, do I

1:15:37

come up

1:15:40

here and just try to

1:15:42

fit in and not ruffle any

1:15:43

feathers? Or do I say

1:15:46

how I really

1:15:48

feel? Because this event is about

1:15:50

celebrating the first amendment in free speech. Free

1:15:53

speech

1:15:55

is the foundation of an open

1:15:58

and liberal democracy, from college campuses to the White House,

1:16:00

only

1:16:04

in America can a first

1:16:06

generation Indian American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun

1:16:11

of the president The orange

1:16:17

man behind the

1:16:20

Muslim band

1:16:22

And it's

1:16:23

assigned to the rest of the world. It's

1:16:26

this amazing tradition that shows the entire world

1:16:28

that even the president

1:16:30

is not beyond the reach of

1:16:34

the first

1:16:38

amendment.

1:16:40

But

1:16:40

the president didn't

1:16:42

show up because Donald Trump doesn't care about free

1:16:44

speech.

1:16:47

The man who

1:16:47

tweets everything that enters his

1:16:50

head refuses to acknowledge

1:16:52

the amendment that allows him

1:16:54

to do

1:16:55

it. Think about it. It's almost is

1:16:56

it? Eleven? It's eleven PM right

1:16:58

now in four hours. Donald

1:17:02

Trump will be tweeting about how bad Nikki bombed

1:17:04

at this dinner.

1:17:07

And he'll

1:17:09

be doing

1:17:11

it completely

1:17:11

sober. Did you

1:17:13

feel okay in that

1:17:15

room? There there were, like,

1:17:17

there was some you were

1:17:19

great, I thought. Just like Steven was great and Steven

1:17:21

yeah. Well, it's Steven. There were some quiet moments inside that gate. Yeah. So

1:17:23

if I'm

1:17:23

gonna be just really critical and harsh and Steve would

1:17:25

do this too, he'd be like you were talking

1:17:28

too fast and

1:17:30

you were very nervous the first six minutes. Yeah.

1:17:32

And then I kinda hit my

1:17:34

stride around minute seven --

1:17:35

Yeah. -- and it started

1:17:38

to feel more natural and I kinda

1:17:40

dropped into the room. Even that moment that you just played

1:17:42

right now, like, what time is it eleven? Yeah.

1:17:46

This is gonna sound so dorky.

1:17:48

Those are those comedy moments I wanna keep working

1:17:50

on. Right. Of just like, hey, this isn't a

1:17:52

scripted thing. This is just me being real

1:17:54

in the room. And like the jettis that I look up to, they're

1:17:56

like that

1:17:57

ninety

1:17:57

percent of the time where it's

1:17:59

like man fuck the

1:18:02

script. They could just be in

1:18:04

that, it's eleven. Right? Like, they could eat and then get on

1:18:06

stage, third that relax, but that room is tough. And Stephen

1:18:09

was the one who told

1:18:11

me, you're not gonna do great.

1:18:13

And Seth Meyer. Colbert told me that. Yeah. And Seth Myers told me that as well. Yeah. You're

1:18:15

not gonna do great. Yeah. So just remember you're playing

1:18:19

the

1:18:19

camera one. But I'm glad I said

1:18:22

what I said at the end. Yeah. And, again, I gotta thank

1:18:24

Odo for helping me

1:18:25

with this and Prashant being the

1:18:28

head writer there.

1:18:30

You know, they say about Rick

1:18:32

Rubin, they say, have you heard this? He's not

1:18:34

a producer? He's a reducer? Some of my

1:18:37

favorite comedy writers and people that I work

1:18:39

with will just lift some of the extraneous stuff that I sometimes have in script that allow those

1:18:41

moments to land with the

1:18:43

level of clarity

1:18:46

And it's

1:18:47

wild that idea of do I totally

1:18:49

line? Do I not ruffle any feathers?

1:18:51

It's interesting. It's just something that I've

1:18:53

always kind of brushed against my

1:18:55

entire career

1:18:56

because I had that same moment with Ellen,

1:18:58

with pronouncing my name. Yeah. And, you know, going down my dad told

1:19:00

me, like, I'm on the

1:19:02

phone with the producer and I'm

1:19:05

feeling a certain way. And I remember my dad and my mom, they drove down. My mom's a huge Ellen fan. Yeah.

1:19:07

She works at the VA. She, like, took

1:19:10

the day off and went

1:19:12

down. And

1:19:14

out of, like, a seven minute interview, four of it

1:19:16

is just like, okay. Let's just talk about can

1:19:18

we pronounce my name right? Because if we

1:19:21

can say Benedict Cumberbatch perfectly fine. We've we're just

1:19:23

walking around and saying Leonardo da Caprios, if that's

1:19:25

a normal sounding name. So can we

1:19:27

just do Hasan? Like, can we,

1:19:29

you know, And I remember that it was the

1:19:31

same thing. My parents were very upset

1:19:34

that, like, why are you making

1:19:36

a scene about this

1:19:37

stuff? Yeah. You know? Yeah. This is at the point you're basically it's

1:19:39

not quite what you like to do, but it's getting close.

1:19:41

It's getting close. You

1:19:43

know, you're getting

1:19:44

close turning the corner. Yeah.

1:19:46

And I think we'd be fair to say that the period after that is, like, I do you think of this as a homecoming King,

1:19:48

Patriot Act, and and King Jester

1:19:50

are kind of of a

1:19:52

peace? Right?

1:19:54

Yeah. That's the different era. Right? Yeah. Well, you know, funny

1:19:57

enough this happened and then homecoming king

1:19:59

came out a month later.

1:20:01

Right. And so I think it was

1:20:03

my real introduction to America. Yeah. Capital A

1:20:05

America. Yeah. People who don't watch The Daily Show on

1:20:07

Instagram and YouTube, it's like a

1:20:11

lot of people watch the correspondence center. It gets put on the cover

1:20:13

of the Washington Post -- Yeah. -- New York Times

1:20:15

and stuff like that. So

1:20:18

it was my introduction to my

1:20:20

political comedy and then homecoming king like my

1:20:22

personal my personal story. It was like my

1:20:25

X Men origin story of This is who I am, and this is

1:20:27

my story in New Braun America. We are gonna take

1:20:29

one more

1:20:30

break, and we'll be back with more,

1:20:34

Hasan on how?

1:20:43

And we're back

1:20:46

with Hassan Minaj on

1:20:48

Helen High Water. Hassan Minhaj just

1:20:50

before we went to break, you said,

1:20:53

this thing about in the new brown

1:20:55

America and was coming out, introducing yourself

1:20:57

to America on a broader

1:21:00

stage this this

1:21:03

special widely, heralded, much loved,

1:21:05

massively lauded, and not

1:21:08

really like

1:21:10

anything anybody I would say has ever really seen

1:21:12

or heard in a Netflix comedy special

1:21:14

before. It was unique in a

1:21:16

thousand and I wanna talk about all

1:21:18

of them after we play a little bit of sound

1:21:20

just to give you a flavor of what I

1:21:22

mean. This is you in homecoming king

1:21:26

talking about some very culturally racially, ethnically specific

1:21:28

facts about the milieu in

1:21:30

which you grew up and

1:21:32

the worlds that you know

1:21:34

so well I think as soon as people hear it, you'll be like, that's really

1:21:36

funny and really powerful and

1:21:39

really different from anything

1:21:41

I've ever heard a stand up a comedian or

1:21:43

a model August ever do before. So let's play

1:21:45

that right now from Homecoming

1:21:47

King. Look, immigrants aren't gonna hit

1:21:49

their children the way you

1:21:51

guys do. Americans Hit their kids on

1:21:54

the arm and bruise their body. Immigrants slap you across the face and bruise your soul. of

1:21:56

the mind. General and brown

1:21:58

kids get slapped at birthday

1:22:02

party's every brown birthday party. And

1:22:04

usually,

1:22:05

it's the kid whose birthday

1:22:07

is, and we stand there. And we

1:22:09

pointed and we laugh We go, ah,

1:22:11

biju got slap on his birthday.

1:22:14

And that's what makes us

1:22:16

tough and resilient.

1:22:18

And it's why we become cardiologists and when

1:22:20

spelling bees. Right? Slapping is

1:22:22

important. It elevates your game.

1:22:24

Have you ever seen

1:22:26

any kid when the spelling bee? Incredible

1:22:28

ice water

1:22:30

in the

1:22:31

veins, Kobe. That kid's

1:22:33

not gonna choke on

1:22:35

camera. He's been lapped

1:22:37

on camera. Of course, he can smell canadle. Look

1:22:39

at that face. Nothing. Nothing.

1:22:45

He's twelve years old. Nothing. This kid just won thirty thousand

1:22:47

dollars cash. Nothing.

1:22:53

This is a different you --

1:22:55

Yeah. -- than most America knew. Yes. What felt

1:22:57

necessary about putting that you out? Yeah. And what felt scary

1:23:00

about it? Like,

1:23:03

what was the calculus there? Because all the Daily Show stuff is

1:23:05

an example of a way, like, I could talk

1:23:07

about presidents and rap stars. I could talk

1:23:09

about I think, like, I'm not

1:23:11

talking about me. You can figure out who I am on the basis

1:23:13

of the way I talk about it. But I'm not really talking about me. I can even tell some stories about me along the way, but I'm

1:23:15

not really talking about me. Yeah. This is where you go. I'm gonna

1:23:17

make a think about me. And I'm gonna talk about stuff

1:23:20

that, like, a

1:23:22

lot of people don't normally talk about. And you know that this

1:23:24

topic area is gonna be something that a lot of

1:23:26

comedy fans are gonna go. I never heard anything like this

1:23:28

before. I hate it. You're gonna open a door to a

1:23:30

culture. I know nothing about. Yeah. So what's going through your head is like, this is

1:23:32

what I'm gonna do, this is what I hope to accomplish,

1:23:34

and this is what scares me about

1:23:38

it. Yeah. I think you know, funny enough, you

1:23:40

had the

1:23:41

great mic for bigly on the podcast, but

1:23:43

I think I had kind of failed

1:23:45

as a traditional stand up to

1:23:47

be candid with you. And what I

1:23:49

mean by that is that when I look at some of the

1:23:51

pure stand ups that I really love that can just sit down on stool and

1:23:53

talk. Michael Chey,

1:23:55

Michelle Wolf, chappell,

1:23:58

rock, you can put them

1:24:01

up at an improv to drink

1:24:03

minimum in a basement and they

1:24:05

can rock for sixty minutes. And

1:24:07

I think while I can do

1:24:09

that at a pretty proficient

1:24:12

level, I

1:24:14

think It was Mike and Colin Quinn who really introduced

1:24:16

me to the dynamic range that was

1:24:18

possible in comedy. Mhmm. And what they

1:24:21

were doing in the theater space between micro

1:24:23

biglia Colin Quinn and Beau Bernham when I

1:24:25

saw what they were doing to stretch

1:24:27

the genre, they really inspired me

1:24:29

and I was able to

1:24:31

follow Mike's path from doing the first prom

1:24:33

story that became the tentpole and homecoming king at the

1:24:36

moth, taking that to the Sundance

1:24:38

Labs, developing it at the Sundance

1:24:40

Labs, under

1:24:43

the tutelage of Michelle Satter, and

1:24:45

then taking it to Cherry Lant Theatre,

1:24:47

all while I was at the

1:24:49

Daily Show. You know? And so that was something

1:24:51

that was just brewing underneath. Yeah. And I

1:24:54

was never able it it was

1:24:56

too big to fit in an act

1:24:58

too.

1:24:58

It would never fit

1:24:59

in an act too. There was so much in

1:25:01

me that I wanted to share.

1:25:02

It was a risk. I didn't know how

1:25:04

it would resonate. There are stand up purest that

1:25:07

are like this isn't purest stand up.

1:25:09

Right. But

1:25:10

then again, it's really funny that

1:25:12

when you look back on anything, you

1:25:14

talk about Carlin, I don't think it was pure stand up

1:25:16

to be a supreme court case either. Yeah. Like, I

1:25:18

don't think that was what was intended for

1:25:21

jazz club and night club comedians to do. So

1:25:23

I didn't know it at the time. You're just trying to express yourself as authentically

1:25:25

as possible, but I think I could

1:25:28

surmise that it resonated because for a

1:25:30

long time there was a huge group of

1:25:32

people that did

1:25:34

not have their experience synthesized in seventy two minutes that way. Yeah. And I think

1:25:36

that was a calling

1:25:38

card for New Braun America.

1:25:43

Because so many people that I've met in the years since

1:25:45

it came out were like that special

1:25:47

spoke to me. My

1:25:49

life was so that you know. Right. The king's

1:25:51

gesture is very different because it's just

1:25:53

so what I've lived through. Yes. Yes.

1:25:56

But I feel like New Braun

1:25:58

American rally behind it because of that model.

1:26:00

Right. And

1:26:00

that's,

1:26:00

like, if you were thinking about, like, how you've evolved, you

1:26:02

just laid it out. You're just kind of, like, you

1:26:04

know This is who I am. Right. And the

1:26:06

king's gesture is why do I believe what I believe.

1:26:09

Yes. Right. It's really about that. Yeah.

1:26:11

What is my relationship to

1:26:13

jokes? And how far am I willing to take

1:26:15

a

1:26:15

joke? Right. Yeah. The prime night story. Sure. But just because you mentioned it, I could have done there's another

1:26:17

story in there. The nine eleven story show

1:26:19

with the with

1:26:22

Camry wheel as well. Yeah. Very Not comedy.

1:26:24

Yeah. Yeah. Not comedy. But but just

1:26:27

yeah. I wanna play a

1:26:29

part a homecoming king that you referred

1:26:31

to a second ago, Hassan, where you talked about

1:26:33

a tentpole story, which is the prom night story in

1:26:36

in homecoming and

1:26:38

king and and you referred to it as being kind of in

1:26:40

the tradition of microbiglia and and

1:26:42

Colin Quinn. Now that story was was a

1:26:44

thing you developed at the moth and and at

1:26:47

Sundance Labs eventually took it to Cherry Lane, the theater, and that that

1:26:49

became an important a key element.

1:26:51

Maybe the key element of

1:26:53

the entire show

1:26:55

in Homecoming King are a bunch of examples of things

1:26:57

that I could use here where you kind of depart from

1:27:00

comedy. They're not about making people laugh. There may be

1:27:02

a few moments of laughter in them, but they

1:27:04

are actually much

1:27:06

more about drama and about emotion and about impact. And this prom night story is a very, very powerful example of that.

1:27:09

So

1:27:11

let's play that and then we'll talk

1:27:13

about it and the work it does for you and why it's here and why it works so well on the other

1:27:15

side. I parked

1:27:20

my bike. I'm walking up to the doorstep, and I'm

1:27:22

graduating the doorbell. I said, oh, no. Wait. Take this in. Thirty second time

1:27:24

out. Do you understand what

1:27:26