NYC's Corruption Scandal, Leslie Jones on Europe | Susanna Fogel’s “Winner”
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Welcome to the Cooper residence. Cooper McAllister. I'm surprised you put my name first. Come on in. From the brains behind the Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, CBS is excited to welcome back some beloved, familiar folks. I am so glad that you and Cece are here. And Georgie. Atta girl. It's a whole new chapter. Georgie and Mandy's first marriage premieres CBS Thursday, 8, 7 central and streaming on Paramount+.

You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Desi Lydon. Welcome to The Daily Dot, a really big show for you tonight.

Adam in New York, the leaves are changing, the indictments are falling, and Leslie Jones is here. Let's get right into today's big story. New York City's Mayor Eric Adams. He's known for a lot of things, from clubbing downtown to clubbing in midtown to clubbing during work hours.

time and the party is never gonna end. Breaking overnight, indicted New York Mayor Eric Adams facing criminal charges in a historic case. For the first time, a sitting mayor is facing criminal charges indicted by the U.S. Southern District here in New York. Can someone check if there's bottle service at Rikers?

So, yes, this is a historic and sad day for New York City, which is why the subway masturbators were flying their sweatpants masks this morning. Yeah. Now, to be fair, Adams is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, although it would be a lot easier to believe he wasn't doing crimes if he didn't dress like a gangster from Guys and Dolls.

But the question is, what exactly is Eric Adams accused of? Let's find out in our new segment, Suspects in the City. Couldn't help but wonder, how could the mayor be in trouble with the law? We know how much he follows the law because he tells us all the time. I just strongly believe you have to follow the law. I cannot tell you how much I start the day with telling my team, we gotta follow the law.

As we know, the most trustworthy people are the ones who are constantly telling you how trustworthy they are. It's like how most faithful spouses start every morning reminding themselves not to cheat. If you got one of those ladies, hang on, hang on tight, don't let go. So what's the mayor in trouble for? Well, according to him, it's for simply caring too much. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you,

that I would be a target and a target I became. Oh my God. Oh my God. And I knew it. I knew that when you said the city should put garbage in garbage cans, they would come after you. I knew it and they did. I mean, unless there was some other reason why they indicted you.

The indictment reads like lifestyles of the rich and famous describing a politician who wanted to travel beyond his means and did so with the help of Turkish nationals. On numerous occasions, the mayor would fly on Turkish airlines, which is primarily owned by the Turkish government. In October 2016, they purchased economy tickets valued at just over $2,200 and received free upgrades to business class worth about $15,000.

In 2017, Adams, a family member and a staff member, accepted free business class tickets worth more than $35,000. Let me get this straight. I've heard of politicians getting paid off in bags of cash, in fancy cars, in gold bars, but this is the first time I've heard of selling out the city to get medallion status on Turkish Airlines.

I mean, come on, buddy. If you want to get bumped up to first class, just say you found a pube in your pretzels. It works every time. Every time. And if you're wondering, isn't Turkish Air an inconvenient airline to have your bribes paid in? You're right. According to the indictment, Adams insisted on flying Turkish Air through Istanbul even if it was out of the way. When his girlfriend asked if he wanted to vacation in Chile, he repeatedly asked her whether Turkish Airlines flew there from New York City.

Ugh, our mayor is bad at crime and geography. Oh my God, this isn't just embarrassing as a mayor, this is embarrassing as a boyfriend. Hey baby, Hawaii sounds fun, but what about a three hour layover in Istanbul? And then Estonia.

That is the Hawaii of Eastern Europe. So Turkish Airlines is the quid. Wait till you hear the pro quo. The indictment detailing an alleged quid pro quo, writing that Adams intervened with the FDNY to permit the Turkish consulate to occupy a skyscraper that had not passed a fire safety inspection. This is the worst bribery deal ever.

Listen, if you slip me a couple hundred grand, I'll make double sure there's no fire extinguishers in your building. You can thank me later. This is so upsetting. It's a sad day in New York City when foreign nations are bribing the mayor to rush permits. That is the mob's job. Okay? Those should be American bribes. American! American!

A lot of politicians are saying Adams should resign or at least hide his face in shame. But what do real New Yorkers say? Think you should resign? I think so. He's not good. He deserved to get out. There's always been a mayor. There's going to be another one. What's the big deal? New Yorkers feel the same way about their mayor as most people do about the Fast and Furious movies. And there is definitely going to be another one.

Maybe one reason New Yorkers aren't too worried about their mayor being indicted is that we understand the city government is so much more than just one person. The Adams administration is full of civil servants doing their job honorably, like the police commissioner. Embattled NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban was forced to resign amid a federal investigation into influence peddling involving his twin brother.

Okay, so the police commissioner also had a scandal. But you can always get another police commissioner. Just days after being appointed, Interim NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlan's homes have been raided by the feds. Okay, police aren't everything. School system that matters. School's Chancellor David Banks becomes the latest appointee to announce his departure as he faces scrutiny after FBI agents seized his cell phones.

Not the chancellor. Make sure the schools are canceled. Jesus, is there anyone in this administration who isn't under investigation? Banks is among at least 15

other members of the administration that are currently under investigation. Banks, his two brothers, Phil and Terrence, as well as his fiance, Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. Agents searched the home of Adams' chief fundraiser, Breonna Suggs. New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda and his office are being investigated over money confiscated from illegal pot shops. Investigators searched the homes of Winnie Greco, the director of Asian Affairs. A senior aide to Mayor Adams, Tim Pearson. Were there any kind of kickbacks

going on. Business dealings between Frank Carone, the one-time chief of staff to Mayor Adams, and a Monsignor named Jamie Gigantiello. Oh my God. Fox News was right. Crime really is out of control in New York.

actually kind of impressive. Adams has assembled multiple branches of an administration all committed to his shared vision of breaking the law. I can't even get my co-workers to go apple picking with me. For more on this evolving scandal, we now go live to City Hall with Michael Costa. With all this turmoil, who is actually in charge of the city right now? Yeah, that's a good question, Desi, and I think I am.

I mean... What? You? Yeah, you know, I came down to City Hall this morning to ask some questions, but it was totally empty. Everyone has either resigned or been arrested. And then the phone started ringing, so I answered one. And then I answered another one. And now I'm pretty much running the city. I mean... Hold on. I got to sign off on this budget thing, so... Wait, wait, wait. That looks good, yeah. You should not be running the city. Well...

You know, it's not that hard, Desi. I mean, I hired some firefighters. I shut down the F train for no reason. I grand marshaled a gay Vietnamese mermaid parade. Classic mayor stuff. You know, hold on. I got to do a photo op for this make-a-wish kid. Come here. Come on. Hey, you're going to be okay, buddy, all right? You're going to make it. You're going to make it. Stay tough. You're going to make it.

He's not going to make it. I got to say, I'm impressed, Michael. It seems like you're actually doing a good job. Wait, wait, what was that? Did you accept a bribe? Of course not. You think I'm mayor for one day and I'm already taking cash to build a Turkish bath in the middle of Central Park? That's insulting. Thank you. Thank you.

What did you just say? What crime? I'll have you know that every morning I look in the mirror and I say, do not approve a Turkish bathhouse in exchange for 40,000 Turkish lira and first class seats to Boston with a stopover in Istanbul. What?

Wow. Wow. You really are a New York City mayor. Yeah, well, I mean, oh, what? Someone ratted me out. Was this camera recording me the whole time? I took those bribes for you, Desi! Please! Michael, everybody!

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Welcome to the Cooper residence. Cooper McAllister. I'm surprised you put my name first. Come on in. From the brains behind the Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, CBS is excited to welcome back some beloved, familiar folks. I am so glad that you and Cece are here. And Georgie. Atta girl. It's a whole new chapter. Georgie and Mandy's first marriage premieres CBS Thursday, 8, 7 central and streaming on Paramount+.

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Welcome back to The Daily Show. We all know I've got great opinions, but I'm not the only one. Studies show that other people also have opinions. So here with another installment of In My Opinion is our good friend Leslie Jones. I just want to say I know what y'all are thinking. I look good. Yes.

Very blessed, very hydrated, yes. But that's because over the summer I went to a little place called France. It was for the Olympics. Oh, what's that? What's that? You want to see pictures? Oh, it wouldn't be right to show you guys this picture of me looking so fine. It would be, yes, it would be gauche, a word that I learned in France.

when I was there doing the Olympics. But while I was doing my Eat Slay Love in France, I learned something very unfortunate that I want to talk to y'all about. While I was there, we were treated very rudely. And at first, I thought it was because I was black. But that wasn't it. It actually was because I was American. Which made me so sad, because I was like, damn, can't y'all just be racist? LAUGHTER

But it turns out there's a lot of things about Americans that the world doesn't like. And you know what? I think I might agree with them. Take our food. When I was in France, I ate a peach. And it was so good that I started crying. Because I don't think I have ever had a real peach before. It tasted so natural, so sweet and gauche.

It made me think, why can't American food be that good? And it turns out the reason is because half the shit in our food isn't even food. There are more than 10,000 chemicals and additives allowed in food in the United States. Potassium bromate is a suspected carcinogen that's banned for human consumption in Europe, but legal in the U.S. Skittles, Pop-Tarts, Gatorade, Little Debbies, banned in the European Union because of

dyes like yellow five, yellow six, and red 40. - For the UK bottle of Heinz ketchup, there are about six ingredients, all recognizable, but that's not the same for the classic US one. Take a look at how much longer this thing is. High fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and natural flavoring. - Natural flavoring? What the does natural flavoring mean? Everything has natural flavoring. A dog's ass has natural flavoring.

But it doesn't mean I want to dip my french fries in it. We are eating poisons, and we don't even care. I had so much time to do stuff in Europe because I didn't have to schedule two hours after every meal for shitting. And we're paying the price for eating all this trash. Have you ever realized that there's no more "your mama's so fat" jokes in here? Huh? It's because now, "your mama's fat" ain't funny no more.

Everybody is like, oh, your mama's so fat. And so is my mama. And so is your answer.

It's not just about food, though. Because not only do Europeans think we're ugly on the outside, they also think we're ugly on the inside. They have really, really crazy people there. Self-absorbed and feel superior. So aggressive. They're quite brash. They're quite loud people. Americans talk too loud. Loud. Loud. Loud. Pretty loud. What the f*** are you talking about loud?

Y'all too quiet over there anyway, whispering and shit. You got too many damn secrets. The queen is dead. And I love to push back on these Europeans, but anyone who's been on the internet knows that we can be a little combative. Meltdown on the plane. Get out of here!

Road rage leading to fists flying in Flagler County. Come on. Come on, you little punk. I pay for food, yeah? So much ketchup. Are you making fun of me because I'm on a diet? Are you okay? I'm upset. Wait. Hey, stop. Ah! Wait! BetterHelp.com! Hey!

We should have a social contract in this country not to lose our shit in public. If someone gets your order wrong, be an adult. Just say, I'm never eating here again, then order at the drive-thru. Yes!

It's not just these viral videos. Unfortunately, the rest of the world is aware of our culture of violence. The gun situation kind of freaks me out. There's all these shootings going on. Guns, violence. School shootings, many people with guns. Everyone can buy a weapon there. People have so many guns. I feel like I would not feel safe there. You're right. You're not going to be safe here.

You think I do cardio for my health? I do it so I can outrun bullets, bitch! Everybody shouldn't be allowed to have a gun. I shouldn't even be legally allowed to own a megaphone. But I do. The point is, we got problems, America. And don't try to blame all of this on Trump. Because even if you take him out of the picture, out

Our political system is not normal. - A candidate for governor is accused of making disturbing statements on a porn site, including allegedly saying he is a black Nazi. - Congresswoman Lauren Boebert kicked out of a performance of the musical "Beetlejuice" and she and her companion were noticeably

groping each other in front of others. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem revealing in a new book that she shot her dog Cricket. Federal officials are investigating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly decapitating a dead whale. Decapitating whale? What did the whales do to you? Can't you just go to a ditty party like a normal millionaire? Of course Europe thinks we're f***ed. I think we're f***ed up. We are f***ed up.

Listen.

Listen, I had to leave America to realize how much bullshit we live in. I know that this last decade has been hard on everyone. I've been around the world, I've been around the country, and people feel helpless and hopeless. They don't trust the Supreme Court, don't trust the politicians, our criminal justice system, and our food supply. They think that the power comes from the top down. But let me let you in on a secret. The people

People have all the power. If you... We got all the power, but we got to get involved. And I get it. I get it. You just want to go to work, come home, take care of your kids, watch your Hulu. But you got to get involved. That's the way to make things change. And if we do that, we can be better. We can do better. We can be gauche. That's a joke.

Welcome to the Cooper residence. Cooper McAllister. I'm surprised you put my name first. Come on in. From the brains behind the Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, CBS is excited to welcome back some beloved, familiar folks. I am so glad that you and Cece are here. And Georgie. Atta girl. It's a whole new chapter. Georgie and Mandy's first marriage premieres CBS Thursday, 8, 7 central and streaming on Paramount+.

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That includes our introductory five-piece system, free gifts, free shipping, and a 60-day money-back guarantee. All of that available at MeaningfulBeauty.com. Tonight is an award-winning director and screenwriter whose latest film is called Winner. Please welcome Susanna Fogelman.

Good to see you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I adore you to pieces. I have to say, when you called Eric Adams out for wearing a Guys and Dolls-esque suit, I felt seen and attacked. You're missing the fat tie and the pocket square. Next time. No, this is not Guys and Dolls. This is chic. Great. This is chic. This is cool.

Director Sheik, I am so happy for you. Congratulations on everything with this film. It's incredible. This is based on the true story, the whistleblower reality winner. Remind people what happened to reality. So reality is a girl from Texas who was really smart, taught herself all these languages in high school to try to sort of

Her goal was to become a linguist and to help overseas. After 9/11, she got really kind of motivated to try to help bridge the gap between us and them. And so she joined the Air Force, hoping that she could go overseas. And she ended up sort of helping with drone strikes, which is not what she had in mind, and had a crisis of conscience about it, and left the Air Force, later went to work at the NSA.

as a contractor, private contractor. And when she was there, she saw something on her work computer that was at odds with what was in the news. This is when people were litigating whether or not Russia had hacked

and the news cycle was really consumed with that. - Oh, it feels like just yesterday, doesn't it? We're so far. - We've come such a long way. - So in the same place, yes. - Yeah, I know, I know. So anyway, so she was sort of watching this constant loop of the news saying there was no proof that the government knew that the Russians attacked the election. And then on her work computer, she just, out of curiosity, took a peek at some classified documents and saw that in fact, we did know, and this was sort of

kind of just cycling around and around and and she leaked a document to the intercept hoping to just sort of let the public know that in fact they were being lied to not to prove that the election was stolen but just to show people that we were sort of looking in the wrong place and that we were kind of

kind of operating blindly when in fact the government knew more than they said they did. - Right, showing them the truth. - Expose the truth, yeah. - And she served quite a bit of time for this crime. She was served with the longest amount of time ever for someone who leaked government secrets. How long did she serve? - Yeah, she-- - Almost five years. - Five years, yeah. She ended up getting out on good behavior and she was on house arrest and halfway house for a while,

But basically, yeah, I mean, she didn't have anything to trade. Like, she didn't have power connections. She was from a small town. And unlike a lot of people who sort of got away with actual collusion, she was just kind of nailed and...

like, tried to lobby for her own release, but there was no, sort of no mercy for her at the time. So she was martyred, really. Yeah. It is remarkable how so many other people have, who shall remain nameless, have done far worse and aren't showing any accountability for their actions. Sometimes they can run for president. Yeah. It's unbelievable.

I feel like only you, Susanna Fogel, could take this movie, this very weighty, serious story, and turn it into this beautiful, heartwarming,

comedic at times coming of age film. It's a really beautiful, beautiful movie. What was behind your approach in taking that path with that tone? So I have to give credit to Carrie Howley, who's the journalist for New York Magazine, who wrote this long-form piece on reality that

it was really striking because it mostly focused on what a funny person reality is and how quirky she is. Like her love for Futurama and Pikachu jumpsuits, which she actually wore in life and wears in the movie. You know, she's a quirky kind of quintessentially millennial person with like a variety of interests. It's hard to pin her down to sort of one thing. Like she loves guns and dogs and CrossFit. And, you know, she's just kind of like a,

She's such an iconoclastic person and that really came across in the piece that Carrie wrote. And so the whole approach behind the movie even before I came on to direct was that let's show this person who is so relatable. I mean she's very special but she's also someone that could be any of us in this situation that feels so heightened and that the stakes are so high. And so to me it was like we've seen so many whistleblower movies. They're usually about young men, very serious men, very serious movies.

But this is a funny person that was in a really serious situation. And that's kind of my favorite type of mashup is really just to show a person that could be you or me, not a person who everything is always high stakes. There's always like intense violin music playing when they're making a tough moral decision. She's just a person who, you know,

she listens to "Fall Out Boy" and she drives around and she's not your typical person who would be in a drama like this as a person and in our movie. So I thought that would help people sort of see

see how close to home all of this stuff is. - It really does, whether you feel like you would make that decision or not, no matter whether you relate to her choice, you definitely relate to her as a human being and you show her as this complex, really fun, funny woman. The performances are incredible in this. The actress who plays Reality is Emilia Jones.

She's unbelievable. I could not picture anyone else in that role. Yeah, she's great. And then you have Zach Galifianakis, who's also incredible. Connie Britton. Do you...

I'm curious. The one thing that I love so much about your work is that you've explored all these different genres of film. But one thing that seems to be a through line is that you love telling stories of these complicated, flawed, funny, empowered women.

Is that something that you look for when you're choosing to write or direct on a project? I try to avoid it. You do. Yeah. You do. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's honestly, like, what appealed to me about this particular story is that it's a woman in an everyman story. The story is not about gender equality, even though the stories obviously have their place and there have been great movies about them. To me, there's...

I think like progress or that sort of post that canon of movies as movies about women that are dealing with moral issues that usually we've seen represented through a male perspective. So yeah, I mean, I think...

I gravitate towards stories I feel haven't been told. And when it comes to female characters, stories that feel like they haven't been shown through a female lens, it ends up being something I'm excited about. It's not something I look for exclusively, but in this case, I thought, you know, this is a story that's so specific because of who she is, where she comes from, that she's a woman, that she's a young woman. And yet it's a story where the sort of big, serious moral issue she's grappling with is one that isn't about gender and isn't about

proving that she's equal to men, which is what a lot of, I think, movies and shows, they kind of just default to that one problem that still exists widely, obviously, but we have other problems. No, you don't say. Yeah, I know. We don't feel it in late night. I'm sorry. Not at all. No, not at all.

I just thought I'd-- I thought I would give you the exclusive on that. Thank you. Thank you. Breaking story. I like that one. You also spent a lot of time with reality. I did. Is that true? I did. Yeah, I mean, it was one of my-- it was my first experience trying to tell a story about a real person who's

alive and there to defend themselves or get mad at me and never speak to me again if I don't do justice to her story and her personality. At the same time, it's a fictionalized movie.

So yeah, there was a lot of pressure. First, the pressure to get her to trust me enough that I could talk to her about aspects of her experience and also just to get the details right of her life. What music did you listen to? What bad fashion choices did you make in high school that we can replicate in our movie so it feels real? But to do that, you sort of have to get close and then once you're close and you're friends, the terror switches to they're going to see the movie and they're going to feel misrepresented and then the friendship is going to be destroyed and then I'll feel terrorized

terrible about it. Did she see the movie? So she has sworn not to see any of the three movies that have been made about her. So we're not being singled out, but no, she has not seen the movie. I mean, basically her philosophy on all of it is she wants her story to get out there. She wants people to kind of know what she did and why and to take action in their own lives and their own moral choices, big and small. So she's hoping that

that her story makes a difference that way and counts for something, but she's not into like a public-facing branded version of herself. She's sort of introverted and shy in a weird way for someone who's so bold in other ways.

So, yeah, I mean, her perspective on all of that is she doesn't want to see the movie and fixate on the things that I got wrong and then hate me, which I take as a great compliment. That's a good thing. So the friendship is still intact. The friendship is intact, yeah. Well, I would like to think if she saw the movie, she would be very proud and very happy with the way that it came out. I hope so. It's truly incredible. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to how good this movie is. Winner is Mal.

This is not a black thing. This is a youth thing. This is a youth thing, Eric Adams. This is not a black thing. Your policies are anti-black. You are a disgrace to all black people in this city. This is ridiculous.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show Podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount+. Paramount Podcasts.

Welcome to the Cooper residence. Cooper McAllister. I'm surprised you put my name first. Come on in. From the brains behind the Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, CBS is excited to welcome back some beloved, familiar folks. I am so glad that you and Cece are here. And Georgie. Atta girl. It's a whole new chapter. Georgie and Mandy's first marriage premieres CBS Thursday, 8, 7 Central and streaming on Paramount+.

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