John Oliver: Why Everything is a Scam: FIFA, Mergers, & Information Literacy

John Oliver, professional shit-stirrer and host of the award winning "Last Week Tonight", sits down with Trevor and Eugene for a hilarious, profound, and wide reaching conversation. From comparing notes on their Daily Show origin stories, to the state of comedy and the modern media landscape, to the “beautiful cocaine” that is football, this is a must watch episode.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Best thing about John Wick was the hotel.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was pretty badass. The hotel was such a great concept.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  The martial arts is great. I think part of that is people's just longing for a hotel that well-run. So, I like the fighting, but I love the service. You can turn up nearly dead, sir, we'll take care of you.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  With a dog.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  And we take pets. For me, it's a hotel movie with some fighting.

• 0:27Trevor Noah?

  Wait, didn't they say they don't take... Wasn't there something they don't do that they did for him?

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Maybe the dog.

• 0:33Trevor Noah?

  I feel like there was something that they don't...

• 0:34Speaker 00

  It is no... It's a no pets building?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  No, no, no. But they did it for him.

• 0:38Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but I swear they don't accept pets.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  But it was a no pets enterprise.

• 0:43Trevor Noah?

  I hope I'm not wrong about this.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  International assassins, like, no pets.

• 0:48Trevor Noah?

  I swear there was something...

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Don't try and bring a cat in here.

• 0:50Trevor Noah?

  Murder. They said, "Mr. Wick, we don't allow da-da-da", and then they like made an exception for him.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  No, that was, he wanted to kill somebody on premises.

• 1:00Trevor Noah?

  Maybe it's that. That's more likely than pets.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  That's more likely than...

• 1:04Trevor Noah?

  It's more likely you're not allowed to kill someone.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Because I remember him talking with his dog and they were like, they greeted the dog as if it was a customer.

• 1:11Trevor Noah?

  Because it is.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  They were like, "Oh, John and..."

• 1:14Trevor Noah?

  Fluffy.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Fluffy.

• 1:15Trevor Noah?

  I love the fact that you watched John Wick and your biggest takeaway was, "What a hotel."

• 1:20Speaker 00

  I love the fact that you thought it was plausible they didn't take pets, so that that was the line.

• 1:24Trevor Noah?

  I still think it might be that.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  You come in with a blood-dripping samurai sword and a dog cage and they're like, "Put the cage down.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  I'll give you a towel for the sword."

• 1:33Speaker 01

  I see you've had your shots, but as me?

• 1:38Speaker 00

  You know, some of the other assassins, they go, it's the hair of the dog.

• 1:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, they're allergic to dogs. I don't know, man. I feel like there was something... You should check it. I think there was something about no pets. There was just like a vibe, but you know?

• 1:50Speaker 00

  It's a great hotel.

• 1:51Trevor Noah?

  It really is.

• 1:52Speaker 03

  New York is an entire pet-friendly zone.

• 2:07Trevor Noah?

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• 2:42Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel. You know what's really frustrating? Knowing the exact information you need is somewhere on your phone, but still ending up wasting your time digging through five different apps just to actually find it. Thankfully, Google Pixel 11 is designed with Gemini intelligence, so it can proactively find the information I need right when I need it. Like my flight info on travel days or my calendar when Eugene texts me to hang out. Oh, sorry Eugene, I'm booked. Learn more about what Google Pixel 11 can do at googlestore.com. These AI features are available in select countries and languages for users 18 and over, and make sure to check responses.

• 3:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, booked forever, forever. This episode is brought to you by Verizon.

• 3:34Trevor Noah?

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• 4:19Trevor Noah?

  all-inclusive music festivals, and the chance to meet your favorite stars. Plus, daily drops, tickets, and pre-sale access all week. So, let's recap. Cash back in your pocket every month with Verizon Dollars. And epic experiences from Verizon Shine every Monday, all year round. Now, those are some rewarding rewards. Only from Verizon. Enroll today at Verizon.com.

• 4:48Trevor Noah?

  How long have you lived in New York now?

• 4:50Speaker 00

  I've been here since 2006, for nearly 20 years.

• 4:52Trevor Noah?

  What first brought you to New York?

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Daily Show. I got offered the job. That was my first, my first day in New York was the Daily Show.

• 5:01Trevor Noah?

  Are you serious?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 5:03Trevor Noah?

  No, wait, tell me your Daily Show origin story.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  So, I was, they were looking for a new correspondent.

• 5:07Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  I'm in London, right, having, you know, doing the Edinburgh Festival every year.

• 5:11Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  So, they say, put yourself on tape. You saw, I-

• 5:15Trevor Noah?

  Who said this to you?

• 5:16Speaker 00

  They were, they were looking for a correspondent from the world, right? For the first time, not from America, from outside of the borders of this land. And so, there were a bunch of people in London-

• 5:27Trevor Noah?

  It wasn't the last time they did.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  As a British person, I'd love to criticize, but, you know, game recognize game.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  You know, India, you know.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  What about, what about if we call it something different?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, a bunch, I think a bunch of English comedians have been asked, like, to put themselves on tape. Then, like, they, so I think I'm never gonna hear from them again. Then they say, oh, they wanna, they wanna meet you. So, you can, so I think, fine. I've never been to New York before. This will be my free trip to New York for 36 hours. So, I flew over here. Stayed in midtown. Uh, uh, went to the, I went to Applebee's for a meal. Thought, thought this must be like a quintessential American diner. Applebee's.

• 6:16Trevor Noah?

  I love how you're ticking all the boxes of every immigrant who comes here.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 6:20Trevor Noah?

  It's midtown, you think best location.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 6:23Trevor Noah?

  You can't get better than this. Mm hmm. Hell's Kitchen, what a great name.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  It's true.

• 6:27Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? This probably, probably ironically named.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 6:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  This must be where everything is.

• 6:31Trevor Noah?

  And, and then Applebee's. Midtown. Yeah, and then you go to Applebee's or one of you like, wow, I'm, I'm, this seems like fine dining.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:37Trevor Noah?

  You're just ticking all the boxes and then?

• 6:39Speaker 00

  So then, yeah, I then I went to the building, like, uh, auditioned for John.

• 6:45Trevor Noah?

  Did you know who Jon Stewart was?

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, of course.

• 6:47Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Of course, it wasn't on in England, but I knew of it. It was the very much the gold standard for me of what I, what political comedy in the world could be. It was even, even back then in two thousand and six, it was, it, despite not being on TV in England, its, uh, presence and influence was still felt.

• 7:05Trevor Noah?

  Alright, got it, got it.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  So I was thrilled just to see it. Uh, so then I'd read, uh, a chat.

• 7:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, one of those chats that they, yeah.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Exactly, uh, and, um, they said, when could you start? And I, uh, I live in England, so I don't have anything here. And I was supposed to be doing the Edinburgh Festival, uh, that summer. So I went back to England, picked up two bags full of stuff and then came back here in July of two thousand and six. And I've barely been back since.

• 7:36Trevor Noah?

  It's so crazy how similar the stories are. It's almost like they have like a, a specific, cause, cause. Way of recruiting your folks. Yeah, because mine, cause mine was like similar. It really feels like that. It really feels like, cause mine was like similar, but, but slightly different. Mine was, I got a call from John, right? I was in London, I, I just started like one of my first tours ever, I was, I was, but it was like a tiny tour.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:59Trevor Noah?

  But I was doing all the small cities, you know, from London, Brighton, Newcastle, you name everywhere, big ones, small ones, everywhere. That's very tiny. And, no, but I'm saying like. Whole entire. What I, listen, listen to what I mean by tiny. It was like two hundred seaters, hundred and fifty seaters.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:12Trevor Noah?

  This makes sense. Venues tiny.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  He's not talking about population size.

• 8:16Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay. Yeah. Uh, thank you for clarifying. Thank you for clarifying.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  He's not saying Chipping Norton, a village.

• 8:20Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  A hundred and twenty people, but an amphitheatre. Weirdly.

• 8:26Trevor Noah?

  So my tour was tiny is what I'm saying.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Okay, cool.

• 8:28Trevor Noah?

  So I get a call, don't know the number. I'm standing in Harrods. That's why I'll never forget this call.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  Standing in Harrods?

• 8:35Trevor Noah?

  So I'd heard about Harrods.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Again, quintessentially.

• 8:37Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  Immigrant, I've literally never been in Harrods in my whole life.

• 8:41Trevor Noah?

  Ah, this man. Everyone told me, you've got to go to Harrods.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  No.

• 8:45Trevor Noah?

  Everyone was like, you have. Because they're like, it's the store. And remember, this is before Amazon.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  It's a mall.

• 8:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but this is before things like that existed in that way.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  You can find anything.

• 8:54Trevor Noah?

  They said, you go to Harrods and you can find anything.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:57Trevor Noah?

  And I was like, what does that mean? They said, just go. Just go to Harrods. You're very nicely done. So I go to Harrods.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. You can find anything. You can't afford anything.

• 9:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you can't. I'm in the low, lower level, one below the, like, minus one level.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  Wait, so there's different levels?

• 9:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and they all have different things. So clothing, perfumes, food, what, you know.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  International arms dealing.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Misogyny.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, that's, that's more, that's pumped in through the vents. That's, that's, historically, that's everywhere.

• 9:28Trevor Noah?

  So, and then my phone rings. I was staring at an underwater scooter. I will never forget this moment. I'm, I was staring at it thinking, how in my life will I ever be able to afford one of these? Because it's impossible. I didn't even think about where I would use it. I just went, I need this in my life. It is an underwater scooter. So you, you, you have like the, what do you call those things? Where you put the bulb over your head? No, you know, like when you wouldn't scuba dive.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:51Trevor Noah?

  You'd wear that, that thing. The old scuba guys would wear.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  That was an underwater.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  That used to be brass.

• 9:56Trevor Noah?

  Yes, that thing. But now it's on a scooter. So you go down on the scooter and then you have that on your head and you just ride around.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  Impulse buy.

• 10:04Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  So it's that brass helmet? That is not brass anymore?

• 10:08Trevor Noah?

  It's not brass.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  No, because it would be too heavy.

• 10:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  I think we've moved past brass. I think the moment that we've got underwater scooters, we've fixed the brass helmet situation.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  I think one followed the other.

• 10:22Trevor Noah?

  So.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  It's not, this thing's gonna be great. If I can just.

• 10:31Speaker 04

  Oh man, so it's.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Okay, wait, wait, wait, I can't move on from this, you have to describe the contraption.

• 10:38Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so now imagine a scooter or what, I guess in America, do they call it a moped?

• 10:42Speaker 00

  Done.

• 10:42Trevor Noah?

  Whatever, this little thing, me, like a Vespa type thing, me, me, me, me, me, that thing, okay? Now imagine it has no wheels.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  No wheels.

• 10:49Trevor Noah?

  No, that's how they sound.

• 10:53Trevor Noah?

  Roadrunner is meep meep is a difference, so.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  God, I wish he was wrong, but he is right. I want, I wanted that to be a distinction without a difference, but actually that was.

• 11:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  That's the story of Eugene's life.

• 11:07Trevor Noah?

  So, it's, it's, it's a, so now imagine that, no wheels, right? But it has a little propeller underneath, okay? So sort of like a jet ski, but not, but you can't, you can't see the, the motor, so that's it. So you sit and you ride like that. But then it has a contraption that comes from the front of it. That, that brings, wait, wait, I'll explain the part. So there's a contraption that comes over the front of it, and then there's a dome that goes over your head.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:31Trevor Noah?

  With the glass bubble that you can look through. So all you gotta do is get in there, you don't wear any scuba gear, you don't, and it has oxygen tanks on it. And then you just ride around.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  So it has weights to weigh down to the bottom of.

• 11:43Trevor Noah?

  It is weights, the whole thing is weights, you can't like put this in your backpack, it's the size of a scooter.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  So how would you get into the water with it?

• 11:50Trevor Noah?

  So do you? These are not things I thought of at the time.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  He, all he knew was, I want this in my life, despite the fact there's no room or practical use for it.

• 11:58Trevor Noah?

  Or anything, I don't, I come from Johannesburg, we don't even have the ocean. I was just like, I know I need this in my life.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  I'm in the market for an instantly depreciating asset.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  To call this thing an investment would not be fair. You are setting fire to money.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  To your money.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  To your money.

• 12:15Speaker 04

  But I didn't have the money, I was just staring at it, then my phone rang.

• 12:19Trevor Noah?

  And then it was Jon Stewart. I didn't know Jon Stewart. Unlike you, I didn't know who he even was. And and then he came on and you you know Jon better than anyone like. Jon does not take himself as seriously as people take him, right?

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:35Trevor Noah?

  So he calls me, goes, uh, hey, can I speak to Trevor? I'm like, speaking? He says, hey, are you speaking to Jon Stewart? Uh, I host a little show. That's what he said. The exact phrasing was, I host a little show in America called The Daily Show. Um.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  That joke only works if you know what The Daily Show is, otherwise it just seems like a description.

• 12:53Trevor Noah?

  Cause this was the big.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  It's like the water underwater scooter.

• 12:56Trevor Noah?

  I was just like.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Totally wasted on you.

• 12:57Trevor Noah?

  I was like, no, no, that was not wasted on me.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Did you buy it?

• 13:00Trevor Noah?

  I couldn't.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Let's get back to that.

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Okay, shush.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Let's get back to that.

• 13:04Trevor Noah?

  So then Jon goes.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  I I'm not done with that either.

• 13:07Trevor Noah?

  So Jon goes, so wait, so Jon goes, I host a little show. Um, and I'm Jon Stewart. Then I was like, I was, he's like, I don't know if you've heard of me. I was like, no, no, I haven't. And then he said, he's phrasing, I I forget it sometimes, but he goes like, he said something to the effect of, nor should you have.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what he said. That sounds right.

• 13:21Trevor Noah?

  He said, uh, Jon Stewart, I don't know if you've heard of me. Then I said, no, I I haven't. And he said, nor should you have. And then I, he said, I host a little show in America called The Daily Show. Then I was like, oh, I think I've heard of that. And he's like, as you should.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  As you should have.

• 13:34Trevor Noah?

  And he's like, um, uh, we we we saw some of your stuff. I like your stuff. I was wondering, like you, he's like, what do you do? What do you do? Would you like to come to New York? And now, first of all, I come from South Africa. I'm like, this fifty percent chance there's a scam.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  One.

• 13:48Trevor Noah?

  This is somebody who's just trying to get my details. I know how this works.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Never mind the underwater scooter.

• 13:51Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Uh-uh.

• 13:52Trevor Noah?

  He's going, what is your credit card details?

• 13:54Speaker 00

  He's, he's barely listening to the guy. He's more just looking at this scooter.

• 13:57Trevor Noah?

  Reading the the specs on the thing while he's talking. Then he said, can you come to New York? And I was like, ah, not then. And I was like, what's, what's that? He's like, we want to hire you. You're going to come to New York. And I was like, oh, no, I I no, thank you. Uh, he's like, I'm sorry, what? And I'll never forget, he went, sorry, what? And I said, yeah, I've got a, I've got a tour that I'm I'm I'm doing now. Luton, like all these places.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Chipping Norton, like, I'm out here, baby.

• 14:23Trevor Noah?

  Squawsbury.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  I said the same thing. I said a version of that when they offered me the job.

• 14:27Trevor Noah?

  You did?

• 14:27Speaker 00

  My manager said, yeah, they're, they want you to do the job. And I said, I can't do it. I'm going to Edinburgh.

• 14:33Trevor Noah?

  You see?

• 14:33Speaker 00

  And he said, yeah, you're not going to Edinburgh.

• 14:37Trevor Noah?

  You had a manager, that's what saved you.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  You're gonna go do this job. Otherwise, I was thinking, yeah, but I got an ATC to room.

• 14:42Trevor Noah?

  Guys, you know how hard it is to book Edinburgh?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got a room.

• 14:46Trevor Noah?

  Your internationally acclaimed historical TV show has to wait, baby.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  I don't think you understand supply and demand in Edinburgh in August.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  And your review written by Kopstik.

• 14:57Trevor Noah?

  Oh, wow. What a deep cut you did.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  Wow, you got a Kate Kopstik reference.

• 15:03Trevor Noah?

  Man, we've made it. So, so that was me. And then John said, wait, so then he paused and he went, tell me about your life. Who are you? I was like, ah, I'm a comedian and I'm doing comedy now.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Staring at an underwater scooter, wanting it to be mine.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  In a landlocked city.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Remind me, who are you again?

• 15:28Trevor Noah?

  And, and then he, he basically said, well, if you ever change your mind and if you come to New York, uh, let me know. And he said, he said, wait, but I'm just confirming, are you saying no? And I said, yeah, but with all due respect, I.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:41Trevor Noah?

  And he was, and I, I'm glad I didn't, I genuinely didn't know, I wasn't like, it wasn't, it wasn't me being like, I don't have time for this. It was more like, oh, you and your little show, I also have a little show.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:52Trevor Noah?

  We've got to prioritize our little shows in life. So, thank you for the call.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:55Trevor Noah?

  I'm gonna carry on with my life. Had I known that he would have brought me much closer to that underwater scooter.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  So much closer.

• 16:02Trevor Noah?

  Than anything else. This, that wouldn't have.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, that's amazing. That's, that is relatively similar. Then, other than, so when did you find out what that show meant?

• 16:13Speaker 03

  I was more worried about, did anyone come and help in Metastore?

• 16:16Trevor Noah?

  No one.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:17Trevor Noah?

  No one came and helped. No one came and said, so do you need any? I didn't look like I could buy anything in that store.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  I think Harrods staff are pretty well trained for whether you can, oh, no race, I mean, again, I think that comes through the vents. With the classism too, that's all there. No, I can. I think what they're looking for is Saudi money. Yeah. I think, I think, or Michael Jackson moving through it. Mm hmm.

• 16:38Trevor Noah?

  Or even, even like oil compounds.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  They did Michael Jackson dirty.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  You know the story about how they sold him all the cheap knockoff stuff?

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Oh, that's.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  He just has money, he's just gonna take it. And he was like, that's pretty, that's pretty.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  That.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  They were like, he doesn't know the difference.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Sold him everything.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  That was, that is not much.

• 16:57Trevor Noah?

  Did that to Michael Jackson?

• 16:57Speaker 00

  Hmm. My, my takeaway from the flawed like of Michael Jackson is not that he was, um, scammed out of some purchases. I think we would get to that, but I would probably work through the abuse allegations and the history of music. Before we got to contractually, it felt like Harrods let him down.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  Buying a fake Ming Dynasty vase.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Ironically made in China as well.

• 17:25Trevor Noah?

  Wow, wow. So wait, okay, so now let's, let's go back to you. So now you get, you get, you get brought in. So now you, you come in immediately and that's it.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  I come in and start work immediately. So I don't know if they did this with you. I, I, when I got my stuff, I came back, my first day in the office, I think I've found out since then, this is a very nice thing that they would do. They would try and get you on the show straight away. So you're not hanging around too long, watching, thinking about what it will be like. I landed back here, exhausted, got, went to the office. They said, you're gonna be on the show tonight. Like, wait, what? And so the whole thing then moved very, very quickly and all of a sudden I was in. In retrospect, I see that that is a very kind thing to do for people to get them in quickly.

• 18:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  So you're not overthinking it.

• 18:12Trevor Noah?

  Essentially, it's, I think it's like the same tactics that like a drug gang uses. When you, when you're flirting with the idea of being part of the cartel, they get you into a deal as quickly as possible so that you can't now back out.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Perfect analogy.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, wait, you have to explain to us, you said no at the shop, right?

• 18:27Trevor Noah?

  I said, no, yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  So how long before you say yes? And what, what makes you say yes?

• 18:31Trevor Noah?

  So this was, I, I don't know how long it was after that. I'm bad with time in that way, maybe it was six months. I don't know, I don't know, but it was much, much, much later. I'm, I'm coming to New York to do my show in a small little theater. Cause remember I'm on my trajectory, I'm nailing it, I'm doing my thing.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:47Trevor Noah?

  John contacts me again, basically goes like, I heard you're in New York.

• 18:51Speaker 00

  Oh wow.

• 18:51Trevor Noah?

  Then I'm like, ah, man, this, I'm like, this guy.

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:54Trevor Noah?

  Yo. Now, I still don't, so here's, here's what I have to explain about this. I didn't, first of all, I didn't know what The Daily Show was because we didn't get it in that way in South Africa. But more importantly, I had seen what John did, and I've told him this, I'd seen it. But it used to air on CNN.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, the sort of the global edition.

• 19:13Trevor Noah?

  The international edition.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly, yeah.

• 19:15Trevor Noah?

  The global edition.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:17Trevor Noah?

  So what I saw was Christiane Amanpour.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:21Trevor Noah?

  Richard Quest. News from Hong Kong, news from India, news from England, you know. Then this guy would come on TV.

• 19:32Trevor Noah?

  I assumed drunk. Because he was reading the news. But man, this guy was not taking it seriously.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:39Trevor Noah?

  But this was, so Jon Stewart was part of CNN in my world.

• 19:42Speaker 00

  He used to do a package, but he would introduce it standing up by a green screen.

• 19:46Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  I then watched him do it because it would be one of the writer's jobs.

• 19:50Trevor Noah?

  Exactly.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  One of us to write, you just shit out a wraparound bit for the global edition and no one cares about it because they don't see it.

• 19:58Trevor Noah?

  Nobody cared about it.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, the rest of the world, it's the only thing they see. So they see this.

• 20:03Trevor Noah?

  It's only one, once a week.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Half-baked thing of a guy speed reading his way through, well, in the global edition. This is just, I'm vomiting this out into the world and no one's gonna hear it. And then the rest of the world is watching it after Christiane Amanpour has just told them what happened in Libya. Is this very, very confident guy in New York going, ah, welcome, ah, anyway, here's my show.

• 20:23Trevor Noah?

  And it was, so I, that's what I, so I was like, oh, I definitely don't want to be part of that thing, whatever it is. I don't want to join the news. You know what I'm saying? Don't want to join the news.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:34Trevor Noah?

  So the first time I find, so I, I come to the show, came to the show. When I was in New York, John said, just come to the building and hang out with us. So I walk in.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  It does sound gang-like.

• 20:45Trevor Noah?

  See, just hang out.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Was I gone then, or was I there?

• 20:48Trevor Noah?

  You were, you weren't there.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I must have gone.

• 20:52Trevor Noah?

  You were gone, you were gone, yeah, you were gone. I think you were just about to launch your show. You hadn't launched your show on HBO, actually.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Oh, wow. So you were right in that window.

• 20:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you had just left, you had just left, but you hadn't launched your show.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Huh.

• 21:05Trevor Noah?

  And they were using you as the template for me. Like, literally, they were like, so this works for John. So they were literally like, John Oliver would sit in this office, so you can sit here in this office.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:17Trevor Noah?

  Because I'm assuming they were just like, it's empire vibes. You guys, this is what you do, right?

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:21Trevor Noah?

  You sound like him, I think, so.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, we do all sound the same.

• 21:25Trevor Noah?

  You're not from here? Okay.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  It is, there is something about the American ear that cannot distinguish between English, Australian, New Zealand and South Africans.

• 21:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, it's all the same.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  And they can't do it.

• 21:35Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  They don't hear the vowels. It just hit, for some reason, that's our sounds.

• 21:40Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Are completely indistinct, so it just, it's a gamble. It's one in four chance each time.

• 21:46Trevor Noah?

  The best description someone gave me once that helped me understand this, it encapsulated it, was there's a guy I met in the street, UPS driver, big fan of the show. I was hosting the Daily Show at this time. And he looked at me and he went, he's like, hey, man, he's like, yo, man, I messed with this dude. He said, you that, you that British dude from South Africa?

• 22:07Speaker 00

  Well, again.

• 22:08Trevor Noah?

  But that was.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Again, historically.

• 22:10Trevor Noah?

  But that was so perfect to what you're saying. He said, you're that British dude.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:14Trevor Noah?

  From South Africa.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:16Trevor Noah?

  He knew where I was from.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:17Trevor Noah?

  But he's like.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  They can't hear it.

• 22:19Trevor Noah?

  You're British.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:20Trevor Noah?

  So, I'm at the show, they're using the John template, which I'm grateful to you for, by the way, in many ways. Because now they had like a, an idea, they're like, all right, you, you, these are things that we think work for you.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:31Trevor Noah?

  Because you like tea, not coffee, you're that kind of guy.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Sure, yeah.

• 22:33Trevor Noah?

  Right? So they go, this is what we're gonna do. John goes, just hang out. I go into one of their meetings. If you go into a Daily Show meeting, you will not know a single thing. Maybe now because of Trump, the world has become more attuned with what America is talking about. Back then, it was John Boehner.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:53Trevor Noah?

  Which threw me off because on the screen, I read Bona.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 22:57Trevor Noah?

  It's because B O E H N E R. And then everyone was saying Boehner, and I was like, are they doing this on purpose as a joke to avoid saying Bona?

• 23:05Speaker 03

  An addition.

• 23:07Trevor Noah?

  And then they were talking about gerrymandering, filibustering, they were talking about like, you know, I was, I was just like, what is this? And then at the end, John was like, so what do you think? And I said, my, my friend.

• 23:18Trevor Noah?

  You're a very funny guy. But this thing you do and what I do, very different worlds. You guys are doing homework, I'm doing comedy.

• 23:27Trevor Noah?

  So.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:28Trevor Noah?

  I like you a lot. Then he just walked around the building with me, we told jokes, told, because John is funny, we just told, told jokes, told jokes, told jokes, told jokes. And then John said, let's do this conversation on the air.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  And it sounded the same.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  But yeah, but interestingly, because having been in that process, you're there at the morning. It's, I, I understand the distinction you're making between you're doing homework, I'm doing comedy. That time of the day, for the best comedy to happen, that time of the day has to be homework.

• 23:56Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Right? So what, what feels like an anathema when you're looking at it is, hey, this is a writers' meeting of comedy writers. Why is no one making jokes? And the thing is, you can get too attracted to a joke, right? And you can try and build the whole day's show around a joke that you loved. Whereas the truth is, you need it to be foundationally solid. You build that joke on, you build that joke on sand, the joke you loved collapses. Or you're going to do some very dicey work trying to reinforce a joke that should not be standing up.

• 24:29Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  So that is why those meetings can appear humorless if you're looking at it from the outside. But what they are doing is building the foundations for jokes that will come later.

• 24:41Trevor Noah?

  No one explained it like this to me.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Because you're just like.

• 24:44Trevor Noah?

  I wish you were there. No one explained it like that.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  First of all, using the word anathema to describe what's going on in there.

• 24:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, no, no, I mean, already, already, already, already. No, no, full on. So then John said, let's do this in a conversation. Literally the conversation we have, he's like, what do you think of New York? And then I told him a few things, he laughed and he said a few things, I laughed and we went back and forth. John said, why don't we do this on the show? So I don't understand. I really don't understand what this show is now.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  I have to go to Applebee's.

• 25:10Trevor Noah?

  Then John said, let's do this thing. Let's do it on the show. And long story short, that's what we did. We basically took our conversation, turned it into a chat between us. And that's what we put on the show. And John was like, that was amazing. Let's do it again. And then I said, no, I'm going home. I don't want to be a part of this. And I left.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, in South Africa, we're building statues of you.

• 25:40Trevor Noah?

  Guys, it is hard. Did you anticipate how much hard work it would be?

• 25:45Speaker 00

  Uh, yes, I think I had a, I think I knew it was gonna be hard. I think I didn't know exactly what you're talking about. I didn't know how quickly I was gonna need to do a crash course in American politics. Not just the characters, but the functions of it, right? Where you are starting to look at the separation of powers and just the basic way that government operates. And you realize as you're in meetings for months, you're thinking, I need to Google that later. I need to Google that later. You're gonna have to kind of teach yourself as you go along and fill in the gaps. And know that in a sense, you're always in search of gaps because that is how you're going to fundamentally understand the country that you're hoping to call home, in my case.

• 26:29Trevor Noah?

  Did you always know, like, what were you doing in the UK?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  No, because my manager, the same guy that said, you're not going to Edinburgh this year. He said, just go, like, don't, don't sign anything more than a three-month lease because American TV shows fire you after three months.

• 26:43Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  That was his inspiring team talk.

• 26:47Trevor Noah?

  This is an English manager.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  This isn't very, this is an English manager.

• 26:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you can tell.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 26:51Trevor Noah?

  American, American managers would be like, yo, this is it, baby.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right.

• 26:55Trevor Noah?

  Sign a seven year lease, you're going six seasons, baby, you got it. English manager, I can see him being like, all right, nothing more than three months.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  That's right. It's a huge opportunity for you, but to be honest, I'll see you in September. With your tail between your legs, having been humbled by what they're about to do to you. Good luck. So that, yeah, so uh, he had told me this is not gonna take long.

• 27:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  So I'd put all my stuff in storage uh, in South London. It was there until last summer was when I got it out. It had been in storage.

• 27:23Trevor Noah?

  Wait, two twenty five.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Facility for eighteen years in, in South Norwood.

• 27:28Trevor Noah?

  Now you've finally, now you've relaxed. You finally were like, all right, I think this thing's going well.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  You say that though, because that, that is the problem, right? That it's partly falling in love with a job and falling in love with a country where you don't legally permanently belong.

• 27:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  I remember like six or seven months in, being very happy with uh, with what was happening at the show and what I was learning and how for the first time I felt like I fit in. And I remember landing from London, like the wheels hitting the ground in New York. And things were, oh, it's good to be home. And I thought, oh, that's a dangerous thing to think. Because this is not my home. Like I'm on a working visa. That's a pro, if I, if I feel that way, I might need to start making plans for this truly being my home. Because I, it, before it had just felt like

• 28:27Speaker 00

  a, a fun adventure that I was having. Then you realize, oh no, I think I love this more than I've loved anything. And um, there were people at the Daily Show at the time using it as a springboard because it was such a big deal, the show.

• 28:41Trevor Noah?

  I mean, it was, it was huge. Yeah, when I think about in you, in your era, sort of like where you came on towards the end of. When I look at the class of people around that time, you had Steve Carell.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  Steve Carell was just, uh, was before me, he'd gone.

• 28:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he had just left.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  I turned up, Ed Helms was, uh, was, it was his last week, so he was off, going off to the uh, office.

• 29:00Trevor Noah?

  And the hangover as well was coming up.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 29:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  So they were all doing stuff, but I didn't want to do any of that. So I didn't want it to be a springboard at all. I didn't wanna go out on auditions. I just wanted to do that show. I didn't wanna be in movies. I didn't wanna be in a sitcom. I didn't wanna act in something. I just wanted to be in that building doing that show.

• 29:21Trevor Noah?

  But what version of it? Because the first time I saw you was when you did the piece about South Africa.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:28Trevor Noah?

  You did that. Have you ever seen that?

• 29:30Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 29:30Trevor Noah?

  He did a piece for the World Cup. It is one of the most amazing pieces you'll ever see. Especially if you're South African, but even if you're not.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 29:39Trevor Noah?

  But John came to South Africa.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, for the first first game. I was I watched that first game in uh Shabene.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  South Africa versus Mexico.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Shabala! With our port goal. I still think that goal was paid for.

• 29:52Trevor Noah?

  You think you can pay for that? This is what happens when you don't watch football, my man. Do you think you can? Let me tell you something.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  You can hundred percent.

• 30:00Trevor Noah?

  Eugene, let me tell you something.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Hundred percent.

• 30:01Trevor Noah?

  Eugene.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:02Trevor Noah?

  I can pay you all the money in the world.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 30:06Trevor Noah?

  And I can give you all the time in the world. You will never create that goal.

• 30:12Trevor Noah?

  My friend, do you understand how hard you? There's so many things you can.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  That goal.

• 30:16Trevor Noah?

  So Eugene, I I should give I should give you a bit of context.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 30:19Trevor Noah?

  Eugene A. doesn't believe in football.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  You wait, hold on, hold on. I'm more interested in this than I is the underwater scooter. You don't believe in the con- the concept of it?

• 30:31Speaker 03

  Because I think football fans basically like other men. Because if they really love football, they would watch women's football too. But because they appreciate just watching men only play football.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  This argument is flawed on so many levels.

• 30:45Trevor Noah?

  Take it there. It's over for you.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  Take it away.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  What what are you talking about?

• 30:51Trevor Noah?

  Also add in the fact that he also thinks it's all a scam. It's all rigged.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:55Trevor Noah?

  It's all. It's all like manufactured.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  It's all actors.

• 30:58Trevor Noah?

  He thinks we're watching WWE.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  People have been groomed from childhood. They've been put in these camps to kick this ball. They promised jerseys. Other people are being co-opted into the scam.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  It's a world cu- the World Cup's coming.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Nobody wants this shit right now. America's gearing up.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  That World Cup of ours bought. It was just for my diva.

• 31:20Speaker 00

  Oh, that, the World Cup was bought.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  And that gold.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The World, every World Cup is bought. FIFA is a criminal organisation.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  At least we agree there. First scam.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  And then, I saw, I'm getting on your argument, saying FIFA is a criminal organisation, then I'm getting off. And you are driving that argument off into crazy town.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Remember, and also it's very hard for me to admit this because I did a show called Countdown twenty ten.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Which was a magazine show for four years and I travelled the world. Yeah, you hyped us up for it. He hyped up the whole country for the World Cup. Four years.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Attending huge sporting events, Euro Cup, CAF Africa Cup of Nations, everything, I was there. What I took away home was my salary and the fact that all of this is a scam.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Oh, all of it is a scam. But the, the World Cup, FIFA as an organisation is, you, you, I have to think of it in terms of crime.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  You can't, you can't really think of them as a sporting organisation. The sport is somehow immune from their fuckery. So I was even seeing that Zarain Mamdani had that, uh, he's just really, he had released that video.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  The one about ticket prices.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  No, was it the one just saying like FIFA, like choose the game over greed. And that was the first time with Mamdani, I'm thinking, well, who do you think you're talking to? If I was FIFA.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Over greed.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  But, but Infantino, the head of it, was just gonna, I choose greed. Every, I've always chosen greed. I've not.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  I've not chosen anything.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  There's no moral compass that you can appeal to here. Nothing points north in my soul. So yeah, FIFA is a terrible organisation that happens to produce the best imaginable product. But those.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  It's like a drug organisation making the best drugs.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  The greatest cocaine.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  And the worst thing is when I saw this one documentary where they spoke about the football, the ball itself, that every ball for the World Cup has a name. Oh, the Jabulani, yeah, yeah. And it has its own idiosyncrasies. Yeah, that's true, that's true. And I was like, you see now, for someone, someone who played a World Cup eight years ago, kicked a ball that's not similar to a World Cup ball now. That's true. So you don't, because cricket, the ball is the same.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  You are right about FIFA and you are wrong about football.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Football is, is the beautiful cocaine that the Sinaloa cartel produces.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  The most beautiful thing that has ever.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Existed. This explanation sounds better with a British accent.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Well, we both have one of those to American ears.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  To a FedEx driver.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, to a FedEx driver, it's all the same. Old, old Johnny from Joburg here.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Oh man.

• 33:53Trevor Noah?

  But you also, do you remember, I mean, I'm sure you remember it. Do you remember the piece where you were talking to racist white South Africans?

• 33:59Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  You took it there.

• 34:01Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Our best imports.

• 34:02Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you something.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Exports, yeah.

• 34:04Trevor Noah?

  John Oliver talking to racist white South Africans and them rolling with him.

• 34:08Speaker 00

  Yes, but you know what?

• 34:09Trevor Noah?

  They loved him.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  I was what I was, of course, there is something about me they like. But the interesting thing is that with that interview, I, what I wanted to do was get the ugliness out in the open, in a short space, right? And so it's difficult because there is, as you well know, a polish to racism.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Very much so.

• 34:31Speaker 00

  In South Africa, a real, a, a, a real patina of dignity around the horror. So I wanted to get under this guy's skin and I got, I, Louis Theroux, you know, had done some pieces in South Africa. And so I, uh, one of the producers of The Daily Show had worked, uh, with Louis Theroux. So I'd asked him, hey, can you, is there anything, how does he get to the id of this ugliness?

• 34:54Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  How do you get through all of the, uh, poise?

• 34:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, the pretense.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  Exactly. And he said, as a British person, the one knife you have is make some glib remark about the boers.

• 35:06Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  And the Boer War, and all of a sudden things will change. So like, he's sitting down in his chair and like, it's just, he seems very confident, very media practiced. I made some comment as they're putting his thing and just the.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Eyes change. It's like, oh, and he went, oh, there's the human being that I came here to talk to.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  Cause the relationship between British people or English people and Afrikaners is quite dicey because there's a term that they have for someone who's half Africans, half British called a salty. Cause you know what that means? Salty dick.

• 35:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  So it means one foot is in Africa and then the other foot is in Europe and you're.

• 35:40Trevor Noah?

  And your penis is in the ocean. Which always threw me off because I was like, if you look at, if you look at where you're standing.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  I was gonna say that doesn't.

• 35:46Trevor Noah?

  On the map, it never made sense to me.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Johnny from Joburg is like, yeah, that's.

• 35:51Trevor Noah?

  It never made sense to me.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  It's a slightly Sandy Wright testicle.

• 35:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it never made sense to me. It never made sense.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Geographically, it's, I know it's not the main problem with that term, but it doesn't seem it works on any real geographic level.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  That makes my Michael Jackson comment of it.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  But it worked, but it worked. Interestingly, it worked.

• 36:07Trevor Noah?

  It got you.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  He was im- immediately spiky and it was easier to coax out the ugly. He was less poised.

• 36:14Trevor Noah?

  I, I always wondered when I watched you doing your pieces, I was just like. Because I didn't know you at all as a person. I always remember thinking, is this how this guy is?

• 36:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's not how I am, because I think naturally,

• 36:28Speaker 00

  I'm kind of non-confrontational, but in those pieces.

• 36:31Trevor Noah?

  But you love stirring shit up.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  I love stirring shit up.

• 36:34Trevor Noah?

  You really love stirring shit up.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  That's exactly it. I love stirring shit up more than I love being a human being. So all of a sudden, you have this excuse to be the worst version of yourself that secretly you love more than the other parts. And you get to go full sociopath.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  That's what Nazi officers used to say. It's their uniform.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  I get to be a totally different person.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  It's something about the Hugo Boss tailoring.

• 37:02Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man. Yeah, because you.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  I don't know if it's on purse.

• 37:04Trevor Noah?

  You just like.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  It's not me. It's that jacket.

• 37:08Trevor Noah?

  Wait, but did you, but did you know, did you know that you, so you loved that part of the job?

• 37:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 37:14Trevor Noah?

  But did you, did you know that you would love the hosting part of the job before you hosted, before you get hosted?

• 37:19Speaker 00

  I was terrified of it. So John, he did this, a similar version of that conversation that he pinged on you.

• 37:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Was that he called me at, at home and I'm in my apartment and he said, hey, I'm gonna, um, uh, that movie that I've been writing, I'm gonna be able to direct it. I'm going, oh, that's great. This feels like a conversation, I don't know, this can't be the first call. You're just calling everyone you know to say you're excited. So he talks about when he's gonna do it over the summer. I'm like, oh, okay, great. Yeah. So what? And he went, and could you, um, could you host the show for me? I went, yeah, I, I, because he'd give me everything. I think I was just hardwired. I would say yes to everything he said.

• 38:00Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  You need something from me, I will do it. Whatever that thing is, criminal or not, I'll do it. So I said, yes, like, like it's nothing. Put the phone down and then thought, whoa, boy, what have I just agreed to? And that was terrifying. So then I, for the month before he left, I shadowed him much more closely to work out exactly what the day is like, right? The parts of the day that I didn't see, just as a writer and correspondent on that show, what things need to happen. So you get a fuller understanding of what mistakes do you need to fix earlier in the day, otherwise you're gonna be living inside them for the rest of the day.

• 38:39Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you? Cause it's lit, it's literally, that's something people don't understand about making The Daily Show or like, you know, a version of Last Week Tonight, which is, has a different process, but it's, it's the, that first block

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:52Trevor Noah?

  that you, that you start building on defines everything.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  That's right. Everything, everything cascades after that.

• 38:57Trevor Noah?

  That first block. So if you put that block just a little skew. It's downhill from there. By the time you get to block one hundred at five P M, you're like, why is this thing falling over and touching the ground? And you're like, oh, it's that first block. And if you didn't catch the first block early enough, now you're there at five, trying to like, how many blocks can we go back before we can, yo?

• 39:15Speaker 00

  That's so, what you learnt, right, was a different way to look at that room than that first day that you were in it.

• 39:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  What you're really, you're thinking, why is this, why, why don't we do?

• 39:24Trevor Noah?

  Why is everyone so serious?

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. Why aren't we worrying about what the color of the blocks are?

• 39:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Oh, you don't wanna worry about, you can change the color of a block in a second.

• 39:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  That's what, what, what I realised was being in rewrites, what, good and bad, you realise you can write jokes at the last second.

• 39:39Trevor Noah?

  You can.

• 39:40Speaker 00

  You can't fix part of the story quickly.

• 39:42Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  Otherwise you're in big, big, big trouble.

• 39:46Trevor Noah?

  Were you shocked at how much fact checking went into making an episode of The Daily Show?

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Not really, cause I assumed like if to take big swings, you're gonna have to

• 39:57Speaker 00

  have a system that can back you up. Otherwise, you're just not gonna be able to do it for long.

• 40:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  In a, a country as litigious as America. So I was, uh, I wasn't that surprised. I certainly loved it. I loved that part of the process. And I think what we've done on our show is extrapolate that out now. So it's not just jods in a room, basically just drowning in people's opinions, thinking, I'll, I'll tell you how much of this you can actually say.

• 40:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  And then an hour later, we'll have an answer for you. Now we have a much bigger scaled out research department now, so that they can spend weeks before the writers get anywhere near a story to work out what. Uh, what can you say? And then you can craft the story from those ingredients and then you can craft jokes from that story.

• 40:44Trevor Noah?

  I've always wondered why, like, why you like stirring the shit that you like stirring, cause I, just because you are a shit stirrer does not necessarily mean that you choose to stir shit in every cup. Does that make sense?

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Why stir in the cup, anyway?

• 40:58Trevor Noah?

  Well, I feel like that's like more shit stirry. Like where, if you're doing it in like a toilet, it's weird.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:03Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean?

• 41:04Speaker 00

  I, I do love the feeling of trouble.

• 41:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you do, but a specific type of trouble is what I've noticed, like.

• 41:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:12Trevor Noah?

  Maybe it's just me, but you, you, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. When I, when I think of John Oliver, I go like, political shit stirring, I'm like, a little bit, but not so much.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 41:20Trevor Noah?

  But when you get into like corporates.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you listen.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  I, I love it so much.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  You're a guy who almost maybe became corporate. If you, if it wasn't for comedy, maybe you would have been in corporate, right?

• 41:29Speaker 00

  No, I would not, never. I, I couldn't survive in that world. I couldn't do it. Uh, that was not for me.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  What was the plan?

• 41:37Speaker 00

  There was no real plan.

• 41:39Trevor Noah?

  Did you study anything?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  I studied English.

• 41:42Trevor Noah?

  Wow, that's a waste.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  The language that you speak at home.

• 41:44Trevor Noah?

  John.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  And do I, do I not speak it beautifully?

• 41:51Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you? You speak so well.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 41:54Trevor Noah?

  You speak so well. Has anyone told you how articulate you are?

• 41:56Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 41:57Trevor Noah?

  You speak very well, John, very well.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  That's what three years of higher education will give you. I didn't come in talking like this. I left that way. Uh, no, I wanted, I started writing comedy, uh, at college. And then I did, uh, my first stand up gig. And it was, I imagine how a drug addict feels when they get their first taste of something which they know is now going to alter how they live the rest of their life.

• 42:29Trevor Noah?

  We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. Fall has a way of turning an ordinary night into a reason to gather. Whether it is a football game, a Halloween party, or a dinner on a cold evening. Whole Foods Market makes those moments easier with comfort food, seasonal treats, and quality standards built into every aisle. Start with a Whole Foods Market Kitchen's lasagna, packaged soup, or a build-your-own-family meal from the prepared foods counter, which feeds four for thirty-five dollars. For game day, add made-in-house wings, frozen pizzas, and three sixty-five brand chips and dips.

• 43:13Trevor Noah?

  The limited-time bakery lineup brings the season home with pumpkin blondies, apple brown butter cookies, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie. And with no artificial sweeteners like sucralose, artificial colors like red dye number forty, or high-fructose corn syrup store-wide, nothing gets in the way of the flavors you came for. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Markets. Everybody has that oddly specific thing that they're curious about. Maybe it's restoring old watches. Maybe it's Japanese ceramic making. Maybe it's watching someone explain why one bridge in a remote area of Norway is secretly better than all the other bridges in the world.

• 43:56Trevor Noah?

  YouTube always has exactly what you're looking for, even when you didn't know you were looking for it. With YouTube Premium, those deep dives feel even smoother. You get ad-free viewing, but you also get background play when you need your hands free. And you get offline downloads, so you can keep watching wherever you happen to be, even if you happen to be off the grid. It's everything you already love about YouTube, just somehow even better. Yeah, one of my favorite YouTube Premium features is smart downloads. Because how many times have you gone somewhere and realized, "Ah, I forgot to download anything!" And now you're on the way to the airport and you're like, "Download, download, download, download." You're on the plane, "Download, download, download, download." There's no Wi-Fi. "I wish I downloaded." Now, all of those things that you were gonna watch...

• 44:41Trevor Noah?

  Or just on the internet. Smart downloads basically thinks ahead for you. It automatically downloads recommended videos based on what you like to watch. So even when you forget to prepare, YouTube Premium didn't. I love it. It's like packing for a trip and discovering somebody already remembered the thing you always leave at home. It's always the underwear. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. I think one of the things you realize when you start caring about clothes is that simple doesn't have to mean basic. Because a T-shirt is a T-shirt until you find the right T-shirt.

• 45:22Trevor Noah?

  Ooh, then suddenly you're talking about the cut, the fit, the weight, the way it falls on your body. Then you're like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Look at the sleeve. And that's what I've really enjoyed about Quince. One of my favorite things is their Pima Cotton Luxe Touch T-shirts. And it's become one of those pieces I keep reaching for. The cotton has this really smooth, premium feel to it. The fit is great and it just lays really nicely. And I think that's what you sometimes take for granted with simple clothes. When they're done really well, they become the foundation of an entire outfit. You can throw on a jacket, a sweater, whatever you want, but everything works because you started with the right thing. That's what I like about Quince. It feels premium without feeling like you're trying too hard.

• 46:07Trevor Noah?

  It's effortless. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. Hello over there. Oh, and if Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was What Now with Trevor Noah. It's the best way to support the show.

• 46:42Trevor Noah?

  Do you remember your first joke on stage? Or your first like bit that was like your?

• 46:48Speaker 00

  I had a bit about driving theory tests. I think, I can't remember exactly what I do about EasyJet at the time, not great jokes, but I remember.

• 46:57Trevor Noah?

  Because before EasyJet was?

• 46:59Speaker 00

  It was early days of EasyJet.

• 47:01Trevor Noah?

  Isn't EasyJet back now with that thing? Is it? Jet 2. Oh, Jet 2 Holiday, yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, so I can't remember.

• 47:08Trevor Noah?

  Bad, bad, clearly the marketing didn't work on me.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Great, but the process of the feeling of it, I knew. I was at college with Richard Iawadi, do you know that guy?

• 47:16Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yes, I do know, yes, yes.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  So we wrote.

• 47:17Trevor Noah?

  Richard with the glasses, with the hair, but he's in the movies now and stuff.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Yes, we wrote, we wrote at Footlights together. And we did a two man show and I remember walking off the stage for the first night that we put our own show on.

• 47:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  And thinking, I, I, I wanna do this. I don't know what that's gonna mean, I don't know where I'm gonna be able to do it. But all of a sudden, my life became quite clear in terms of not how it was gonna turn out, but what I was gonna try and do. And that's a huge gift, isn't it, in many ways?

• 47:49Trevor Noah?

  Oh, no, it's the greatest gift of all.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  I remember my dad, years, years later, saying, oh, I admire that you never gave up. And it only at that point occurred to me that at some point that would have been an option. It never even crossed my mind to give up, even when from the outside it must have looked like, this is not a dignified life that you're building for yourself here. But I was so happy in it, it never crossed my mind.

• 48:18Trevor Noah?

  Where did your funny come from in the family?

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't, I mean, I don't know, survival, you know, it's the.

• 48:25Trevor Noah?

  Is your dad, your mom, your grandfather, like, who would you say you have the closest comedic?

• 48:30Speaker 00

  Probably my dad's dad, but no, my, my family's from Liverpool, right? And so that is a city that's been through some shit.

• 48:35Trevor Noah?

  Ah, okay, okay.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  It's main processing technique was often comedy.

• 48:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  And my, my granddad was a really, really funny guy, a very odd man.

• 48:48Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 48:48Speaker 00

  Loved jokes.

• 48:49Trevor Noah?

  I remember John Bishop explaining this to me, the Liverpool comedian, he was like, I was like, why are you so, and he, and he said, honestly, he said, I'm not even the funniest person in this place. I just do it professionally.

• 49:00Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 49:01Trevor Noah?

  And it's just, it's just a vibe of people. It's, it's interesting you say that because it almost feels like, like the people of Liverpool. Things, so many shit things happened to them that they were like, we will exist in a world of shit stirring.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:14Trevor Noah?

  In this world now.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:16Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 49:16Speaker 00

  Hmm. It's just how you survive. Gallows humor, right?

• 49:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah. Okay.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  And uh, so it's the only thing that's ever made sense for me. It's the only way I've ever processed the world is through.

• 49:26Trevor Noah?

  Ah.

• 49:26Speaker 00

  Laughs. At his funeral, I did uh.

• 49:30Trevor Noah?

  Granddad's funeral?

• 49:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was, I wanted it to be funny.

• 49:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Because it felt like if this, if this event isn't funny, this is no reflection of who he was. That in many ways, in my mind as a kid, he was the guy that taught me how to misbehave. Cause he knew it would be funny, like you're sitting at a table, he's like saying, just bang your cattery like this. And like, two seconds later, I'm in trouble and he's laughing. You're like, oh, I like the sound that came out of that mouth. I've cau- I've caused a big problem in this room, but this guy's just chuckling to himself, oh, why, why, why do I need to do get a little bit more of that?

• 50:02Trevor Noah?

  He was your first audience, I like this.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  He was, and you know what? The last time I saw him, I think I've told this story before, was uh, he was dying in a, an old people's home. And my, he was definitely not gonna be around for long. And uh, he, my dad left to get the car, he was on the ground floor. And so I just thought I could leave through the door, or I could like climb, there was like a little window into a hedge. And I thought, or I could just like climb out through the window and go through the hedge. And so I thought, I'll just, I'll just do the hedge. So, looked up the window, climb out like scratching through into the car park. And the last thing I heard him say to me was, you're an idiot. That was.

• 50:39Trevor Noah?

  That's the last thing.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  That's the last thing he said to me.

• 50:41Trevor Noah?

  Ever said to you.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Those are the last things I heard from him, out of his mouth was, you're an idiot. I remember, I, I remember like hearing it as I'm scratching through a hedge going, that went well. I'm glad I did that. Option B was the right choice. You don't get you're an idiot if you walk functionally through a door.

• 50:58Trevor Noah?

  Who wants that?

• 51:01Trevor Noah?

  Oh man, I love this for you. Like it's just like, it's, it's, it's a crazy journey for me because like, what I've, what I've selfishly always enjoyed about your career is, I've always said to people, you were the pioneer for my path, you know what I mean? So when I first came to the US, one thing that was made apparently clear to me was, hey, uh, you're nice and everything, but Americans don't like people with an accent, especially doing anything in and around their world, just keep it moving, keep it moving.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Let alone speaking about their politics.

• 51:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, keep it moving.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  You can see why though, right?

• 51:37Trevor Noah?

  Oh, completely.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, there is like, it feels like you earned the right to criticize, right? And, and they, they can, they can be questioning, I think understandably, Americans, where is this coming from? And it's, it's a, it was a shift for me to go often from you, you do this, you do this.

• 51:56Trevor Noah?

  Oh yeah, and then I noticed you started saying we do this.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  We, because I'm an American now, right? Uh, and so, uh, I, I play with you and we, uh, but there was at least a sense of ownership. And again, as a British person, a sense of ownership of the country has a bit of an asterisk on it. But it, it did feel like this isn't, this isn't coming from, I think there have been people who've come, like done a smash and grab in America and there's no real emotional investment in it. Whereas that was not the case with me and I don't think it was ever going to be the case with you.

• 52:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I, but I think at the time, the industry, this wasn't people, this was just the industry going, hey, it doesn't work. Don't even bother. I remember one of my, one of my good friends, Neil Brennan, the comedian, he was, he said to me, he's like, just leave. We were in a, we were in a small little diner in Denver, Colorado. He had been performing at the improv, I'd been performing at like a, like the Happy Clap, whatever, you know, like one of the second type of clubs. And he was just like, what are you doing here? He said, just go home, go home. I was like, I'm doing comedy. He's like, no, just, he's like, America won't give you, just go home. And I'll never forget, yeah, but you say that, but I will never forget when the switch flipped. And it almost happened at the same time for both of us.

• 53:06Trevor Noah?

  I had done, I think, two episodes of The Daily Show, just as like a pop in. Contribute to even not correspondent, I just contribute and I leave, contribute and I leave. And someone had asked me, would you do this full time? I was like, no, there's no world where I would do this full time. I just can't see the possibility. And I was at home, watching TV, and your show came on. And it was the first episode, and it was about India's elections.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:36Trevor Noah?

  And I I remember sitting on the couch and I went, oh, oh, yeah, I would, oh, I would do, I, okay, okay. Because it was the first time I saw an American lens on the world.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:48Trevor Noah?

  Not from an American, but including America. I was like, oh, yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I, okay, that's, that's a possibility. I was like, okay, I would, I would, I would do that. And I genu- I genuinely think I wouldn't have gotten The Daily Show if it wasn't for you, genuinely.

• 54:04Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 54:04Trevor Noah?

  Ah, I promise you.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Really?

• 54:06Trevor Noah?

  I'm willing to bet money.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 54:07Trevor Noah?

  Six, how many months did you do it, uh, guest hosting?

• 54:11Speaker 00

  Uh, three, just three months.

• 54:12Trevor Noah?

  Three months?

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, just the summer.

• 54:13Trevor Noah?

  Just that three months alone?

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Maybe, I think, I think there was real panic about John ever leaving. And I think at least it showed that that staff was solid enough that somebody could do that job temporarily.

• 54:27Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  I still don't think there was any confidence that somebody could do it forever.

• 54:32Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Someone could fill in for him in a panic. I don't think there was any, any real institutional confidence at Comedy Central of, oh, great, so, uh, someone else can do it. It's still very much his thing.

• 54:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you being successful even at HBO made people go, oh, there's a possibility.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  I think that was different.

• 54:49Trevor Noah?

  Do you get what I'm saying?

• 54:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I think what we were trying to do was stretch the form of it. And it took us a while, but I think what, that Indian election was such a gift for a first show because, to my mind, there was nothing more interesting happening in the world that week than the Indian election. The largest exercise of democracy in human history. And it was nowhere on American television, which was just wildly insular. It felt, nothing is happening that in America that's more interesting this week than what is about to happen in India. That was almost a gift. From there, we had to kind of get out of our system, that rhythm from The Daily Show where you're just reacting.

• 55:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, reacting.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  And. Uh. We did one show that wasn't very good, I remember, about um immigration early on. That felt like we'd done like a ten minute headline that was really just, you could have kind of done it on The Daily Show.

• 55:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:45Speaker 00

  It was stuff you'd already seen. It didn't feel good. Luckily, we had, I think, I I think it's that I'd shot an interview with Stephen Hawking that we did after that. And so that was the main thing that people thought about. For us, the real lesson that we learnt that day was that

• 56:04Speaker 00

  what we wanted our show to be about was showing people something they hadn't seen before.

• 56:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Because it felt like then you're actually using the extra time that you got. Otherwise, it feels like cheating. It's just doing one show a week.

• 56:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  That you could have written in a day or two, to be fair. Now, we, from that lesson on, we extrapolated our process out so that we're spending six weeks on each story.

• 56:25Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  And you're just juggling them at the same time.

• 56:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, just moving them around and then choosing.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  And you're, and you can, you can force feed any story that you like on people then. You can, like, you have a, you earn the right to have an audience that will actually sit through something that sounds unbelievably boring, like mobile home financing. But the moment that you get into it, you realise how interesting, everything is in, you know this, everything is interesting.

• 56:51Trevor Noah?

  Everything is interesting if you know enough about it, I find.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 56:54Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's literally what it is.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  So you just need to give people enough information about it for them to be able to find it interesting. But that takes time. You need, and commercial television, that is much, much harder. Because you need, uh, it's hard.

• 57:06Trevor Noah?

  Any, any, any duration.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that is a big difference, right? You, it's hard to hold people's attention. You take them on a long narrative story if you're having to say six, eight, nine minutes in, we'll be right back. Three minutes of Twix commercials, and they're like, I, I forget where I was.

• 57:25Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:26Speaker 00

  So it's, that is why it's much easier for us to be able to do like forty minute long stories that sound like they're just in one breath, because you can't leave.

• 57:35Trevor Noah?

  I've, I've always loved watching it, thinking about how many enemies you make. Like sometimes I genuinely think to myself, I go, are there moments where John maybe can't get a loan? Or maybe someone gives him a less favorable? No, because I think of like, how many times has your show been sued?

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Uh, we've been sued a bunch of, uh, not a lot of times. We've, uh, we've been threatened with lawsuits, um, huge amount.

• 58:03Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Actual number of lawsuits, uh, is less, is one, one handful, but we haven't lost any. That's the key thing. I always, I always say to our audience.

• 58:13Trevor Noah?

  Undefeated.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  That's the thing, we like, it can be a fractious, albeit functional relationship with our lawyers. But I think we have like a different view of their job. Cause I think what they think their job is, is to stop us getting sued.

• 58:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  And I think their job is to make sure that when we get sued, we win, right? And that, that part of it is everything that I love. When you know you're in trouble, the company's angry with you, your own lawyers are angry with you. The only people that are excited are the people that you work with.

• 58:40Trevor Noah?

  And the audience.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  And the audience, yeah, the audience, cause they love, like, everyone loves watching a car crash. Right, and it's so much fun to be in that position. And it feels like to me, because it's not commercial, because you have full freedom of speech as well, that you, it is incumbent upon you, if you're lucky enough to be in that position, to push it as hard as you can.

• 59:04Trevor Noah?

  So then are you worried at all about all the mergers and stuff that are coming?

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Oh, sure, but I mean, we, this would be.

• 59:09Trevor Noah?

  Because you, your show would be, what is, HBO's under Warner, so if Warner gets sold.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 59:15Trevor Noah?

  You would, if it was Netflix, you'd be under Netflix technically, or if it was Paramount, you'd be under Paramount.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  Comcast, we're on a Comcast.

• 59:19Trevor Noah?

  And then they might break it up as well, and then everything could go everywhere.

• 59:23Speaker 00

  And it'll be like tied up in the courts. But this would not be our first merger. But this would be our.

• 59:28Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you were around for AT&T?

• 59:29Speaker 00

  This would be our third merger.

• 59:30Trevor Noah?

  How many have you been around for?

• 59:32Speaker 00

  We were around for, first, uh, we were taken over, Time Warner was taken over by AT&T.

• 59:37Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  Then AT&T, uh, was, uh, taken over by, uh, Warner Brothers Discovery.

• 59:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  And then Warner Brothers Discovery is going to be taken over by company question mark. So we'll see.

• 59:49Trevor Noah?

  Hmm, what do you think of the merger?

• 59:52Speaker 00

  I mean, I think mergers are generally bad. I think you're always hoping for the least bad option.

• 59:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Speaker 00

  And I think that, like, the key thing for us is to act with enough.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Enough like aggression or confidence like I would I will act assuming nothing is gonna happen. We're not gonna change, right? I think we've been on, we've been behaving the way we've been behaving.

• 1:00:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  For long enough that you can't really reason with us. So there's no point in doing that. There's no, yeah, you're not gonna be able.

• 1:00:26Trevor Noah?

  I just pictured like you and your team are like that, like that village, you know, those those stories that they would talk about like it. Every empire had it, whether it was the Romans or the Mongols or whoever it was, and there would always be this one village. Chip in Norton. Where they went, they went, you know what? We've technically conquered this whole area.

• 1:00:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Trevor Noah?

  Just leave them. Just, just leave it. Just let them do their thing.

• 1:00:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're just, it's not worth it. That you wanna be that village. You wanna be that village so unreasonable that gigantic corporate armies just go, just leave them alone. That's all you want. Be enough trouble that you're too much trouble to deal with. Well, I mean, again, it's least bad, right? There's no, it's not like there's good options, like as as played out during mergers. But you know, these things come with cuts.

• 1:01:11Trevor Noah?

  I have yet to see a merger that has done well for the whole, you know what I mean? Like.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Trevor Noah?

  It's just almost, it's almost like the only mergers that do well are outliers. Almost every merger doesn't do well. I don't understand why mergers are still a popular thing.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, I mean, it's, it's going to get tied up in courts because you can't really. That you, there are going to be question marks on all of this, right? Because it's very hard to justify this legally. Now, whether that makes it impossible for it to happen, that's an open question.

• 1:01:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  But again, you can't waste time worrying about something that you're not gonna listen to anyway, right? It feels like they're, we, we're just gonna do what we do. They're gonna, whoever they are, is gonna have to realize either you ignore us like that irritating village, or you're gonna have to take us around the back of the woodshed.

• 1:01:58Trevor Noah?

  Do you miss the stand-up that you used to do?

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  Oh, I do. I love it so much.

• 1:02:01Trevor Noah?

  You, you know, one of my favorite jokes ever is a joke of yours that I never heard you tell. That someone told me you told.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  Uh-oh.

• 1:02:10Trevor Noah?

  It was your R. Kelly joke. The ignition joke, do you remember that?

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, what was that?

• 1:02:15Trevor Noah?

  So the joke, it's crazy that I remember it. It was just one of my favorite jokes ever. So it was, it was the John Oliver joke. And the joke was, um, it was basically you saying, um, I hate how my brain chooses what it wants to remember and what it doesn't want. And I'm paraphrasing everything, but it was basically the premise was, I hate how my brain chooses what it wants to remember and doesn't allow me to choose what I want to remember. Cause there's very important things that I want to remember in the world, you know, like the capital of this place or the laws and da, da, da of this place. But instead, my brain is filled with random things like, so for instance, um, I went to a CPR class and I learned how to do CPR. Like they taught me how to do CPR and this is, there's very specific steps that you have to do. Right? Uh, I also heard R. Kelly's, um, ignition song,

• 1:03:00Trevor Noah?

  which I know all the words to. He's like, and John was like, I've never sat down and I've never learned the words. I've never tried to remember the words, but I know them all. It's the remix to ignition. Then you're like, when I was at the CPR class, they said to me, they were like, the CPR technique, the rhythm of it is the same as, that's the rhythm of ignition. Yeah. So while you're doing it, it's the remix to ignition. Like that's what you gotta be pumping to. And then John was like, but now I'm afraid that my brain will screw me up. I'm going to be on a plane one day and be like, oh my God, someone's having a heart attack. Someone, can somebody come? And then John's going to come in there and he'll be like, ah, I forgot the CPR, but he's like, it's the remix to ignition.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  Here's the amazing thing. I don't remember any part of that joke at all, but I do remember the lyrics to ignition by R. Kelly.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  So that, I don't know if that's my joke or not, but the premise stands up. R. Kelly, by the way, did Harrods screw him over for any purchase?

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  They should have. Maybe that's their origin story. Maybe that's the, the beginning of it all, right? Is Harrods screws you over?

• 1:04:01Speaker 00

  R. Kelly, like Michael Jackson is really the victim when it comes to Harrods.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  Leave the other women at the penthouse. Those two. But you, you, I mean.

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  Why can't the Al Fayed family catch a break?

• 1:04:17Trevor Noah?

  No, because you you you love you love stand. I'm assuming you still love stand up, right?

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I still do stand up, yeah.

• 1:04:23Trevor Noah?

  No, but you and you love it, like.

• 1:04:24Speaker 00

  I love it so much. It's still like it calms me down like nothing else. I'll do it.

• 1:04:28Trevor Noah?

  Wait, it calms you down?

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  You, Trevor, I will take that surprise from anyone but you.

• 1:04:33Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, it calms you down. No, this is fully surprised.

• 1:04:37Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:04:38Trevor Noah?

  Fully surprised.

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  You don't find it that way too?

• 1:04:40Trevor Noah?

  Calming?

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Trevor Noah?

  Ah, invigorating, I would say, yes.

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Trevor Noah?

  Calming? No. What, Eugene? Hmm? What are you calming? What which word would you use for stand up?

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Avoiding.

• 1:04:50Speaker 00

  Avoiding? Sure.

• 1:04:53Trevor Noah?

  But how does stand up make you feel?

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, um, you know, every time I do stand up, I'm like, thank God, I'm I'm naturally good at it. But I don't rely on it.

• 1:05:04Trevor Noah?

  Because?

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  Because I'd be miserable.

• 1:05:08Trevor Noah?

  Why?

• 1:05:08Speaker 00

  Doing what?

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  If it's all I had to do, I'd die. So when I do it, I'm going, I'm not gonna suck. I know that.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  So thank God for that part.

• 1:05:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:05:17Speaker 03

  But I'm like, thank God, I don't have to come back here every day and do this thing to survive.

• 1:05:20Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:05:21Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 1:05:22Trevor Noah?

  So that's why I think every comedian has a different, like, I don't.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  I don't hate it.

• 1:05:25Trevor Noah?

  Calm, I don't get, John.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  No, and I don't get nervous.

• 1:05:29Speaker 00

  Because when you first said, thank goodness, I'm so prednaturally talented at this, you sounded like Cristiano Ronaldo at that point.

• 1:05:36Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no.

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  He wouldn't even get the reference or he'll think he's just some kind of puppet from the CIA.

• 1:05:40Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no. Oh, no, no. Eugene knows everyone in football just to troll people who know football.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  I I where I where I understand is that like the the grind of stand, especially when you're starting off right, where it is such a slog just to get by. I am very grateful that I don't have to do that exclusively, but I would never not wanna do it at all.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I but I but I'm saying.

• 1:06:06Speaker 03

  English summed it up nicely.

• 1:06:09Trevor Noah?

  That's three years. Three years have paid off. No, but calm, yeah, calm, I don't get, genuinely.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  So for you, it's calming, you.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  I find it, yeah, it clears my head.

• 1:06:17Trevor Noah?

  Which part?

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  Like nothing else. I I think just like the process of it, the fact it's, you know, it the our our show is so collaborative. There are so many moving parts. There is a simplicity, a directness to stand up.

• 1:06:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 00

  That you can't really replicate. Um, it's just, it's a.

• 1:06:37Speaker 00

  Like it's a fundamentally selfish exercise, right? And there's, there's something I, I love about the, the social side of it. The fact that you're not socializing, like you can be an isolated person among a lot of people.

• 1:06:51Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Like you can, you're with a lot of people, but you're alone.

• 1:06:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  Like you're, there's a purpose to your day. You can structure everything around that.

• 1:07:00Trevor Noah?

  See that. What was your, what, what is your stand up day? What's your?

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  Well, it depends, like here I get to do once a month at the Beacon with Seth.

• 1:07:07Trevor Noah?

  Okay. No, but I'm saying like, what's this, just a stand up day for you? If I'm, if I'm on the road. What would you do? From, from the morning, from the time you wake up, what time do you wake up? And then what's your day before you go on stage?

• 1:07:18Speaker 00

  It's, see, it, it changed over the year because I had kids. So my body clock is not what it was. I used to have the stand up body clock where I could happily just sleep past noon and do the, now I, now I'm stuck between two worlds because my body wants to get up at six o'clock when my kids are getting up. Well, they are, so I'm kind of up then. So for me doing stand up right now, what I'm really, because I'm not kind of, I'm not in that regular routine. It's kind of trying to break the routine of the way my mind works.

• 1:07:54Trevor Noah?

  Okay, alright, okay, got it.

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  The show and structuring the show and getting it back into, so exactly, so it's,

• 1:08:00Trevor Noah?

  It's a vacation.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  It's to, it's trying to think about jokes in the stand up form, which you know, is different, right? It's different. There are, there are things that you, jokes you would love on the daily show that you know would not work.

• 1:08:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  And similarly, stand up jokes that wouldn't work in the form of the daily show. So, yeah, it, it's, it's really just about trying to keep my love for stand up alive, despite the fact I don't get to do it enough.

• 1:08:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. I did it a whole bunch during the strike, just because it was the best way to.

• 1:08:30Trevor Noah?

  There was like, now you're off the show and now you can go out there and you can do something.

• 1:08:33Speaker 00

  So I just scrambled a whole bunch of dates and did a lot of, that was the most I've done it. So for a few months I was out constantly because it felt like it was the only way that I could, you know, help.

• 1:08:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  Staff pay, but also just the only way that it was going to stop my head from exploding.

• 1:08:47Trevor Noah?

  Are your kids funny?

• 1:08:48Speaker 00

  Yes, they are, thank goodness. That, God, that would be hard.

• 1:08:56Trevor Noah?

  Do you remember when they asked Cristiano Ronaldo? They're like, um, your son's really good at football. Do you think he'll be as good as you? And he was like, no. He's like, no, I don't think he'll ever be as good. He's like, will never be as good as me. He's not focused. He drinks Coca-Cola. He won't be as... He's just like full. I was like, yo, bro, not even like a, yeah, he has it in him. He's like, nah, bro. He's like, this kid, nah, he doesn't have it in him to be the best.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but at least he didn't lie. Yeah, we have one kid that's been lied to and is in the NBA now.

• 1:09:23Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 1:09:24Speaker 00

  Who, who are we talking about?

• 1:09:25Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  Who are we talking about, Trevor?

• 1:09:27Trevor Noah?

  Who are we talking about? Who are we talking about?

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:09:30Trevor Noah?

  I'm not gonna engage in your shit-stirringness at all.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  In a cup?

• 1:09:33Trevor Noah?

  At all.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  Not even in a plastic cup?

• 1:09:35Trevor Noah?

  At all.

• 1:09:36Speaker 03

  Shit is stirring in a plastic cup?

• 1:09:38Trevor Noah?

  At...

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  Not even ceramic?

• 1:09:39Trevor Noah?

  At all.

• 1:09:39Speaker 03

  Just plastic cup?

• 1:09:40Trevor Noah?

  No chance.

• 1:09:41Speaker 03

  With a wooden spoon?

• 1:09:42Trevor Noah?

  Zero.

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Not even?

• 1:09:43Trevor Noah?

  Nada.

• 1:09:43Speaker 00

  Are you trying to bring Trevor into a high-profile NBA?

• 1:09:47Trevor Noah?

  This guy's trying to bring me into beefs. That's what Eugene tries to do.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  You're trying to suck him all the way into a beef?

• 1:09:51Trevor Noah?

  This guy's trying to bring me into beefs.

• 1:09:53Speaker 03

  I don't like the way you said suck him. It was...

• 1:09:55Trevor Noah?

  Suck him into?

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  Into?

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that's what stuck out, because... Say it again?

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  Suck him into...

• 1:10:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but your sucking is, your sucking is strong. I will not gonna lie.

• 1:10:04Speaker 00

  That, it felt, that felt, so it felt like there was suction involved there. That felt like a vacuum you were trying to...

• 1:10:09Trevor Noah?

  Your sucking is strong. I will say that.

• 1:10:11Speaker 03

  And after he said that, I just said, this is the remix to you shit, hard and straight out the kitchen.

• 1:10:16Speaker 00

  Mama, what a song.

• 1:10:17Trevor Noah?

  By the way, by the way, is Daniel Kitzmann gonna come do more comedy on this, like?

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  I hope so. I hope so, yeah. I mean, he's the greatest.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  That's one of your favorite comedians, nah? I heard his name from you for the first time.

• 1:10:28Trevor Noah?

  He, he's, you guys are very close friends.

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  He's my best man at my wedding. Yeah, he's my best friend.

• 1:10:33Trevor Noah?

  So, you know what's funny is like, I feel like you and Daniel have a relationship like me and Eugene, where...

• 1:10:38Speaker 03

  We have a relationship?

• 1:10:39Trevor Noah?

  This is what I'm talking about, see? I love it. See what you just did there? So, like, it's where, where two people meet, you're similar but you're not the same. You have like a comedic undercurrent that connects you. When I met Daniel, I felt like I knew him because of you. Daniel Kitson is, in my opinion, the greatest comedian that most people do not know. But if you know comedy, he has to be in like your top five.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's very good. Where did you see him?

• 1:11:05Trevor Noah?

  Everywhere I could. Everywhere I could. Australia.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  Oh, sure.

• 1:11:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Melbourne, Edinburgh.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Is the guy who loves late shows?

• 1:11:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but again, the myth around him is, people, I don't know if you've heard any of these, people will be like, oh, Daniel Kitson. He does shows at twelve oh one or eleven fifty nine because he likes how that. Yeah, and you're like, wait, they're like, he does a show at twelve oh three, midnight, and you're like, and I heard all these myths about him. Or he only does a show at one P M. because he wants real comedy fans. And then I met him, I was like, yo, man, I have to ask you about some of these myths, I'm sorry. And then Daniel was just like, he's like, oh, I I put the show on at twelve oh three because then it's the next day. Otherwise, if you put on at midnight, it screws up most booking systems. So he's like, that's why I did that.

• 1:11:52Speaker 00

  It's a much more practical thing. I think I think it's a bit of a hangover from the fact that when he won the Perrier Award, you know, the big award in.

• 1:11:59Trevor Noah?

  In Edinburgh.

• 1:12:00Speaker 00

  I think that that came with.

• 1:12:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:12:03Speaker 00

  That's right, see? Yeah, it's the Ballon d'Or of comedy, right? In that I imagine you think you have to pay for it somehow. Is that right?

• 1:12:11Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  If Coptick has their way. Yeah, when when he won that, all of a sudden, he was finding there were people coming to his shows that he didn't necessarily want there.

• 1:12:21Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 1:12:21Speaker 00

  He didn't want. The commercials like this. Well, he did. No, yeah, he wanted he wanted to do his show the way he wanted to do it. He didn't want people there who he didn't want.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  In his audience.

• 1:12:34Trevor Noah?

  This makes complete sense.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  So he needed to get rid of some of that by making it more difficult.

• 1:12:40Trevor Noah?

  For them to watch it.

• 1:12:40Speaker 00

  Than it necessarily needed to be to come. So it was a filtering system. And it worked because the Perrier back then was such a gravitational force as an award. All of a sudden, you were plunged into a certain kind of career, and he did not want that. So that came with a need to do things his own way.

• 1:13:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but the fact that he chose that, that's that's what I feel like with you in some ways is like.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  I don't think he's.

• 1:13:07Trevor Noah?

  No, you have this.

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  A choice, though.

• 1:13:08Trevor Noah?

  No, but you have this thing where. How can I put it? So some people are famous because of what they do and they love that fame.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Trevor Noah?

  Right? And then there are other people who have jobs that are just attached to fame. And if they could, they would slice that out of their lives. That's how I feel about you. Like you, you have a very like, even if, even if you win an award, you have a very like, there's like a.

• 1:13:37Speaker 00

  I cannot wait to get off because it's the weirdest place to be. And it's not a funny place to be, so I cannot wait. The only thing I like is when they play you off.

• 1:13:47Speaker 00

  I don't, I love, I'd love the feeling of being played off an award ceremony. So the music, I love it so much. The thing that I just, it's just, it's such an absurd situation to have, to be interrupted by an orchestra. It's just, I love it.

• 1:14:03Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but help me, help me understand that. What, what is it about? Cause everyone has a different reason. That's why I'm interested. What is it about? The fame or the spotlight or the anything that just like makes you just a little. Even now, look at your body.

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't like it. It's not, I, I don't like, I, I'm very conscious of the fact that because.

• 1:14:29Speaker 00

  Because our show has become well known, I am the face of that show.

• 1:14:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  And so there are things that you can do with that in terms of protecting your ability to say what you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Conform to a corporation who employs you. To go, yeah, you can do whatever you want. So though, though, the, the value of it is extreme there. The, uh, that's the utility of fame, as you, as you put it, is that you can do what you want in your show. Everything else around it, I, it is not for me. I, I don't have any kind of real connection, connection to it at all.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  That's the comic's curse, right? You want people to love you, but you want them to love you at your own terms.

• 1:15:09Trevor Noah?

  Or you want them to love what you do, I would even say.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they have to love you because there's nothing else to distract them from you.

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  But it feels like it's two different, I was talking to this little girl in my, um, uh, my kid's, my kid's class.

• 1:15:22Speaker 03

  And Arkelia getting closer and closer in the same parallel soul.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  She was, she was, uh, she was, she's at my kid's school and she was, I think that with, uh, the start of a season, uh, we had like pictures or we had posters on the subway. And so she was very confused about like, why is there a picture of you on the subway?

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  That's hilarious.

• 1:15:43Speaker 00

  So I was trying to explain to her, oh, I just do, uh, I, I just do a show. And so they're trying to advertise that show and that she went, I don't know what that means. Oh, I just, uh, I ju- I do, I do a TV show and so we need people to know about it. And so then she said, are you famous? I went, I don't think I'm famous because you're asking me this question. So I don't think I'm, I, I don't like the people that what there's a, uh, some people watch the show. Most people don't. So those people do know me. No one else knows. Uh, and you know, you don't need to, you know me, right? You know me as Marzy's dad. So there's nothing, you don't need to worry about this. And she said, I'm not worried about this at all. Like, I don't know what's happening to you right now.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  I just asked, why is there a picture? You're having an existential crisis in front of you. I'm six years old. How am I the mature personcy?

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  I just asked.

• 1:16:43Speaker 03

  Have you had the fame conversation with your kids? Do your kids know how famous you are?

• 1:16:47Speaker 00

  No, I initially.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  How old are your kids now?

• 1:16:49Speaker 00

  Initially I didn't. They're 10 and seven now. Initially I didn't because there's no need to, right? And so I would, if I just ran into people in the streets, uh, like I would say, who's that? And I would say, oh, that's just a friend. Like after, after some of that. Then you realize, hold on, New York, what a friendly city. Everyone says hello. Actually, that's not the city that you live in. So then I, and I didn't want to lie to them. Like I didn't want kids at school to know things they didn't. That was the problem. When you realize, oh, I think there are other kids that know.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  That have figured it out.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, they figured it out.

• 1:17:23Speaker 03

  Your kids are the only ones who don't.

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, that something's been kept from you. I didn't want that to be the case. So I kind of explained to them as best I could. They came to see one show, the one thing that I thought that would be fun for them to see was when we were messing with that New Zealand bird of the year contest. Did you ever see about that? I was dressed up like the Puteki Teke. So I'm like in this huge colorful bird costume.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  Is this how you chose your kids to see you?

• 1:17:44Speaker 00

  Yes. This is the only time they've been to my work. I'm dressed like a giant colorful bird. And then I realised that in their heads, understandably, they think that's happening every week. They think I'm Big Bird. The suit is in your car and that's a uniform. Six months later, like I'm going to work and he said, have you got the bird costume on? What bird costume? Oh shit.

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was, that was just a one-off. I just, I just wear a suit.

• 1:18:20Speaker 00

  But it's hard, it's hard, it's impossible for a kid to understand because it's not, it's, it's important for them to like know what you're doing. But the more you describe it, the worse it sounds.

• 1:18:31Trevor Noah?

  It's just, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's weird. But I, I, I found if you explain it to kids, like using class dynamics, they get it.

• 1:18:43Trevor Noah?

  Because they have their pictures up on walls, people know the class captain, people, do you get what I'm saying? Then they sort of, what did you tell your daughter? What did you?

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Speaker 03

  Which daughter is this?

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  Is it the daughter for the show that we're gonna fictitiously?

• 1:19:00Speaker 03

  Are they twins?

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  Which daughter is this? I didn't, I haven't acknowledged that yet. And you know that, you're bringing that up. You're returning fire because of that MBA thing. Oh man. Now you're trying to suck me into some shit. Oh man. Which daughter is this?

• 1:19:19Trevor Noah?

  What did you, what did you say?

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  I think I didn't have to say much because we spend so much time together. Obviously, when people recognise you, they would recognise you from the thing that you do. So my thing was always denying it and say we look alike and she'd be like, no, it's him.

• 1:19:34Trevor Noah?

  Oh, like when people will be like Eugene.

• 1:19:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but don't lie.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  How do you describe stand-up to them?

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 1:19:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, all I said was, they came to, I went, I was down at, uh, last December, I was doing the Candy Centre. So I came and I said, this is where I'm gonna go and do my talk. I just said like, I'm just gonna stand and talk into this microphone. Because that makes sense because they talk in front of like.

• 1:19:54Trevor Noah?

  In front of the class.

• 1:19:55Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I said, I'm just gonna be doing like a talk in front of the class.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  That just confuses them even more. I, I, I think your daughter relates more to your television work than your stand-up work. Because that's that's the real thing. There's more people that she sees on television than she'll ever see doing stand up. So stand up will never be a thing. It's a thing that you.

• 1:20:12Trevor Noah?

  Until they're old enough, then it's.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  Yes. But then they'll understand that stand up is the thing that got you the TV job.

• 1:20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's why I don't say it's stand up. I say it's just talking, because you can they can understand the concept of talking in front of a classroom. Makes sense. You stand on a chair and you talk to people and they listen. I just don't have the chair.

• 1:20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they they their teacher stands there and talks and he's poor.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  So so they the jig is up.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  So you think I say.

• 1:20:39Speaker 03

  Cause the remix to ignition now.

• 1:20:42Speaker 00

  I told that song is sticky.

• 1:20:44Trevor Noah?

  It no, it is. It really is.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  That is about as catchy as music has ever been.

• 1:20:48Trevor Noah?

  Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. No, that that thing is just like, no.

• 1:20:52Speaker 00

  Mama rolling that body got every man in.

• 1:20:54Trevor Noah?

  Look at this. Look at this.

• 1:20:57Speaker 00

  I'm not so bad, I'm drunk. It's the freaking weekend, baby, about to have me some fun. Anyway, he's a terrible human being.

• 1:21:04Trevor Noah?

  You have to say that at the end of every.

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  You have to say he's a terrible human being.

• 1:21:07Trevor Noah?

  It's too much. Yeah.

• 1:21:12Trevor Noah?

  I'd love to know what you think are the biggest existential crises that like America slash the world is facing now.

• 1:21:19Speaker 03

  Are you ready to take a sip?

• 1:21:21Speaker 00

  I really hope that is a question you just ask all your guests.

• 1:21:25Trevor Noah?

  No, it's just you.

• 1:21:26Speaker 00

  Like if you can have one meal for the rest of your life. Like that kind of shit.

• 1:21:29Trevor Noah?

  No, no, just you.

• 1:21:30Speaker 00

  Well, here's the here's the little part of the joke. What's the biggest existential crisis?

• 1:21:33Trevor Noah?

  No, I'll tell you why.

• 1:21:33Speaker 00

  Okay, Trevor. Just say you want us to go.

• 1:21:39Trevor Noah?

  I'll tell you. Okay. Can I tell you why? Can I tell you why? I'll tell you why. So I'll ask you the question because I remember when I was fully immersed in The Daily Show. My worldview was shaped in many ways by everything I was reading in and around that space. Do you get what I'm saying? So if you asked me at that time, I think I would have said something politics related, etc, etc. You you get what I'm saying? Because I was so fully engulfed by this world. Yeah, fully, fully, fully. If you ask me now, because I spend most of my fun time reading about like monopolies and and corporations. I'll actually say that's the thing and you know that's about me. That no, that is like my fun time.

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, reading finance.

• 1:22:21Trevor Noah?

  It's that pickleball and then football.

• 1:22:24Speaker 03

  Oh, pickle. Oof.

• 1:22:27Speaker 00

  You should be doing pickleball for another thirty five years, shouldn't you? You play pickleball now?

• 1:22:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Speaker 03

  Does he play pickleball?

• 1:22:35Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:22:36Trevor Noah?

  I love it.

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  He lives there.

• 1:22:37Trevor Noah?

  It's fantastic.

• 1:22:38Speaker 03

  One day dragged me there for four hours.

• 1:22:39Trevor Noah?

  Only one day. Dragged you there many days, my friend. Many. You know what I love about you, though, is you don't seem to learn the lesson. I really love this about Eugene. The first time he came along, he was standing on the side and he was, I I watched him at some point. The first five minutes, he was like, OK, and then I saw him look. You you almost look like a parent who had brought their child to an activity and then they were like, how long do I have to stay?

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  I don't know it was that long. I thought decent people, I thought they play a match and then they go home.

• 1:23:07Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Remember, all organized sport has a time limit.

• 1:23:10Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, you're not wrong.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  Football is ninety minutes. I was like, if I.

• 1:23:13Trevor Noah?

  Oh, no, you're not wrong. No, I do like four hours.

• 1:23:15Speaker 03

  And he's the Kaiser of.

• 1:23:17Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I do like four hours.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  Shouts orders, let us play.

• 1:23:20Trevor Noah?

  I mean, I I just think I'm motivational.

• 1:23:22Speaker 03

  Cleaners are coming in, security guards, everyone grabs it.

• 1:23:27Trevor Noah?

  We just have fun, John.

• 1:23:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:28Trevor Noah?

  I have a good time.

• 1:23:29Speaker 03

  Have you played pickleball, John?

• 1:23:31Speaker 00

  I haven't played pickleball.

• 1:23:31Trevor Noah?

  Have you?

• 1:23:32Speaker 00

  Oh, no, I did. I did play pickleball once.

• 1:23:33Trevor Noah?

  And did you?

• 1:23:34Speaker 00

  I thought it was fine.

• 1:23:35Trevor Noah?

  Fine.

• 1:23:36Speaker 00

  I thought it was fine.

• 1:23:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it is fine. It's fine. And then the more you get into it.

• 1:23:39Speaker 03

  So, Trevor.

• 1:23:39Speaker 00

  But it doesn't do to me what it does to other people.

• 1:23:41Trevor Noah?

  Do you still play football?

• 1:23:41Speaker 00

  Taking heroin and going, this takes the edge off. Football, I love.

• 1:23:44Trevor Noah?

  Do you still play football?

• 1:23:45Speaker 00

  Football, yeah, we used to play Tuesday every, every, I don't play now.

• 1:23:49Trevor Noah?

  What?

• 1:23:49Speaker 00

  There's not time now. Just family and work. I just don't have time now, but I that I that.

• 1:23:54Trevor Noah?

  Not even like to squeeze in like an hour?

• 1:23:56Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:23:57Trevor Noah?

  Nothing.

• 1:23:57Speaker 00

  No, nothing.

• 1:23:58Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man, I thought it would be like knees or something.

• 1:24:00Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:24:01Trevor Noah?

  I stopped because of knees.

• 1:24:03Speaker 00

  Just the concept of knees.

• 1:24:05Trevor Noah?

  Just knees in general. I was seeing too many of them. No.

• 1:24:11Trevor Noah?

  I would go home and have these thoughts about knees and I was like.

• 1:24:14Speaker 00

  Knees everywhere.

• 1:24:14Trevor Noah?

  Need just, I can't.

• 1:24:16Speaker 00

  Oh, God, there's just twenty two of them bearing down on me.

• 1:24:20Trevor Noah?

  It was, um, no, no, I especially running on AstroTurf, it killed me. I just, I was like, I can't do this. I played at Pier Forty.

• 1:24:26Speaker 00

  Oh, nice.

• 1:24:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, we'd play like a midnight game. And then we'd go, that was the hardest episode of The Daily Show every week. Because we would finish a game. At midnight, one AM.

• 1:24:37Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:38Trevor Noah?

  And then eight AM, you're in the office trying to concentrate on what Mitch McConnell is saying.

• 1:24:42Speaker 00

  You just got knees.

• 1:24:44Trevor Noah?

  Just knees in your head. That's all I have. No, so, so, um, yeah, you, I brought, I brought him along a few times. Yeah, and but the reason I'm saying. First hour, I'm fine. Yeah. Hour four. You, you're not wrong. I did take it too far that day. You're not wrong. And I did apologize at the time. But you were behaving like you're on steroids. But I even said to you. Everyone was tired. I even said to you, I'm sorry. Did I not say I'm sorry? I did from the court. I couldn't take it seriously. I did say I'm sorry. From the court, I said, Eugene, I'm sorry, we took it too far. I did apologize. But going back, what I'm saying is your worldview. I find for anyone who spends a lot of time consuming information in certain spaces or spheres, they often have a different perspective on what they think is most dangerous for the world in that moment. You know what I mean?

• 1:25:29Trevor Noah?

  And so I'm wondering, because you, you're reading everything, you're engaging, you're doing, you're doing research, you, you, you know what I mean? You're consuming so much.

• 1:25:35Speaker 00

  I think my, mine might be related to that. So rather than because ob- obviously mergers are a constant threat and the most immediate one is always the most immediate threat. Like land disputes around the world.

• 1:25:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:48Speaker 00

  Are everything from like horrific in the uh medium term to, you know, systemic in the long term.

• 1:25:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Speaker 00

  I think like the, in terms of a threat being existential, one of the biggest problems right now is the kind of information that is available to you to get. That feels to me like an existential threat.

• 1:26:11Trevor Noah?

  Say more.

• 1:26:11Speaker 00

  What constitutes, because.

• 1:26:14Speaker 00

  People are so siloed now and are so able to traffic in low-grade information. One of the big things that I've learned by doing our show is that there is a huge amount of utility in having access to experts in the field that researchers will speak to.

• 1:26:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:26:34Speaker 00

  And you can get good, primary source information. There is so much trash being passed around and confidently passed around. I worry about that. It is hard to have a conversation about anything when the information about that thing is so poor.

• 1:26:51Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 1:26:52Speaker 00

  That is my concern. Feels like in the past, people just didn't know about certain things. Now, they can be confidently wrong about something, which I actually think is more dangerous. So, uh, that is my, I guess that was, that is what would come to mind in terms of an existential threat. I just, I, I worry about our information funnels right now.

• 1:27:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the analogy I, I used to use with some people is I'd say it's, it's, it would be the equivalent of people watching sports, whatever sport you want, and you have opposing teams, or you choose your teams. People already disagree on the game. That should have been a foul. That shouldn't have been a foul. But imagine if they were watching two different games.

• 1:27:35Speaker 00

  Yes, right.

• 1:27:36Trevor Noah?

  How would you even?

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  That, that's the problem.

• 1:27:38Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? Now, now we're not even watching the same game.

• 1:27:41Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:27:42Trevor Noah?

  And we're supposed to live in the same stadium, but we're literally not watching the same game.

• 1:27:46Speaker 00

  That's the thing. So then, then any kind of shorthand of, oh, we just need to come together. Any of that, like Joe Biden, this is not who we are.

• 1:27:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:52Speaker 00

  You are so far off addressing the central problem here that this is functionally useless.

• 1:27:59Trevor Noah?

  What would you change?

• 1:28:00Speaker 00

  Uh, I, I don't know. I, it's, it feels like it's something that societally is going to have to change. There's good, there's going to have to be a premium put on good information.

• 1:28:09Trevor Noah?

  So where do you get your information?

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  Well, again, like that, that's where we are very lucky and this is not scalable. I have a staff who can go out and speak to. Experts for weeks.

• 1:28:21Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  Produce a packet of good information.

• 1:28:24Trevor Noah?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:28:24Speaker 00

  They can update, they can, they can, they can find out, is this data still current? So often you're passing around data in, maybe in good faith, doesn't apply anymore. You don't know.

• 1:28:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you don't know that that that study's been, that study's been updated.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  That's not true anymore. Very difficult. That, so I think that that kind of information literacy is something I think people are gonna have to get better understanding. I, it may be that this generation of kids are going to be better, I hope, are gonna be better at seeing through the garbage than older people are now.

• 1:28:57Trevor Noah?

  Do you think AI makes it better or worse?

• 1:28:59Speaker 00

  I mean, we'll see, we'll see. It's imminently seems like it's making things significantly worse, but I, I hope that long term, there are ways to fix that. But, um, yeah, the again, the kind of unearned confidence of these billionaire AI cowboys is not inspiring.

• 1:29:17Trevor Noah?

  Unearned confidence.

• 1:29:18Speaker 00

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 1:29:19Trevor Noah?

  It is pretty, I mean, that's, that's, that's a perfect way to describe it. Because they approach a situation that they have never been in with the confidence of someone who has lived there for a century.

• 1:29:31Speaker 00

  They just don't.

• 1:29:31Trevor Noah?

  They, they make it seem like they exist in the future that they're preaching and they, they, they're selling it to us as if it's already concluded in a good way.

• 1:29:38Speaker 00

  Or just the making decisions on a series of best case scenarios.

• 1:29:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:44Speaker 00

  That's, that feels like fatally problematic. I think there was a story about Kamal Nanjani when he was doing that show Silicon Valley. They would go up to Silicon Valley and walk around and like into these companies, these startup companies. And he would ask them kind of, yeah, what, what though if, how could this be used for fascism? Just, just in general. And he would like see them go, oh yeah, we don't really think about that here. Like, oh, you don't? That's interesting. Feels like something you might wanna think about. How could your product be used to hurt people? That might be part of the decision process you wanna fold in to all of this.

• 1:30:19Trevor Noah?

  There's a, there's a book I read about, have you read, um, the book, Careless People, I think it is? It's a, a book written by, um, this woman from New Zealand who basically started working at Facebook as a, as a sort of like international liaison, like their diplomat. And she talks about how. Even when Facebook was starting to become the de facto social media platform around the world, they did not think they needed to care

• 1:30:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:47Trevor Noah?

  about how their platform could be used. Like, they were just like, no, no, no, that's not our, that's not us. That, that, we have nothing to do with that.

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  That is the most obvious example. Bring the world together. Bring, let's share, share information. We have nothing to do with that. Next thing you know, what's happening in Myanmar? Oh, that can't be anything to do with us. Oh, it's very much to do with you. You've just thrown gasoline over what was happening.

• 1:31:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:05Speaker 00

  So now what are you gonna do about it? Oh, well, you know, we're gonna learn. Are you? Or is that just something you say you're gonna do?

• 1:31:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:11Speaker 00

  That's, it's, yeah, it's a, that, that is what I'm concerned about.

• 1:31:15Trevor Noah?

  Do you keep your kids off social media and everything?

• 1:31:16Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:31:17Trevor Noah?

  Do they have phones?

• 1:31:17Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:31:18Trevor Noah?

  How, how do, how do you deal with that?

• 1:31:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, it's easier now. They're ten and seven, right? So they're not really going anywhere that I'm not.

• 1:31:25Speaker 00

  As well.

• 1:31:25Speaker 04

  That's why you don't play football anymore.

• 1:31:29Speaker 00

  Prison warden took over. And, but is, is it amazing how often now even my seven-year-old, he basically treats me like Siri. He'll just say, look it up, type it in, type it in.

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  You ask for that job.

• 1:31:39Speaker 00

  That's right. That's Alonso, who they've got, type it in.

• 1:31:42Speaker 04

  What I also like about this.

• 1:31:43Speaker 00

  Hey Siri, hey Dada, hey Dada, hey Dada.

• 1:31:46Speaker 04

  What I also like about this though is, I'm assuming she has an American accent.

• 1:31:49Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:50Speaker 04

  So you're like her English butler, essentially.

• 1:31:52Speaker 00

  It is, you know what is odd?

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  Or her kidnapper in public.

• 1:31:55Speaker 00

  You never.

• 1:31:57Speaker 04

  If you don't have the same accent as your child.

• 1:31:58Speaker 00

  That is the.

• 1:31:59Speaker 04

  The thin line, eh?

• 1:32:00Speaker 00

  It's the craziest thing though, because it's the stupidest thing that I'd never considered. Was that it didn't occur to me that they would not. You, when, when you grow up, the idea of having kids, you always like, think they'll sound like you. So it is odd, the first time it hits your ear. And they're, they're around for a while not speaking, right? So it feels like, oh, this is, there's gonna be, hello, how you doing? Oh, nice to see you. That's coming out one day.

• 1:32:24Speaker 04

  Bring Norton all the way.

• 1:32:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then the first time you catch them saying, hey, how's it going? Nice to see you. What, you know, what, a, any kind of like, American ah.

• 1:32:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Speaker 00

  Oh, oh.

• 1:32:37Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, of course, that makes sense. You're gonna sound like the people that you're around all the time, but.

• 1:32:42Trevor Noah?

  And even better for them is they've got the immigrant dad.

• 1:32:46Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:32:46Trevor Noah?

  Cause you realize for them.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:49Trevor Noah?

  In your head, you're normal.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:50Trevor Noah?

  Right? For the most part, in your head, you're normal. In their, in their world, when they grow up, they're gonna be American kids. And they're gonna be like, oh yeah, oh my God, I remember my dad always be like, oh, are you going to put that away? Are you going to put that, like you are.

• 1:33:05Speaker 00

  That, that. That's my big grandfather. That is when you really realize I've got an American accent, is when they do, when they do a shift, when they're doing an impression of me.

• 1:33:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  Hey, you know how daddy is, he's all, oh, you gotta put your toys away. You're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You're getting a little confident with that accent. It's okay when I do that voice. It's not, don't give me the Dick Van Dyke version of this.

• 1:33:30Speaker 00

  It's true.

• 1:33:32Trevor Noah?

  Do they, do they get to go back to England? Do they spend time there?

• 1:33:35Speaker 00

  Yes, they love it. Yes. So, yeah.

• 1:33:37Trevor Noah?

  How long do they spend? Like, how, will you like do the thing of shipping them off for like six weeks or?

• 1:33:41Speaker 00

  No, we haven't done that yet. That's an African thing.

• 1:33:44Trevor Noah?

  No, I think a lot of people do that. A lot of people around the world, like.

• 1:33:47Speaker 00

  Ship off kids for six weeks?

• 1:33:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like, I find, I find people, yeah, people who come from another country, doesn't matter where they, they'll be like, oh, my kids are going to Colombia for six weeks, or so they're gonna go back to South Africa for six, they're gonna go back to England for, like, the summer period.

• 1:33:59Speaker 00

  What are they hoping it's going to do? Oh, cause summers are so long here. That's the thing.

• 1:34:02Trevor Noah?

  That's the thing.

• 1:34:02Speaker 00

  Cause we have like in our, our summer holidays in England were like five weeks, five and a half.

• 1:34:06Trevor Noah?

  No, no, here it's summers.

• 1:34:07Speaker 00

  In total, here it's like.

• 1:34:08Trevor Noah?

  Months.

• 1:34:09Speaker 00

  Months and months. Yeah.

• 1:34:10Trevor Noah?

  So people will send their kids, if they come from a place and they can send their kids back, they'll just be like, oh, the kids are back in wherever. My friends, some of my friends are like, oh, the kids go to Trinidad and they go there for like months in the summer holidays.

• 1:34:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, no, they're not.

• 1:34:22Trevor Noah?

  And it just gives them back there, you know? So I was wondering if you do that.

• 1:34:24Speaker 00

  What does it give them back?

• 1:34:25Trevor Noah?

  You know, their vibe. You know what this is?

• 1:34:30Speaker 00

  Chiroscope.

• 1:34:32Trevor Noah?

  He, you know what this is? Come on, Eugene.

• 1:34:36Trevor Noah?

  So what's the longest they've gone?

• 1:34:37Speaker 00

  The longest has only been like ten days. It's just taken them back for a week, walking them around. But I do like, I like.

• 1:34:43Trevor Noah?

  Walking them around?

• 1:34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is walking them around because you want to see them in the places you work.

• 1:34:47Trevor Noah?

  And they don't care much.

• 1:34:49Speaker 00

  No, but it was like, the thing that was most meaningful to me was, especially because of the pandemic, right, where they didn't travel as little kids.

• 1:34:57Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:58Speaker 00

  So last summer I took them back. I remember taking them to Dan's house, to Kitson's house.

• 1:35:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:03Speaker 00

  And there was something very meaningful to me of seeing them on the stairs outside his house. On the couch where we would play FIFA. And to see them sitting in that place, in his world, that really made me feel like, you know, when, as an immigrant, you fractured, right? There are little parts of your life everywhere. So when you, when some of those things combine, it can really give you a sense of, oh, this makes sense. Look.

• 1:35:31Trevor Noah?

  That is so beautiful. Do they play FIFA?

• 1:35:34Speaker 00

  No, they haven't done yet.

• 1:35:35Trevor Noah?

  They don't have phones.

• 1:35:36Speaker 00

  I badly.

• 1:35:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you might have a console. What do you mean?

• 1:35:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, they don't have a console yet as well. They absolutely support Liverpool. That is the one thing that is non-negotiable.

• 1:35:44Trevor Noah?

  Oh, so you haven't given them a choice?

• 1:35:46Speaker 00

  No, they can choose everything else. I wasn't given a choice. My dad said, we support Liverpool. Went, okay, that's fine.

• 1:35:52Trevor Noah?

  I'm always torn on this. I feel like some, I feel like parents maybe should give their kid an option to say, hey, this is the team I support. I'm going to let you watch other teams and then you decide if you also want to support this team.

• 1:36:03Speaker 00

  I did say, I technically gave him a baseball team option, but I think I did like thumb the scale. I just said, do you want to support the Mets?

• 1:36:12Speaker 00

  The New York Mets?

• 1:36:16Speaker 00

  Oh, I want to support the Mets? There you go. Great. We got it. We got it. So you technically had a choice. You had a choice.

• 1:36:23Trevor Noah?

  We'll be right back after the short break.

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• 1:38:34Trevor Noah?

  How much of a Liverpool fan do you think you are? Like how many, how many, how many of your, of your hour, like your thinking hours do you think are consumed?

• 1:38:42Speaker 00

  Thinking hours is such a good way to put that because you know, the, the honest answer to that is like it's, you know, whenever your mind is at rest, it's going there. So you can really rack up the hours. Then if you're thinking about happy thoughts, sad thoughts, anxious thoughts, like right, right now I'm thinking about Mo going to AFCON. And um, how he's gonna do over there.

• 1:39:03Trevor Noah?

  You wish him well?

• 1:39:04Speaker 00

  I do wish him well. Of course I wish him well. Yeah. I, I wish.

• 1:39:07Trevor Noah?

  I also wish he didn't have to go because now I feel like he just got back to a good place with the team.

• 1:39:11Speaker 03

  He doesn't go and represent the continent that he comes from.

• 1:39:13Trevor Noah?

  Don't you put that, you, you see you trying to stop beef. You see you and the beef. You see you. You see you now. Is this because I took you to pickleball? Just say it, Eugene. Don't, don't, don't.

• 1:39:23Speaker 03

  Four hour marathon.

• 1:39:24Speaker 00

  Is that, yeah, that's right. It was around the fourth hour.

• 1:39:26Trevor Noah?

  You know why? Because we just, we just got back to.

• 1:39:28Speaker 00

  To declare war on Egypt.

• 1:39:31Trevor Noah?

  No, we just, we just got back to, I wish the timing was different because we, we just got like you, it felt like, oh, him, his smile, the team, the coach, the win. We needed it.

• 1:39:44Speaker 03

  But maybe doesn't he need to go home to refresh and come back happier?

• 1:39:47Trevor Noah?

  I don't know if AFCON refreshes you.

• 1:39:48Speaker 03

  Here, here's my confusion.

• 1:39:50Trevor Noah?

  On a selfish level, wait before you go.

• 1:39:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Trevor Noah?

  Can you do an episode on Manchester City?

• 1:39:54Speaker 00

  What about the fact it's a beautiful team built on blood money?

• 1:39:59Speaker 03

  My man.

• 1:40:01Speaker 03

  Have you heard about Harold selling Michael Jackson?

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  I can't come with that. Now I'm gonna take that back.

• 1:40:07Speaker 03

  Retract.

• 1:40:09Trevor Noah?

  No, what were you gonna ask him?

• 1:40:10Speaker 03

  No, no, I was gonna say, whenever I watch people who love football, especially

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  top level football, I'm thinking to myself, in that field, there's a bunch of foreigners. Right? With their lives, who've left their homes, who get incentivized very well to play for this team, for our amusement and the sponsors, obviously. Um, payback. But life happens. They get injuries, they move on. The most other thing happens. So in all this time of being a fan of an individual inside a team, institution, you've never thought they'll have to one day be put to pasture or move on to some other things?

• 1:40:42Speaker 00

  No, I think you know it's ephemeral, right? Which is why you try and enjoy it so much when it's happening. You don't expect.

• 1:40:51Speaker 00

  Victory or pleasure from football, you kind of know you're, it's a much more complicated relationship. And you know that you should it take the joy when you get it and you should, you know, absorb the stress, the anxiety and the misery when it comes. You know that that even with Mo, you know, we love this guy Jürgen Klopp, right?

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  The coach.

• 1:41:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was clear that was never gonna last forever. That was not gonna be like a long Alex Ferguson run. He's always just done these ten years. One of the many, many ways in which he's a unique man is you would have these unique intense periods with the club. So you knew it was not gonna be forever, which is why it meant every second of it meant so much. Cause you know it's gonna come to a close. And I think I felt the same with Mo, you know, it's.

• 1:41:41Speaker 00

  When you know that something's not gonna last forever, all you want is the best possible ending for the thing that's meant so much to you. And you want that for him as well. He deserves a good ending to Liverpool, whenever that ending is, and it shouldn't be now, because this would not be one.

• 1:41:57Speaker 03

  What would a good ending look like for, cause I love, I love Mo Salah, I love his new haircut, I love his fade. I think he's evolved quite well with it. So I'm like, okay, this man changed his hairstyle, he's changed many people's life. How would you like his career to end?

• 1:42:09Speaker 00

  You led with, you led with that with Mo Salah. You led, you led with his, he changed his haircut, he changed so many lives.

• 1:42:18Speaker 03

  First for him, then for you all.

• 1:42:20Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 1:42:22Speaker 03

  First for him, then for you all.

• 1:42:26Speaker 00

  You say.

• 1:42:26Speaker 03

  Murals are being changed right now in Egypt.

• 1:42:29Speaker 00

  A guy who's single-handedly changed how Muslims were viewed.

• 1:42:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, he changed his hair that one time. And I think at the end of the day, that's what we will remember. It was big and then it was tight. Anyway, Mo, thanks for everything you've done.

• 1:42:43Speaker 03

  That literally sounds like how Trump would describe it. If you ask Trump, if you, cause you know, like he never admits that he doesn't know anything. So if you said, President Trump, what do you think about the Mo Salah thing? Be like, you know, Mo Salah did a lot of things, a lot of things, big guy, did a lot of things, had the hair, changed the hair, changed the hair.

• 1:42:58Speaker 00

  It was big.

• 1:42:59Speaker 03

  Changed a lot of lives, a lot of lives, changed the hair. Hair was big, then it became small, then it became small. I love him, good guy. mural artists are losing their minds, having to alter their afro.

• 1:43:08Speaker 00

  Going bald, one trip to Turkey, we all know what he did. We all know what he did.

• 1:43:12Speaker 03

  What would that, what would that help? Cause I watched the game on, over the weekend where he did that assist.

• 1:43:17Trevor Noah?

  And then the goal went in and then my friends were happy.

• 1:43:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:43:20Trevor Noah?

  They were all jubilant and I was happy with them because I'm that kind of guy, you know, sharing my friends' pleasure.

• 1:43:24Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:43:24Trevor Noah?

  But then when you say you want an ending for him that's befitting.

• 1:43:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that was what I was worried about. Without that game.

• 1:43:30Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:43:30Speaker 00

  I was worried that we were hurtling to the opposite of that. We were hurtling towards an ugly ending. That was in no way representative of everything that he's done for that club and for his hair.

• 1:43:41Trevor Noah?

  And him not starting the game obviously made it worse, right?

• 1:43:43Speaker 00

  It made it much worse because I think he felt like he had been snubbed, that he was not his work, what he had done.

• 1:43:49Trevor Noah?

  His contribution.

• 1:43:50Speaker 00

  His contribution follically and with football. Was not um uh was not being respected.

• 1:43:57Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:43:57Speaker 00

  I don't know that he was entirely wrong about that to me. He wasn't playing particularly well, but I think there did. It was not wrong to infer a level of disrespect. From it. So, yeah, I was desperate for that situation to be handled and diffused. Because the idea of it ending that way would have hurt, I think, lastingly. He he is a singular figure. And it feels like generally statues should not be built for footballers. Not just because they can be embarrassingly bad like that one Ronaldo one, but but but because you.

• 1:44:32Trevor Noah?

  I even know that one.

• 1:44:35Speaker 00

  They are overpraised in so many ways, but what Mo has done transcends football. What, how he carries himself as a human being transcends football and I just didn't want it to end badly. And I hope it doesn't now.

• 1:44:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the I I would say it like this, it's whether it's sports or not, just think about the moment you get to say goodbye to the thing that you were part of.

• 1:44:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:44:57Trevor Noah?

  And the thing that you're a part of turning into a success.

• 1:45:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:45:01Trevor Noah?

  Whether you're at your office and you're leaving.

• 1:45:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:04Trevor Noah?

  It's nice to be able to have the cake, have everyone come around, say goodbye, say the versus people come in on Monday. And you're just not there.

• 1:45:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:45:14Trevor Noah?

  What happened? Yeah, gone. Where's the desk? Gone. No, that's not an ending. You know, that's what it felt like it was about to be, by the way.

• 1:45:21Speaker 00

  And that that felt wrong. That felt like there was gonna be. They were gonna be hard questions to answer if that was the way.

• 1:45:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, it wasn't. It wasn't gonna be.

• 1:45:29Speaker 00

  Cause he did definitely deserves much more than that. I actually, I, I, he was here in New York for the Time 100. Wait, you were there that night too, right?

• 1:45:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was. No, I was there. Yes.

• 1:45:39Speaker 00

  He was there because he had a game like on Tuesday. Remember he was just in for the night?

• 1:45:43Trevor Noah?

  Wait, we, cause we, when did we, we went to a game. I remember the game that we went to. Do you remember?

• 1:45:48Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, that's right.

• 1:45:49Trevor Noah?

  Backstage.

• 1:45:49Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, that was. The memories are flooding back. You know, it was, because I was, I, it was my one time that I was, I didn't have any, I have nothing to say to Jochen Pop. I just wanted to see him. Then Big Verge, he walks out, he sees Trevor, says, Trevor looks at me and he says, all right, Zazu. Excuse me?

• 1:46:10Speaker 00

  Excuse me, Verge?

• 1:46:14Speaker 00

  Do, do you, do you, did you know that I'm the new Zazu? Or do you think I'm Rowan Atkinson? I'll take either, by the, I'm happy with either.

• 1:46:28Speaker 00

  When, when, when I was with, uh, when I was with Mo at the Time 100, I remember I was trying to say to him what he meant to me, stumbling my way through it. And he's like listening in his patient way. And then he said, do you know Khaleesi? What?

• 1:46:46Speaker 00

  Mother of dragons. Yeah, I said.

• 1:46:48Trevor Noah?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:46:49Speaker 00

  And he said, Khaleesi's over there. Can you please introduce me to Khaleesi?

• 1:46:53Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:46:55Speaker 00

  Oh, man. If that's, if that's what you want, then I will give that to you. That will mean my gift to you.

• 1:47:01Trevor Noah?

  What did you do?

• 1:47:02Speaker 00

  Khaleesi, mother of dragons. Khaleesi, mother of dragons. Mo.

• 1:47:07Trevor Noah?

  I genuinely love how in life, we all have, do you know what I mean? You're there going, nothing could be bigger than Mo Salah in this room.

• 1:47:16Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 1:47:18Trevor Noah?

  And Mo Salah's going, I hear you, British man, but.

• 1:47:23Speaker 00

  I, I hear you. I tolerate you.

• 1:47:25Trevor Noah?

  Do you know Khaleesi?

• 1:47:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:27Trevor Noah?

  Because it goes to your point, cause.

• 1:47:29Speaker 00

  I want to be the stepfather of dragons.

• 1:47:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but, but also in, in, in my world, I'm going.

• 1:47:36Trevor Noah?

  I can only assume that the games are not to him, what the games are to us.

• 1:47:41Speaker 00

  Oh, of course, of course.

• 1:47:43Trevor Noah?

  So when you're like, ah, what you mean to me and what you.

• 1:47:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:46Trevor Noah?

  I'm sure someone has done that to you as well. They've come up and been like, hey, John, can I just say everything you've done in my life and what? What have I done? And now you're just standing there.

• 1:47:54Speaker 00

  I look at them and say, do you know Paulie Walnuts?

• 1:47:59Trevor Noah?

  And they're just like, you know. Um, how many seasons have you been running now? How many years has it been?

• 1:48:05Speaker 00

  Thirteen.

• 1:48:06Trevor Noah?

  Phew. Do you see yourself going?

• 1:48:08Speaker 00

  I would like.

• 1:48:08Trevor Noah?

  What would you like your ending to be?

• 1:48:11Speaker 00

  Um, I'll go to the Saudi League, probably.

• 1:48:17Speaker 00

  Isn't that what you're supposed to do?

• 1:48:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:19Speaker 00

  It feels like there's a Saudi League for comedians now, so yeah, I'll go there.

• 1:48:22Trevor Noah?

  I tell you, if how amazing that would be is just seeing you there pop up randomly one day, just properly, full on come out and just be like Riyadh, let's talk about the best city in the world. It's just like, John, what happened?

• 1:48:35Speaker 00

  Well, they got to you. They got to you.

• 1:48:37Trevor Noah?

  Ah, man. Yeah, but it, it, cause it must be, I don't, I don't know what this is like from your side. I remember for me,

• 1:48:44Trevor Noah?

  in many ways, I think I, I, um, I felt the feeling that you were talking about of, of impermanence, always with The Daily Show, because in my head, it was always Jon Stewart's show.

• 1:48:55Speaker 00

  Uh huh. That makes sense.

• 1:48:56Trevor Noah?

  Does it make sense?

• 1:48:57Speaker 00

  Totally makes sense.

• 1:48:57Trevor Noah?

  I was like, I know who, whose car this is.

• 1:48:59Speaker 00

  I totally agree.

• 1:49:00Trevor Noah?

  I just know how to drive it well.

• 1:49:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:49:02Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? It's like living in your parents' house. Completely. It is always your parents' house. But I was like, yeah, yeah. And everyone was like, oh, it's, it's, you've made it yours. I was like, no, no, I've put some of my furniture. But this is my parents' house.

• 1:49:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:49:13Trevor Noah?

  Ah, in my brain, you know? So, and because, because John was my mentor, you know, as I call him, my Jewish Yoda, it never felt like it wasn't his house. So I'd go like, hey, John, I, I remember once when I even asked him, I was like, hey, how did the, the, the guest interview, it's so short. Uh, what are you trying to do there? And he said, oh, uh, fill five minutes.

• 1:49:33Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 1:49:34Trevor Noah?

  That's all he said. I was like, oh, cause like, I'm really struggling to. Get to the crux of somebody in in this like four, five minute segment. What do you what do how what are you trying to do there? And he was like, oh, I was trying to fill five minutes.

• 1:49:47Speaker 00

  I could not do those things. That was the one part of that job I could never do. It is out August harvest. No interest in whatsoever. So it was the actors was the problem for me.

• 1:49:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you struggle with that.

• 1:49:59Speaker 00

  Oh, man, that was tough.

• 1:50:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you struggle with that.

• 1:50:03Speaker 00

  It was. I just I ran out of things to say so quickly. I remember once I was talking to one actor. And I would look at Spiny sometimes, the floor manager, to see, like, he would say, how long you got left? And I looked over to him as if say, are we are we good? And he said, you've been going one minute.

• 1:50:19Speaker 00

  Sixty human seconds, and I was all out of questions.

• 1:50:23Trevor Noah?

  Is that why you just cut guests out of your show?

• 1:50:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was. We built a.

• 1:50:28Trevor Noah?

  Because you used to remember you had a you had a guest.

• 1:50:30Speaker 00

  We had a guest area.

• 1:50:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I remember the guest area. First season, you had the guest area.

• 1:50:34Speaker 00

  Yes, because it felt like you were supposed to.

• 1:50:37Trevor Noah?

  Have a guest.

• 1:50:37Speaker 00

  Have a guest. That was all the only thing I knew about. American late night shows.

• 1:50:42Trevor Noah?

  You have to have a guest.

• 1:50:43Speaker 00

  Anything can happen, but there has to be a guest. There's got to be someone else. And to their credit, HBO, after our two test shows that we did, just said, you know, you don't have to have someone. You don't have to talk to anyone at the end if you want. You can just like.

• 1:50:57Trevor Noah?

  Was it that bad?

• 1:50:58Speaker 00

  One, I think it was that bad. I think it genuinely was that bad. And two, that changed everything for me. Like, oh, I can have that six minutes and we can make the story longer. Oh, I'll do that in a second. And so that was the a a a thing I'm massively grateful for for them to kind of save me from myself, because otherwise I absolutely felt like, and you have to have a guest every week.

• 1:51:21Trevor Noah?

  But I think you had a good.

• 1:51:21Speaker 00

  And I did not want that.

• 1:51:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, sorry, sorry, John. You had a good question there about how you'd want to see your ending, because I.

• 1:51:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, because.

• 1:51:28Trevor Noah?

  I have sympathy for sports people. They give so much of their lives. They start very, very early.

• 1:51:32Speaker 00

  Yes, that's.

• 1:51:32Trevor Noah?

  They miss so many milestones. That's all they know for such a long time.

• 1:51:36Speaker 03

  I sometimes wish for them that wouldn't they want to retire at their at their prime of their human lives, not of their sporting lives, where they can have families.

• 1:51:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:44Speaker 03

  They can also be rubbed out of the zeitgeist of of of that side of their life and then people will not recognise or know them as much, you know. So don't you wish that for Mo Salah?

• 1:51:53Speaker 00

  It must be so difficult.

• 1:51:54Speaker 03

  For him to have.

• 1:51:54Speaker 00

  It must be so difficult for them because it's amazing to think that that part of your life, your whole life has been built into this one thing. It's over and you're thirty seven years old. That's a young age to be.

• 1:52:05Speaker 03

  To retire.

• 1:52:06Speaker 00

  For everything to have stopped. It's no wonder that there can be big problems in terms of what you want the rest of your life to functionally be. And that that the idea of it slipping through your fingers, something that came so naturally to you since you were three years old. And all of a sudden you realise when you are the best in any environment that you're in, to all of a sudden feel it fading away. I cannot imagine how that must feel. I remember talking once to Joe Dumas, do you know who he was? He was a basketball player with the Detroit Pistons. Really fascinating, interesting guy. And he was talking about towards the end of his career, Kobe Bryant started playing. And so he was eighteen, I think, when he started playing, which is young for American sports, not for football, but for American sports, he's young.

• 1:52:49Speaker 00

  And he said he could feel him standing off him. And he would been thinking about, oh, when am I going to retire anyway? He could feel the first time, you're not playing properly against me. You're treating me with respect.

• 1:53:01Speaker 03

  Oh, you're treating me like the old guy.

• 1:53:03Speaker 00

  I'm done. He said he went back to his wife that night, when this is my last year. And he said he was lucky that he had enough money so that he didn't need to play beyond.

• 1:53:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:12Speaker 00

  The point that was that natural end, which I think again is not the case with lots of athletes, which is, oh, I need to do three more because I need the money. So that it must be incredibly difficult.

• 1:53:24Speaker 03

  So could you could you see yourself doing anything else?

• 1:53:27Speaker 00

  Oh, I didn't I didn't want to do anything else.

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  But that's what I mean.

• 1:53:29Speaker 00

  It goes back to that springboard thing with the.

• 1:53:30Speaker 03

  No, that's what I mean is like, could you, that's what I'm saying, is there anything you could see yourself doing?

• 1:53:35Speaker 00

  This is my favourite thing. It's not, I don't wanna do some, yeah, this is what I like.

• 1:53:40Speaker 03

  I am genuinely so happy for you. No, because what because what I was saying about the the temporary thing for me was I I never thought it was my forever thing. I I thought maybe it would be like.

• 1:53:49Trevor Noah?

  Two months or three months.

• 1:53:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 1:53:51Trevor Noah?

  Or two years or three years. Uh, but I never assumed that it was, and then it's like one thing led to another, one thing led to another, and then it's a pandemic, then it's like, well, you're going in a pandemic, now you're staying in the pandemic.

• 1:54:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54:01Trevor Noah?

  But I never assumed that this would be for, but for you to say that, I actually love that for you. There's so few people in the world, I think, who can say, I'm doing the thing that is my favorite thing to do in the whole world.

• 1:54:10Speaker 00

  It's so much fun. It's, uh, cause it's, it's, you know, it's the best kind of troubles, the trouble that I love so much and you're doing it collectively. So you're all in trouble together. It's so fun and it was a real relief during the pandemic. How did you feel during the pandemic? I, I'm, it was really difficult, like just doing a show at home, keeping everyone employed and like performing jokes.

• 1:54:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:34Speaker 00

  To silence, but I worry a lot about what, where my head would have gone without it. I feel for the stand ups who all of a sudden like, I don't know where you can do this again.

• 1:54:43Trevor Noah?

  Outlet and.

• 1:54:43Speaker 00

  That's a hard daily rhythm of your life to have taken away.

• 1:54:48Trevor Noah?

  During the pandemic, how do I, so I think there were stages. The first stage was, it was like the fun and it was the experimentation of it all. It was the, it's, it's exploration.

• 1:55:01Speaker 03

  School's closed.

• 1:55:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 03

  You're going anyway.

• 1:55:02Trevor Noah?

  Because remember, they said it was gonna be twenty one days.

• 1:55:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. And everyone could use twenty one days.

• 1:55:06Trevor Noah?

  Yes. I'll never forget the twenty one days.

• 1:55:08Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:55:08Trevor Noah?

  So, and.

• 1:55:10Speaker 00

  That was always bullshit.

• 1:55:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:12Trevor Noah?

  In the lead up, in the lead up to this, right? I remember saying to someone on the technical team at the Daily Show, I said, hey, if, if we needed to, could we film the show from home? You know, cause things were starting to shut down, Spain was shut, Italy was shutting down. I was like, could we? And they were like, well, we're not gonna get shut down. That doesn't happen in America. It might happen in Europe, it won't happen in America. I was like, no, no, but could we shoot the show from home? And they were like, no, it's not possible. So I spoke to David Meyer, now directs at the Daily Show, the Daily Show, and I was like, David, do you think we could do this? And he's like, oh, well, I mean, he's like, I guess technically there's like a way we could do this. And he's like, figured out all these things and he's like, I guess we could do it. So we planned out this whole system for what might possibly happen if it were to happen.

• 1:55:55Trevor Noah?

  So when it happened, I was, I was like, oh, wow, we get to test out this thing for twenty one days.

• 1:55:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:55:58Trevor Noah?

  Let's see how it goes for twenty one days. You know what I mean? And then, you know, it was the countdown to twenty one days. So I was having a lot of fun. It was just school holidays.

• 1:56:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:56:09Trevor Noah?

  And then the second phase was, oh shit.

• 1:56:13Speaker 04

  People are dying.

• 1:56:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, in New York, remember there was the body bags in Central Park and.

• 1:56:17Speaker 00

  So that was the, that was the thing for me that was difficult because like when you're doing stand up, you can at least infer tone from a room.

• 1:56:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you can.

• 1:56:27Speaker 00

  And, and it's, it was, I found it very hard to know what kind of jokes are going to feel remotely appropriate or are gonna be wanted when CNN has a death count in the corner of the screen that's going up like to, there's nothing to cue you for tone.

• 1:56:44Trevor Noah?

  You aren't part of, and that's.

• 1:56:45Speaker 00

  You're just talking to yourself.

• 1:56:46Trevor Noah?

  That's one of the key parts of comedy I find is being part of the society you're doing the comedy in. There's, there's very little comedy that exists in a vacuum, but you are doing it with people, for people.

• 1:56:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:59Trevor Noah?

  And so you, you, this was the one moment where, there was one point where I remember sitting there going, is that a joke? Like literally, things would come out of my mouth and I'd be like, I don't know if these are jokes anymore. I, I genuinely don't know.

• 1:57:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:12Trevor Noah?

  Some of them are, some of them aren't. I don't know if they're funny. I don't know if they're not funny because there's no, do you know what I mean? There's nothing to that.

• 1:57:19Speaker 04

  There's no feedback. There's no interaction.

• 1:57:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So you could just, we could be like, man, that's so great. I just imagine you being like an old man doing your show. Is that what you want?

• 1:57:28Speaker 00

  Do I wanna be just an old man ranting about systemic problems in America? Yeah, probably. I'll probably be there. And it doesn't have to be on television. It can just be in the corner of an old people's home.

• 1:57:40Speaker 00

  I'll just be gathering people over and saying, I need you to listen to what I have to say about the Ugandan election coming up.

• 1:57:47Speaker 04

  It'd be like John Oliver in the corner. You know, people getting ready. He's like catheters. And it's like, oh boy, here we go, John. It's like, you probably think it's just a thing that you wear inside your pants to help your feet.

• 1:57:57Speaker 00

  I know this move.

• 1:57:58Speaker 04

  But then it's like, here we go. And it's like, you know, everyone in the lounge is like, oh, what's John? And someone like, shut up. This is interesting. Tell me how the old age homie's screwing me over, John.

• 1:58:06Speaker 00

  Sounds dark. He might do something dumb at the end of this.

• 1:58:09Speaker 04

  It's gonna bring it up. It's gonna.

• 1:58:12Trevor Noah?

  But you know what, you know what you did and I, I, I hope people are giving you flowers for this. It's not just like the awards. You created like a new thing. You do realize that.

• 1:58:20Speaker 00

  I, I don't know, but I wanted, I was very, very conscious of not doing it because of John's thing, right?

• 1:58:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:26Speaker 00

  I, we did not want to just do John's thing because that felt like stealing, right?

• 1:58:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:32Speaker 00

  Well, that's, he did that.

• 1:58:33Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:58:34Speaker 00

  So it feels like our responsibility is to take what we learned with him and develop it.

• 1:58:39Trevor Noah?

  Do a different thing.

• 1:58:40Speaker 00

  Right? See, see what you can do with it in a different form.

• 1:58:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:43Speaker 00

  So, yeah, we were taking very much those parts, as we were saying at the start, those uh like ingredients and the, the parts of that process and trying to use that to build something meaningfully different. And at the end of the day, it is still just a guy behind a desk talking. So I know that.

• 1:59:02Trevor Noah?

  I mean, but so is the news.

• 1:59:04Speaker 00

  Oh, exactly. Optically, it's, it's, and it's graphics over the shoulder because that's kind of the best way for you to see it.

• 1:59:09Trevor Noah?

  But that's like, that's different.

• 1:59:10Speaker 00

  Exactly. In general, it felt like what we wanted to build was something very, very different.

• 1:59:14Trevor Noah?

  And it is very different.

• 1:59:15Speaker 00

  We have done that, yes.

• 1:59:16Trevor Noah?

  No, no, it is, it is and, and congratulate, and thank you. Uh, you know, I'm sure I've said this to you before, but thank you because like, I feel like because of you, you know, I was able to do so like.

• 1:59:25Speaker 00

  I walked so you could run, is that what you were about to say?

• 1:59:27Trevor Noah?

  You colonized so that I could live. Let's put it that way.

• 1:59:32Trevor Noah?

  Thank you, John Oliver.

• 1:59:32Speaker 00

  And coming from a South African, you're welcome.

• 1:59:34Trevor Noah?

  Thank you, John Oliver, for colonizing late nights so that I.

• 1:59:38Speaker 04

  So basically what he said is you, you bought them the fake vase so that he can.

• 1:59:42Trevor Noah?

  You brought me, you brought me over on a ship, John, so that I could be in a land that wasn't my own.

• 1:59:48Speaker 04

  For a herald buyer to buy.

• 1:59:49Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 1:59:50Trevor Noah?

  You brought me in and because of you, John, I was able to, to do well. An African was able to come to America.

• 1:59:57Speaker 00

  So we good now? We good? We good?

• 2:00:00Speaker 04

  No. The patina is still there.

• 2:00:04Trevor Noah?

  No, man, for real. Thank you, John. Thanks for joining us. This was really fun.

• 2:00:08Speaker 03

  Oh, by the way, are you gonna go to the World Cup?

• 2:00:10Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:00:11Speaker 03

  Can you go?

• 2:00:11Speaker 00

  I would, I would love to go. I would love to go. I don't know if I will be let in. I mean, I was allowed to go in South Africa.

• 2:00:17Speaker 03

  What do you mean? You went to Rustenburg? No, no, no, but.

• 2:00:18Speaker 00

  Rustenburg. I would, that, that was the stupidest part of the World Cup was the fact they put games in Rustenburg, which didn't function really.

• 2:00:26Speaker 03

  You know, ironically, that was the first story I did when I started doing Countdown 2010.

• 2:00:30Speaker 00

  Really?

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, when they were starting to build the stadium. Royal Bafugang Stadium, right in Phuket. Yes, right in the platinum.

• 2:00:37Trevor Noah?

  It didn't have any.

• 2:00:38Speaker 00

  It's just a mining town that didn't. They, they were just gonna get three games. They were gonna build this stadium. We got there, the scoreboards didn't work. They were funneling all the fans in through the same entrance. Like, oh, you don't wanna do that. There's no plan, huh, guys? Absolutely no plan. Everyone had to walk out together. Uh, I don't know who was camped there.

• 2:00:57Speaker 03

  Every, every team was assigned.

• 2:00:59Speaker 00

  England played the United States there, though. That was the.

• 2:01:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, there was one team that was camped there. They were not having a good time.

• 2:01:04Speaker 03

  There was one team that was camped there and they were having a horrible.

• 2:01:05Trevor Noah?

  But this was pre your like FIFA beefs is what I mean.

• 2:01:08Speaker 00

  Oh, you're right. You mean, oh, that's right.

• 2:01:10Speaker 03

  You have FIFA beefs?

• 2:01:11Trevor Noah?

  This guy is the king of FIFA. He's done multi series, multiple parts on FIFA.

• 2:01:16Speaker 03

  I knew there was something about you.

• 2:01:18Speaker 00

  If I was Kendrick, FIFA are my Drake.

• 2:01:20Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 2:01:24Speaker 03

  So basically, bitch, don't kill your vibe.

• 2:01:28Trevor Noah?

  No, but I'm being serious. So, cause did you, did you go to Qatar? No?

• 2:01:31Speaker 00

  No, I did not go to Qatar.

• 2:01:33Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so you go.

• 2:01:33Speaker 00

  Shit, I was not walking into that trap. I talked about shit, shit about FIFA and the Qatari government.

• 2:01:40Speaker 03

  No, no, no.

• 2:01:41Trevor Noah?

  You would have been fine. Can I tell?

• 2:01:43Speaker 03

  The danger's only at the embassy. No, can, sorry.

• 2:01:45Trevor Noah?

  Let me tell you something. The best time to go to any country is when the World Cup is there.

• 2:01:49Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, sure.

• 2:01:49Trevor Noah?

  I've only been to Russia once in my life.

• 2:01:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:01:51Trevor Noah?

  And it was during the World Cup because I knew the only thing you should fear more than the Russian government is FIFA. FIFA was gonna keep me safe. FIFA, let me tell you something. Do you remember during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa? Do you remember what our crime rate was? Zero. Exactly. Why? FIFA does not, remember they had their own courts, they had mobile police stations.

• 2:02:12Speaker 00

  That's right, you have FIFA laws for a certain distance.

• 2:02:14Trevor Noah?

  Yo, let me tell you something.

• 2:02:15Speaker 00

  Get all those, all those vendors?

• 2:02:16Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:02:17Speaker 00

  Kicked out?

• 2:02:17Trevor Noah?

  FIFA does not mess around. So what I'm saying is you're technically, because they can't have it, that something happened to John Oliver. Wait, so your beef with them stops you from attending any of their? No, I'm asking if it does. Okay, yeah. You should have gone to Qatar.

• 2:02:30Speaker 00

  I think I should be allowed to attend. I live here.

• 2:02:32Trevor Noah?

  No, no. No, no, no.

• 2:02:33Speaker 00

  I, I, I, I live here. I think I should be allowed to go.

• 2:02:35Trevor Noah?

  You should go to the game.

• 2:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think I should go.

• 2:02:37Trevor Noah?

  I think, I want that for you. England's going, you should go.

• 2:02:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:02:40Trevor Noah?

  Do you think this is the one?

• 2:02:42Speaker 00

  Oh, no, I don't.

• 2:02:43Trevor Noah?

  It's coming home.

• 2:02:43Speaker 00

  I don't think I will ever think this is the one thing.

• 2:02:45Trevor Noah?

  It's coming home.

• 2:02:45Speaker 00

  No, I've been hurt too many times.

• 2:02:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but John, this is one of the best teams in terms of balance.

• 2:02:49Speaker 00

  I've heard this.

• 2:02:50Trevor Noah?

  No, in terms of balance.

• 2:02:50Speaker 00

  I've heard this every four years. But you are still right. It's true every four years.

• 2:02:54Trevor Noah?

  Yes, this, I'll tell you what happened. As someone who watched it in Qatar, you know what I think happened in that one game? Yeah. I think, was Southgate was the coach, right?

• 2:03:00Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:01Trevor Noah?

  I just think his problem was when he got the, when he was 1-0 up.

• 2:03:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:03:04Trevor Noah?

  He was more worried about losing the game.

• 2:03:05Speaker 00

  You're always worried when England go up too early. When, when England went 1-0 up against Brazil, you're like, this happened too quickly.

• 2:03:11Trevor Noah?

  The story of the empire. They were up too early and then look what happened.

• 2:03:14Speaker 00

  That was all we were really guilty of, was doing too much too soon. And, and assorted other things. But yeah, that's, that, I think the, the problem with England is gonna be that this just, it, we're at the point now where, you're right, this team is really well balanced. Tuchel's a really good manager, but we're at the point of the season now where every injury is meaningful, right?

• 2:03:42Trevor Noah?

  Okay, this is true, yeah.

• 2:03:43Speaker 00

  From, from January on.

• 2:03:45Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:03:45Speaker 00

  It's all like, oh, we're all gonna learn, like we do every four years. What's the recovery time for a metatarsal?

• 2:03:51Trevor Noah?

  Ah, yes.

• 2:03:52Speaker 00

  It's gonna be like, I remember on the, when Beckham broke his metatarsal.

• 2:03:55Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yes, yeah.

• 2:03:56Speaker 00

  On the news in England, they're like, it is this bone of the foot, like making people qualify podiatrists. It's gonna, it'll heal in about three and a half weeks. He'll then be able to put pressure on it. Then he can start bending it. So maybe by the quarterfinals, he'll be back to full strength.

• 2:04:10Trevor Noah?

  Okay, but here's a question I have about this. Why is it that the English media, and this is just my, like, my observation of it?

• 2:04:17Speaker 00

  Uh-huh.

• 2:04:17Trevor Noah?

  Why does the English media give the English team so much shit and then get?

• 2:04:24Trevor Noah?

  So pissed off when they like they don't seem to support them.

• 2:04:27Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no. Expect them to win and when they lose.

• 2:04:29Trevor Noah?

  No, no, but more than that.

• 2:04:30Speaker 00

  No, they do expect them to win.

• 2:04:31Trevor Noah?

  They expect them to win.

• 2:04:32Speaker 00

  It's a deep level of entitlement, which is that every World Cup.

• 2:04:35Trevor Noah?

  It's coming home.

• 2:04:36Speaker 00

  Every World Cup is England's, unless you allow another country to take it away from you. That's, that is the kind of tone of the British press.

• 2:04:44Trevor Noah?

  But then, but then they shit on them so hard, they give them so much shit.

• 2:04:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, they play scared.

• 2:04:48Trevor Noah?

  You would think there's like a moment in time where the press would go, we're behind you fully, don't worry.

• 2:04:52Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:04:52Trevor Noah?

  But instead, no, why, why do they do that?

• 2:04:54Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think there's two things going on. One, I think they are, you can be terrified to make your mistake because you've seen the examples that people, that have been made of people.

• 2:05:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:02Speaker 00

  You've seen effigies of Beckham hanging outside of his family's house.

• 2:05:06Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:05:06Speaker 00

  So you do not wanna be the one that misses a penalty.

• 2:05:09Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:05:09Speaker 00

  You've seen what happens.

• 2:05:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, look what happened to Saka.

• 2:05:12Speaker 00

  Saka, of course, that's right. Southgate himself, he knew, he knew, he missed a penalty. He knew the fact it upends your entire life. That is a monumental amount of responsibility to feel the failure in a moment.

• 2:05:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:26Speaker 00

  Before you can even contemplate success.

• 2:05:28Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:05:29Speaker 00

  Plus, back then, those teams were so siloed, the players were so, they did not interact with each other.

• 2:05:36Trevor Noah?

  They didn't at all. That was a bold tool. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:05:37Speaker 00

  Very, very interesting now, hearing them talk, because you see them on podcasts, talking in a way that you wouldn't. You, you, you get, you see players say, oh yeah, we didn't really, you see Rio talking to Gerrard, we didn't really hang out, I didn't really know anything about you.

• 2:05:50Trevor Noah?

  That's the older players, right?

• 2:05:51Speaker 00

  Now they go on vacation together.

• 2:05:53Trevor Noah?

  No, now they go on vacation together. They're friends.

• 2:05:55Speaker 00

  Back then, but I, I think that comes with a level of regret, because like, oh.

• 2:05:58Trevor Noah?

  Absolutely.

• 2:05:59Speaker 00

  We could have really done something together, but I was suspicious of you, you were suspicious of me.

• 2:06:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:03Speaker 00

  Neither of us like Frank Lampard, you know, it's like.

• 2:06:05Trevor Noah?

  Players have told me.

• 2:06:06Speaker 00

  It's, it's. Probably agents were fueling the food as well. Come with real regret, but I think it's just the way things were at the time.

• 2:06:13Trevor Noah?

  A few players have told me, social media changed that.

• 2:06:17Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 2:06:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like a few players, I asked a few players, I was like, yo, I feel like there was a time when one, you know, a Manchester United player would never be friends with a Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal. Never. Now I see you guys on vacation, I see you in clubs in Mikkun, and I was like, and he said, social media. He said, it used to be that that, the only images you got of that person were like from the official games.

• 2:06:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, in combat mode.

• 2:06:41Trevor Noah?

  Whereas now, you see a clip of them, you see things, you see them doing cool things, and you're like, oh, I like this person. And I remember like Marcelo was a fan of Alfonso Davies, and Davies was like, wait, the Marcelo, the greatest left back in my life? And Marcelo was like, I think you're the greatest new left back ever, and all of a sudden they became friends. And so you, you now have these like cross-team, cross-generational links that couldn't be formed, but because of social media. So Facebook is good.

• 2:07:07Speaker 00

  I did find it so interesting watching them talk now, the kind of watching.

• 2:07:11Trevor Noah?

  Even in the game.

• 2:07:11Speaker 00

  The players that we loved growing up, like, looking back on that time.

• 2:07:14Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, they're very.

• 2:07:15Speaker 00

  With regret, or just talking, or just reminiscing about those moments that you grew up witnessing first time. I think the hardest I laughed this year was there's a start of, you know, the Beckham and Gary Neville do that, uh, Salford, that series of Welcome to Salford videos, there's just Beckham and Neville in the back of a town car, driving through Manchester, and they're just sitting there, like, just like two friends who've grown up together, which they have. And Beckham says, hey, Gary, do you remember that time you tried to lob Buffon in the Champions League? And Neville looked back and went, what do you mean tried?

• 2:07:50Speaker 00

  A perfect exchange between those two.

• 2:07:55Speaker 03

  I think what you've just explained is the happy ending of all football fans. Social media and television and these kind of programs allow you to have a life.

• 2:08:03Trevor Noah?

  You're not wrong.

• 2:08:04Speaker 03

  With them after the football.

• 2:08:05Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you're not wrong.

• 2:08:05Speaker 03

  So they won't disappear into the ether and you'll never hear of them again, or you're caught up in some strange administrative job as an assistant coach, you will still see them functional and living.

• 2:08:14Speaker 00

  It's that classic thing with social media though, isn't it? Like what it, what it gives with one hand will take away with the other, because like, yes, they can be more, they can present themselves to society as a more well-rounded human being, and they can have the most horrendous things said to them relentlessly online.

• 2:08:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:08:33Speaker 00

  That is, at least in the past, you could hear it, you could tune it out, but it was fundamentally done.

• 2:08:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it doesn't follow you home.

• 2:08:40Speaker 00

  For them to sit there in their phone. That.

• 2:08:43Trevor Noah?

  Morata, Morata talked about that. Alvaro Morata. Yeah, he talked about how like when things weren't going well for him. I think it was at Madrid, but he said he just couldn't get off the phone and he would see people just saying these and I used to go just turn off the phone, but if you grew up in that generation.

• 2:08:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, that doesn't apply.

• 2:09:01Trevor Noah?

  You play a shit game, you go home and the fans are still with you. Fans are with you on the couch, fans are with you on the couch.

• 2:09:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:06Trevor Noah?

  Those aren't like, those are your, that's your team. The people wearing your shirt shitting on you the hardest.

• 2:09:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, it must be very, very difficult.

• 2:09:13Speaker 03

  That's what I discover whenever I watch American television, especially sports channels like ESPN. I see how these ex-football players, I think people who love Tom Brady see him more now than they've ever seen him.

• 2:09:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:23Speaker 03

  When he plays, because there will be a match and they will play and that'll be it. But now they get to hear his opinions, they get to see him, they get to, in fact, feel like they're interacting with him.

• 2:09:31Trevor Noah?

  That's what you can retire.

• 2:09:32Speaker 03

  That's the win, right?

• 2:09:33Trevor Noah?

  You can retire into podcasts.

• 2:09:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:09:35Trevor Noah?

  Come and join us when you retire.

• 2:09:37Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, this will just sit around and just reminisce about.

• 2:09:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, hundred percent.

• 2:09:41Speaker 00

  Daily show episodes.

• 2:09:41Trevor Noah?

  That's all we do. Yo, man, this has been fun, John. Thank you, man.

• 2:09:48Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Parduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now?

• 2:10:21Speaker 07

  Some say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk. Scaling with you while being magically affordable. And some say Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting and more are like building blocks. For creating a custom software suite. But I say Odoo is all of it. Fertilizer, magic beanstalk, building blocks. For business, simple, efficient software that can handle everything for every business needs. Sign up today at Odoo.com. That's O D O O dot com.

• 2:10:52Speaker 08

  Walmart shoppers, meet the debit card designed with you in mind. The Walmart Money Card offers up to $75 cash back on purchases at Walmart each year. Early direct deposit, overdraft protection, and so much more. When Walmart is your everyday store, you need a card to match. That's the Walmart Money Card. Open your account today. The Walmart Money Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC. Fees, terms, and conditions apply. Visit walmartmoneycard.com to learn more.