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Let's create. You're

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listening to Comedy Central. From

1:03

the most trusted journalists at

1:05

Comedy Central, it's America's only

1:07

source for news. This

1:10

is The Daily Show with your

1:12

host, Michael Kostas. All

1:29

right, yes, welcome to The Daily Show.

1:31

DJ Michael Kosta, we've got so much

1:33

to talk about tonight. The squad is

1:36

down a man. The Supreme Court is

1:38

cool with bribery and a special appearance

1:40

from Triumph, the insult comic dog. Let's

1:42

get into the headlines. Let's

1:48

kick things off with the primaries

1:50

yesterday in New York. Progressive Jamal

1:52

Bowman lost reelection to his opponent,

1:55

Money. And in Colorado, Congresswoman

1:57

Lauren Boebert won. fondling

2:00

her date at Beetlejuice the Musical last

2:02

year. But

2:04

what can I say in the end? She won this

2:06

race handily. I

2:09

guess she's just really good at working the base. Handjob.

2:17

But the biggest politics news of the

2:19

day didn't come from the primaries. It

2:21

came from the Supreme Court, who just

2:23

made it even easier to bribe elected

2:25

officials. Oh, sorry. Tip elected officials. Breaking

2:28

news from Washington. The United States Supreme

2:30

Court has overturned the high profile bribery

2:32

conviction of former Indiana Mayor James Snyder.

2:34

In a six to three opinion, the

2:37

court ruled that gifts to public officials

2:39

can only be considered illegal bribes if

2:41

they're given before the official act, not

2:43

after. Justice Kavanaugh wrote that

2:46

it was not a crime for politicians

2:48

to, quote, accept gratuities that may be

2:50

given as a token of appreciation after

2:52

the official act. Ah,

2:54

I see. So if you give a politician

2:57

money before they do a favor, it's a

2:59

bribe. But if you give it to them

3:01

after, the Supreme Court says it's a gratuity

3:03

because they think I'm an idiot. I mean,

3:06

seriously, a gratuity? Tipping

3:08

culture is already out of control. I got

3:10

a tip at the coffee shops. I got

3:12

a tip at the dry cleaner. I got

3:14

a tip when I get takeout, even though

3:16

I picked it up and I took it

3:18

out. That's why they

3:20

call it takeout. OK, fine, fine. But if

3:23

my state senator turns that little screen around

3:25

on me, I'm going to lose my mind,

3:27

all right? I'm

3:29

still going to give 20%, but I'm going to be pissed about

3:31

it. It seems

3:33

like every few months, the Supreme Court makes

3:35

it easier and easier to bribe government officials.

3:38

And I don't know why they would do that, but

3:40

as soon as Clarence Thomas gets back from the Maldives,

3:42

we can ask him. Let's

3:45

move on to the tech world and

3:47

talk about artificial intelligence. AI

3:49

is everywhere these days, which is

3:51

interesting because it also fucking sucks,

3:54

you know? It gives me

3:56

bad Google searches. It gives me fake

3:58

Amazon products. It keeps jacking. I'm generating

4:00

images of women with six fingers

4:02

when I very clearly said I

4:05

wanted six nipples. But

4:08

the tech companies won't stop shoving it down

4:10

our throats because they need

4:12

something new to sell to us because

4:14

we didn't go for the metaverse or

4:16

self-driving cars or those weird cyborg helmets.

4:18

So now I can't sit on a

4:20

toilet without it being like, hey, let

4:22

AI flush your poop for you. I

4:25

mean, sometimes it shoves the poop back up your

4:27

butt, but it's getting better. And

4:31

some AI companies are now offering

4:33

songs made by AI. But

4:36

now the people who actually make music, they're fighting

4:38

back. The world's biggest record

4:40

labels are teaming up to sue

4:42

two prominent AI music-making companies. Universal

4:45

Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and

4:47

Warner Music Group are among the

4:49

companies that filed lawsuits against the

4:51

AI companies. The lawsuits accused the

4:54

companies of illegally using copyrighted sound

4:56

recordings to train their AI, raising

4:59

concerns about the impact on artists'

5:01

rights and earnings. In a statement,

5:03

Suno's chief executive defended his company's

5:06

product, saying that it's, quote, designed

5:08

to generate completely new outputs, not

5:10

to memorize or regurgitate preexisting content.

5:13

Oh, all right. Well, if the chief executive

5:16

of the AI company said they're not stealing,

5:18

that's good enough for me. You know? If

5:21

the songs it's creating are completely new, then we're

5:23

good. So let's move on. You

5:27

know, maybe it's better to listen to one of

5:30

these songs, you know, just to see. Lawyers

5:33

for the record labels wrote the prompt

5:35

60's British Rock, male voice, by

5:37

a band that rhymes with the Smeedles, since

5:39

the generators do not allow naming specific artists.

5:42

Still, the record labels say the AI generator spit

5:45

out a Beatles song. Imagine

5:47

there's no heaven It's

5:49

easy if you try Wow.

5:53

That was supposed to be a

5:55

completely new song. Those were

5:57

the exact words to imagine. The AI could have

5:59

been... at least use the thesaurus, don't you think?

6:02

Envision there's no heaven. It's

6:05

easy if you endeavor to. Who

6:09

wants this? Who

6:11

wants this? I got AI to

6:13

create a brand new song for me. Why?

6:15

There's no shortage of music. Did you finish

6:18

Spotify? But

6:20

I can make a brand new Taylor Swift song.

6:23

She drops a double album every two weeks. We

6:25

don't need it. But

6:27

the song does bring up an important question, should

6:30

AI be involved in art? And

6:32

the answer is no, it shouldn't. We

6:35

need to decide as a society that AI, it's

6:37

not allowed to make art. It

6:39

can help make an elevator go

6:42

faster or analyze medical data, that's

6:44

fine. Believe art to human artists.

6:46

Because, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

6:49

Yeah. Yeah. Human

6:52

artists, they have the things

6:54

that computers will never have.

6:56

Terrible parents, right? That

6:58

motivates great art. The

7:01

bottom line is no matter how good AI

7:03

gets, it'll never need to prove that it's

7:05

just as deserving of love as its sister

7:07

who went to medical school. Moving

7:11

on to a story that is truly out of this

7:13

world. And it's gonna stay out of this world considerably

7:15

longer than it would like. The

7:17

return of Boeing's Starliner and its

7:19

crew has been delayed again. Veteran

7:22

astronauts, which Wilmore and Sonny Williams

7:24

were only supposed to be up in

7:26

orbit for a week. They've now been

7:29

up there for about a month, if

7:31

you can believe it, as NASA and

7:33

Boeing investigate helium leaks and thruster issues

7:35

on the Starliner spacecraft. Just hours after

7:37

Starliner's June 5th launch came the first

7:40

sign of trouble. Starliner, looks

7:42

like we picked up a couple more helium leaks.

7:44

All right, we're ready to copy. Find

7:47

out exactly what you mean by picked up another

7:49

helium leak. This

7:52

guy is very chill considering his

7:54

spaceship has

7:56

sprung a leak. If my

7:59

wife called me to say, Well, we've got

8:01

a few fire situations at the house. I

8:04

don't think I'd be like, copy, let's chat when

8:06

you've got some more details about whatever the fuck

8:08

that means. Um... Just

8:11

so you know, there's no real danger to these astronauts.

8:13

They're gonna be fine. But a leaky

8:15

pipe, that's such a boring Earth thing to

8:17

go wrong, you know? Once you're in space,

8:20

you should be dealing with problems like a

8:22

quantum overload in the dilithium crystals. Not

8:24

a leaky pipe. That's something you call

8:26

the Super 4. You

8:29

know what? That's probably why it's taking so long to fix. They

8:31

call for the Super and NASA was like, sorry, he's

8:33

a little busy. We can send his son. Uh,

8:36

no. Tomorrow's fine.

8:39

Tomorrow's fine. Either

8:41

way, I hope they can fix this. Imagine if

8:43

the helium leaks got really bad and they had

8:45

to say goodbye to their families, like... Tell

8:55

my wife I love her. My

8:58

life is so precious. How

9:04

am I gonna do the rest of the act now? But

9:08

good luck to the astronauts, Butch Wilmore

9:10

and Sonny Williams. Butch

9:14

Wilmore and Sonny Williams, who I'm confident will

9:16

figure this out because they have incredible astronaut

9:19

names, don't they? Does

9:21

NASA screen for that kind of thing? They're like,

9:23

well, your physics scores are the highest we've ever

9:25

seen, but unfortunately, we just can't put a Braden

9:27

on the moon. Sorry,

9:31

I'm getting a little dizzy right now. By

9:35

the way, you heard right. That spaceship,

9:37

it's made by Boeing. Jesus

9:40

Christ. It must be

9:42

so embarrassing to work at Boeing right now. Their

9:45

engineers are meeting people at parties like, oh,

9:47

me? No, I'm Diddy's publicist. For

9:52

more on the situation at the International

9:54

Space Station, let's go there live with

9:56

Ronnie Chang. Ron,

10:00

you're floating. Ron,

10:04

you're embedded with the cool. What is the

10:06

mood up there like, Ron? It's

10:08

fine. Costa, everyone needs to calm down,

10:10

okay? This isn't the Mets. These

10:13

people are professionals. Yeah, okay, well,

10:15

a couple of leaks, but they're all fixed and we'll

10:17

be back on Earth soon. That's

10:19

great. That's great news. And perfect timing because

10:21

the Trump-Biden debate is tomorrow, and we need you back to

10:24

watch the whole thing. Oh,

10:26

right. The debates are

10:28

tomorrow. Oh, yeah, they're very, very excited

10:31

for that. Oh,

10:33

oh, wait, what's that? What

10:35

did you say? Real astronaut right over there?

10:38

Uh-huh. Oh, wow, Michael, they

10:40

just discovered a new leak. It's going to take

10:42

exactly one more day to fix it. That's

10:46

terrible news. I mean, that means you'll miss

10:48

the debate. Oh, I know, I know. I

10:51

really wanted to cover two men trying to

10:53

out-dementure each other, but

10:57

unfortunately, now I have to stay up here

10:59

and eat that cool astronaut ice cream. Oh,

11:01

no. Okay, that's okay. I mean, you'll

11:03

be back in plenty of time to report at the

11:05

convention, so that's good. Uh-huh, uh-huh,

11:08

great. Awesome, awesome.

11:13

Oh, shit, Michael, it's been a

11:15

malfunction. It

11:18

looks like the antimatter crypto Wi-Fi

11:20

is down. We're

11:24

going to take a couple months to fix whatever that was.

11:26

Oh, my God. That's terrible.

11:28

I know, I'm so bummed. I

11:30

really wanted to be in Chicago

11:32

in the summer with the team,

11:35

but I

11:37

guess we'll have to be up here until then.

11:39

All right, you know, just take all the time

11:41

you need, and you'll be back in time for

11:43

the rest of the campaign season. Lots of opportunities

11:45

to report on Trump and Biden. Ronnie,

11:48

Ronnie, Ronnie. I'm

11:53

an alien. I have taken over

11:55

the ship. It will

11:58

take Ronnie exactly six years. It

12:00

takes months to defeat me. Leave

12:03

him alone and send potato chips.

12:05

Ronnie. All

12:07

right, that's obviously a sock puppet. If

12:10

you don't wanna come back, just say so. I don't wanna

12:12

come back. Okay. Ronnie

12:14

Chiang, everyone, when we come back, triumph the insort, Tyler's

12:16

not gonna do it. Don't go away.

12:25

Hey,

12:31

everybody, Jon Stewart here. I am here

12:33

to tell you about my new podcast,

12:36

The Weekly Show. It's gonna be coming

12:38

out every Thursday.

12:41

So exciting. You'll be saying to yourself,

12:44

TGID, thank

12:46

God it's Thursday. We're gonna be talking

12:48

about all the things that hopefully obsess

12:50

you in the same way that they

12:52

obsess me. The election, economics,

12:56

earnings calls. What are they

12:58

talking about on these earnings

13:00

calls? We're gonna be talking about ingredient

13:03

to bread ratio on

13:05

sandwiches. And I

13:07

know that I listed that fourth, but

13:11

in importance, it's probably

13:13

second. I know you have

13:15

a lot of options as far as

13:17

podcasts go, but how many of them

13:19

come out on Thursday? I

13:22

mean, talk about innovative.

13:25

Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

13:27

wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome

13:32

back to The Daily Show. You

13:43

know, as crazy as it might seem, there are still a

13:46

lot of voters who aren't sure whether

13:48

to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. So we

13:50

sent a special correspondent to interview some of them. All

13:53

right, welcome to our focus group

13:55

of undecided voters. Thank you for

13:57

coming to our marketing research offices.

14:00

I want to stress that there

14:03

is nobody masturbating behind this two-way

14:05

mirror, no matter what you

14:07

hear. So, as

14:09

undecided, let's go around the room. Tell

14:12

us your name and what your f***ing problem

14:14

is. We've

14:17

never had worse choices, in my opinion. I

14:19

don't like either candidate. Same as other people

14:21

said, I'm not really crazy about either candidate.

14:24

Okay, I see some of you feel

14:26

you need more information about

14:28

the candidates, and I get it. We

14:30

know so little about Trump and Biden.

14:33

Apart from their campaign issues, their

14:35

actions as president, their handling

14:38

of the global pandemic, their criminal

14:40

indictments, whom they've showered with, and

14:43

a very detailed description of Trump's penis

14:45

from a former porn star. But

14:47

we still don't know. Okay,

14:51

if you're leaning towards Biden, please

14:54

raise your hand. If

14:56

you're leaning towards Biden, if

14:58

you're leaning towards Trump, raise your hand. Okay,

15:02

raise it at the 45-degree angle, please.

15:06

Little straighter, don't bend the elbow.

15:10

That's good. It's

15:12

a Hitler joke, you

15:15

see, because you

15:17

support a fascist. All right,

15:19

we're having fun. Okay,

15:22

raise your hand if

15:24

you feel like voters are

15:26

easily manipulated. Who

15:30

doesn't think so? Okay,

15:33

now lower your hands. Okay,

15:36

now raise them again. Okay,

15:38

now lower them again. Raise

15:41

them up one more time. Raise

15:43

both hands. Now

15:45

lower one. Now

15:47

everyone say, I cannot be manipulated.

15:53

Which candidate would you have a beer with? Which

15:57

candidate would you go to a baseball game with?

16:00

Biden. Biden. Trump. Trump.

16:04

Which candidate would you let eat sugar cubes

16:06

out of your hand? Biden.

16:09

Biden. Why? More

16:11

gummy? Less likely to bite

16:13

you? Yeah. Gentle.

16:15

Gentle. Gentle.

16:17

Which candidate would

16:19

you want to be behind in a

16:21

human centipede? And keep in mind, no

16:24

matter what you answer, we will all think you're

16:26

disgusting. Okay,

16:28

this is tough, guys. I mean, I sense

16:30

you find yourselves undecided about a lot of

16:32

things. My problem is I'm not sure which

16:34

one's going to die first. Thomas,

16:37

I just have to ask, why are you

16:39

struggling with this decision when you had no

16:41

problem deciding to leave the barbershop with those

16:43

sideburns? Seriously, it's like

16:45

my mom always used to say, shit

16:48

or get off the lawn. It's

16:50

your civic duty. Yes. Would

16:53

you agree with that? Yes, I would agree with that.

16:55

What is your gut telling you? I mean, other than

16:57

seat belts do not come in my size. I

17:00

can't trust Biden or Trump. Okay, I bet you

17:02

do. So I like RFK? RFK

17:05

Jr., interesting. Also known as the

17:07

evidence that the Kennedys f*** each

17:09

other. Okay,

17:11

maybe this will help you guys decide between

17:13

the candidates. Here are two

17:15

sandwiches, all right? One

17:18

is old and moldy, and

17:20

the other has chlamydia.

17:24

Raise your hand if you're eating the

17:26

sandwich on its deathbed, or

17:29

raise your left hand if you want

17:31

the sandwich that we have on tape using

17:33

the n-word. Okay,

17:35

they're having their first debate. Do you

17:38

hope the moderators will ask Trump and

17:40

Biden the really tough questions? Like, do

17:43

you know where you are? And

17:45

can you breathe on this mirror? They're

17:47

probably going to call out each other on stuff. Both

17:50

sides are constantly saying, this

17:53

is the end of democracy.

17:55

Both sides agree. So maybe

17:57

instead of worrying about all this... We

18:01

should just decide on an escape plan. Does

18:03

anyone have a bunker? Thomas,

18:05

you look like you already live underground. Will

18:07

the other mole people mind if we crash? It

18:10

was time to switch tactics. Perhaps

18:12

if they practiced making any kind of

18:15

decision, it would prepare them for November.

18:17

We've all been given cheesecake factory menus

18:19

to share. Now take a look at

18:21

them and make a choice.

18:25

You can do this. I'd call him hard.

18:27

A lot of options. I'm

18:29

crazy. I know what

18:31

I usually get. I see freight coloring. American

18:33

energy book. I usually get

18:36

orange chicken. It's my favorite. I'm

18:38

not a great wife. I'm a great wife. I'm a

18:40

great wife. What will Salami know? Yeah.

18:44

All right, you know what? Forget it. Forget it. I

18:47

knew that wouldn't work. At this

18:50

stage, there was only one option left.

18:52

Look, you guys have barely given me

18:54

anything, so I'm just going to tell

18:56

you who you're voting for. Darryl, you're

18:58

going to miss election day because there

19:00

weren't any reminders on Pornhub. Pauline,

19:03

you want a safer, brighter future for

19:05

your children, so you're going to move

19:07

to Ukraine. Thomas, I think

19:11

you should just stay home. This is a big one.

19:14

Very important election. We

19:16

need you to sit it out. And

19:19

Mark, whatever you decide, I

19:21

recommend you listen to your heart, or

19:24

at least let the medical professional listen to you.

19:27

Thank you all for being here. We've

19:30

learned a lot. We'll see

19:32

you in four years when you can't

19:34

decide between voting for AOC or Kyle

19:36

Rittenhouse. Thank you, child. When

19:42

we come back, Sharon Lerner will be

19:44

joining me on the show, so don't go away. The

19:58

Weekly Show, we're going to be

20:00

talking about. the election economics ingredient

20:02

to bread ratio on sandwiches, listen

20:04

to the weekly show John Stewart

20:07

wherever you get your podcast. I

20:16

guess tonight is a pro-public reporter

20:19

whose recent article in collaboration with

20:21

the New Yorker investigates 3 M's

20:23

use of forever chemicals please welcome

20:25

Sharon Lerner. Hi

20:31

Sharon. How are you? Thank

20:33

you for being here. Thank

20:43

you for coming. Thank you for

20:45

writing this piece. This is

20:47

a testament to investigative journalism.

20:50

How long does it take to write this piece? Well,

20:53

it took about a year. Yeah. A

20:56

little more than a year, but I was doing other

20:58

things in the middle. What

21:01

exactly are forever chemicals? What

21:04

did 3 M do? What were you

21:06

uncovering in this piece? Yeah,

21:10

so I was writing about forever

21:12

chemicals, which are PFAS is the

21:15

name of the compounds and

21:17

basically they're called forever chemicals

21:19

because they last forever in

21:22

the environment and they accumulate in your

21:24

body. Yeah, and we all knew we've

21:26

known for a while that 3

21:29

M made these chemicals and I have been

21:31

reporting on them for a while. Yeah. What

21:34

was new with this story was that

21:36

someone who had worked in the company

21:39

came to me and offered to tell

21:41

me her story. Right.

21:43

And it ended up shedding terrible

21:46

light really on the company

21:49

and on the delay the

21:51

decades of delay for

21:54

them to reveal

21:56

the truth of what was going on.

21:58

She was testing. blood and

22:03

was finding that everyone's blood had forever

22:05

chemicals in it and how did 3M

22:07

respond to her research? Right. So she

22:10

ended up she was asked by her

22:12

boss to test all these blood samples

22:14

and these were samples of blood from

22:17

the general public. Right. So she starts

22:19

blood had forever chemicals in it and

22:21

how did 3M respond to her research?

22:23

Right. So she ended up she was

22:26

asked by her boss to test all

22:28

these blood samples and these are samples

22:30

of blood from the general public. Right.

22:33

So she starts testing them and she

22:35

keeps finding trace amounts of this chemical

22:37

PFOS which was made by her employer

22:40

in everyone's blood. It's not supposed to

22:42

be there. Right. And then she tests

22:44

different parts of the country, she tests

22:46

animals and she finally brings

22:48

her results to her boss and

22:51

in response her superiors

22:55

were not happy with her work. She

22:57

thought they would be happy. You found

23:00

this amazing thing. She's a scientist. Yeah.

23:02

She's in the environmental lab. That's her

23:04

job. Right. And in fact what they

23:06

ended up doing was questioning her and

23:09

saying this can't be right and your

23:11

equipment's probably messed up and why don't

23:13

you repeat the experiment and

23:16

eventually what she finds is

23:19

that there is another chemist at the

23:21

company who had discovered the same thing

23:23

in 1975. So decades earlier.

23:29

And you talk

23:31

about in the article but part of

23:33

what solidified her belief in her research

23:35

was she actually tested old

23:37

blood. Yeah. What was that? So she's been

23:41

she's testing all these samples from around

23:43

the country and they all contain PFOS.

23:45

Right. And her boss starts saying oh

23:47

you think you get PFOS you get

23:49

PFOS you get it's like we all

23:52

got it. Yeah. And they start saying

23:54

are you sure because maybe you just

23:56

think it's everywhere right. You just are

23:58

delusional basically. And then she ends up

24:00

testing. a sample from rural China and

24:02

an old sample. And

24:04

it was the first one she tested that didn't have

24:06

any of the chemical in it. And

24:09

she realized, here it is. Yeah.

24:12

Someone in rural China who's probably dead at

24:14

this point doesn't have forever chemicals in their

24:16

blood. And then she ended up testing someone,

24:19

a war veteran who, the

24:23

blood sample was from 1957 before

24:25

Scotchgard entered the market. So let's talk

24:27

about that. What

24:30

are forever chemicals in? You

24:32

mentioned Scotchgard. Right. So initially they

24:35

were in Scotchgard, which is this

24:37

coating for fabrics and

24:39

carpets. Yeah. And carpets, couches.

24:42

And then they had also a product that

24:44

was for food packaging and it was also

24:46

in firefighting foam. Okay. And

24:49

that was the beginning. Now I cannot name all

24:51

the products that it's in. Thousands.

24:54

Yeah. Really. And

24:57

some companies say they're in every car and

24:59

cell phone, they're in makeup, they're in everything.

25:01

Yeah. And 3M put

25:03

out a little spreadsheet in 2022 of

25:05

just their products that contain PFAS and

25:07

it had more than 16,000. I

25:11

love that they put out a spreadsheet in 2022 and

25:13

they've known about this since 1975. So

25:16

50 years later, super helpful. When

25:18

you start digging into this, when you

25:21

start digging into this, do you ever just want to go, I

25:24

don't want to hear about this shit. Well, when I

25:27

dig into this, what I want to do is tell

25:29

people and that's why I'm here. It

25:32

is utterly depressing, but I think it would

25:35

be slightly more depressing not to report on

25:37

it. Well, yeah. I

25:39

mean, your article triggered my

25:42

awareness and then I remembered the

25:44

Mark Ruffalo movie, Dark Water. And

25:46

then I remembered, I looked you up and you had written about

25:48

this even before that. And it's like, holy shit, we got to

25:51

pay attention to this stuff. I

25:55

have a four year old daughter and I

25:58

often am trying to tell her to stop. stop being

26:00

so pushy. Right? Hey,

26:02

chill. You can't keep pushing back, pushing

26:04

back. But then I meet you and I read

26:06

this and I heard you say that you've got

26:08

to be pushy to dig in and fight against

26:10

3M that made $14 billion last year. Am

26:14

I a shitty parent? Well,

26:20

to be an investigative journalist, you do have

26:22

to be kind of pushy. So it depends

26:24

on whether your daughter wants to be an

26:27

investigative journalist or not. We're

26:30

working on just putting your pants out at this point.

26:32

So, yeah. I mean, you

26:34

have to find out things that people

26:36

don't want you to know. Yeah. And

26:38

so, you know, the so

26:40

with this story, the, you know, the

26:43

response I got from 3M when I was writing

26:45

about this in 2015 and 2016,

26:47

you know, it's, you know, it's totally

26:49

different from

26:54

the story I got from someone who is on

26:56

the inside. And it only took me nine

26:59

years. Right. Right. Right. Is

27:02

there something

27:05

that you do now differently in your

27:07

life, a habit knowing what you know?

27:10

Are you not drinking water out of the

27:12

hose like we did in Michigan growing? I

27:14

mean, is there just something besides

27:16

look a single American citizen taking

27:18

on 3M or DuPont because 3M

27:20

is not the only company with

27:22

these, you know, what can you

27:25

tell me that that I

27:27

can do or you can do besides being

27:29

aware, which is a positive step. It is.

27:31

Yeah. And, you

27:33

know, it is so widespread now, as

27:35

you said, it's tons of products and some water

27:37

all over the place. So I don't actually, I

27:40

mean, I don't use nonstick pants and that kind

27:42

of thing. That's easy or microwave popcorn. That's

27:44

easy. Don't use microwave popcorn.

27:48

You know, and I have to say, I don't know

27:51

how it's been, if it's been reformulated recently, but that

27:53

was one of the original things that it was in.

27:55

Yeah. I'm sticking by what I said earlier. Yeah.

27:58

I mean, yeah. Yeah,

28:00

yeah. I mean, honestly, as

28:03

an environmental reporter, a

28:05

lot of things, you know, horrify

28:08

me. I would say, actually, my

28:11

reporting on plastics maybe left me with

28:13

more of a, you know, change my

28:15

habits. So, like, I don't use single-use

28:17

plastic. Because you cannot... Yeah.

28:20

Yeah. Cool. And

28:24

my... My question is flawed

28:27

to you, because it always... I always find

28:29

in capitalism, the onus goes on us. Yeah.

28:31

Right? Like, hey, Sharon, why are you using

28:33

that plastic bottle? And it's like, well, I

28:36

assume what's on the shelf is safe for me.

28:38

Yeah. And that's not a safe assumption. And

28:41

does our government step in on this?

28:43

Where are they on this? Well,

28:46

yeah, there are a lot of

28:48

government failures here... Yeah. ...in this

28:50

story. One is that when

28:52

the 3M

28:55

ended up giving in studies that they had done

28:58

in 1975, 1980, they

29:00

finally gave them all to the EPA in the late 90s and

29:02

2000. Yeah. So that's,

29:04

you know, two, two and a half

29:07

decades after they did them. You're

29:09

supposed to hand this, give it in immediately

29:11

if you see that there's evidence of real

29:13

harm. So they were fined $1.5 million. Right.

29:17

And what they made on that single... I mean, I

29:19

make that a week. But,

29:23

like, in the year that they phased out

29:25

the chemical, they made $300 million. Right. So

29:28

it makes no sense. Yeah. So we have to make

29:31

it actually... There have

29:33

to be consequences for companies that do this kind

29:35

of thing. Well, you mentioned the EPA, and there

29:37

was a, you know, there

29:39

was a new, I forget, guideline that

29:42

they've set up recently. This has to

29:44

do with forever chemicals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're using

29:47

the... In the article, you

29:49

used the term PFOS, right? But that

29:51

can mean a lot of different... Well,

29:53

PFOS is the class of compounds. So,

29:55

and the one chemical that Chris, who

29:57

was talking about, was discovering was PFOS.

30:00

That's one chemical in this class

30:02

that's called PFAS. The class, there

30:05

are thousands. So PFOS

30:08

is not made anymore, but it's

30:10

still in the drinking water. And

30:13

EPA recently said drinking water limits

30:15

for PFOS and PFOA. Fabulous.

30:17

Great. Very great. The

30:20

only problem is one, they're no longer

30:22

made, but there are

30:24

thousands of chemicals in this class and we've

30:26

only gotten a couple. And

30:30

it's in New York City drinking water. It's in everyone's

30:32

drinking water. And

30:35

now the challenge is local cities

30:38

are going to have to find a way to

30:40

pay for filtering this out. Right.

30:42

And there is just a big suit, a

30:44

big settlement with 3M where they're going to

30:47

pay 12 and a half billion dollars and

30:49

you think, oh, that's a lot of money.

30:51

It's not when you have to actually remove

30:53

these chemicals from water everywhere. Environmental

30:58

crime. That's a new term that I

31:00

recently heard. And I, when I read

31:02

your piece, I said, this is environmental crime.

31:04

3M has committed assault on

31:06

us. Maybe murder,

31:08

depending on the classification. Has

31:10

anyone at 3M, is anybody

31:13

in trouble? No, no, not in a

31:15

sweet love this story. You

31:17

know, it's just, yeah, yeah.

31:20

Not in a criminal way. But I liked the

31:22

way you put that it is, it is a

31:24

crime. Right. Part

31:26

of the reason I think it's a

31:28

crime is because we

31:31

weren't given any choice. No

31:34

matter. Right. So

31:36

nobody said in exchange for

31:38

this beautiful stain free couch,

31:41

we're going to put a toxic chemical in your body and

31:43

leave it there forever. It

31:45

wasn't like that. It was, here's this product and we

31:47

know this thing we're not telling you. So it's like

31:50

bodily trespass, really. Like they're, I

31:52

mean, these chemicals are in infants

31:56

when they're born, before they're born. Right.

32:00

the scariest parts was when in

32:03

the article you talk about and this is going to

32:05

be really sad but how women actually

32:07

finally showed that they had less forever chemicals

32:09

in their body but that was after they

32:11

gave birth because they passed it on to

32:13

their child. So

32:15

this is this is a problem. What

32:19

can you leave us with. Everybody

32:21

here is now newly Should we

32:23

call our Congress Should we stop buying plastic.

32:27

Well I mean here's something here's something really focused

32:29

on what we could do like the entire audience.

32:32

So one of the crazy things

32:34

is that PFAS are still

32:36

being new ones are still being introduced. So

32:39

we still have thousands that are being used but there

32:41

are still introducing new ones. Yeah

32:43

that is like that seems bananas to me

32:45

and that seems like a very focused point

32:48

that we could you know do

32:50

something Yeah. Thank you very much

32:52

for writing Thank you for coming on The Daily

32:54

Show and talking with us. You Make Me Sick

32:56

is available online at the New Yorker and ProPublica

32:58

Sharon Lerner. Take a quick break. We'll be

33:00

right back after this. John

33:05

Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news. My

33:07

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