That being said, I want to be clear. The victims of this Administration are not the comedians. We are a visible manifestation of certain things, but the victims are the victims—they’re the people who are struggling to have any voice and are being forcibly removed from streets by hooded agents. Those are the victims of this Administration.
I’m not sure Hitler cared about satirists, but I think this guy does. I don’t think he likes being made fun of.
Trump doesn’t like being made fun of?
No.
I’m going to tell you something, and I’m going to go out on a limb here: I’m starting to sour on this Presidency. [Laughter.]
Bold.
You know me, I was all in, ten toes in, man.
You say that this is not the issue. But I remember when Vladimir Putin came to power, in 2000. The first thing he did was take a satirical program about politics called “Kukly,” “Puppets,” off the air. And people said, “Oh, he took the puppets off the air.” Within a couple of weeks, the uncensored news was off the air.
Right.
Isn’t it possible that this political assault, however herky-jerky and back and forth it might be, is tantamount to something else?
Sure. Are we comedians, as I’ve said earlier, like a banana peel in a coal mine? I think that’s possible. And it can certainly go there.
I will say, when seven million people show up in America on a weekend for anything—I mean, honestly, anything—you know something’s going on. And they are attempting to graft, I think, an alien culture onto this country. We’re not Russia and its history of autocracy or dictatorship. This is an alien culture to us and it is uncomfortable, and that discomfort may be our saving grace. I don’t think we’re going to wear that well.
That doesn’t mean we’re not going to be in some kind of soft autocracy where news is controlled. But we have a lot of different avenues. And suppression creates opportunity, and a populace that is thirsty for inspiration and leadership and morality and integrity and lack of corruption—that’s fertile ground for that opportunity. So as bad as this is—and it’s fucking bad . . .
Yeah. You know how bad it is? David Ellison—
That’s my new boss.
—just bought Paramount.
Yes.
Not only does he—forgive me—own your enterprise, but he could also affect it. And he has just hired Bari Weiss to run CBS News. So tell me what this means.
This is not happenstance. This began with Richard Viguerie doing a mail-in to try and get people to be conservative. This began with people buying AM-radio stations and converting them to conservative talk radio. This began with Roger Ailes and the Nixon White House going, “We will never allow this to happen to a Republican politician again.”
All of the institutions—education, media, news, academia, and all those things that we have relied on as a solid tent post by which to build a decent society—they were, like, Yeah, no. They have built a parallel universe of think tanks, education, and media so that they could at some point flip a switch and move us over onto that track.
Because what do these institutions have? They are the reference point for our decisions. What do you do? You quote, “Well, there’s a study done by,” and you use data and the scientific method and other things to try and make as informed a decision as you can. But, if you’re a political movement that believes that investing those institutions with authority is against your cause, the best thing you can do is build organizations that either tear down the credibility of those institutions or you build your own.
But, with respect, Jon, this is different. This is markedly different. It’s one thing to have the Brookings Institution that was kind of liberal, and then you have the rise of the American Enterprise Institute. It’s one thing to have a liberal newspaper and then a conservative newspaper. Fine. In fact, all the better, in some ways.
Mhm.
What’s going on now is different. And you’re going to face it potentially with Paramount and “The Daily Show.”