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      The week in audio: Die Die DEI; Drama on 4: The Film; Good Hang with Amy Poehler; Confessions of a Female Founder and more

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      The Slow Newscast: Die Die DEI (Tortoise Media)Drama on 4: The Film (Radio 4) | BBC SoundsGood Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan (Lemonada)Working Hard, Hardly Working (Grace Beverley) | Apple podcastsThe Slow Newscast is usually worth a listen. Take Die Die DEI, from the week before last. Queasy and pointed, it tackles the issue of the Trump administration’s “war on woke”. As soon as the orange man-baby got into office, his government started shutting down inclusion programmes, and corporate US followed. Why? It’s not about saving money, or terminology-wrangling. It’s far more deeply prejudiced.View image in fullscreenWritten and presented by Stephen Armstrong, the show focuses on one particular member of the Trump administration: the deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller. Described baldly by one contributor as “a violently rightwing racist who is pushing a white nationalist agenda”, he is far from a nice guy. But Armstrong is wise enough to tell Miller’s story gradually. He was brought up in liberal, multiracial Santa Monica, California. Yet as a kid he dumps one of his friends by telling him exactly why he doesn’t like him. “Among that list of things,” recalls the friend, “was my Latino heritage. That was one of the things that disqualified me from being his friend.”We follow Miller through his college years, a controversial rape case (not his: he supported some lacrosse players who were falsely accused of sexual assault) and into the Senate. There, he uses the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approach against itself, telling white people that they are, in fact, victims. “Hijacked victimhood” is what it’s called: the idea that your lifestyle – your life – is put in a precarious position because other people are different from you. The way Miller plays it, it’s a zero-sum game. You must triumph and “they” – people not like you – must be vanquished.Armstrong’s script is excellent. I could quote from any part of the show, but he really hits his stride towards the end. “Don’t get distracted by absurdities. This administration is throwing out so many bouncing, multicoloured balls that it’s almost impossible to focus on what’s important. The trick is to watch Stephen Miller. When he says something, it matters… The truth is, his views haven’t changed since he dumped his best friend for being Latino.”There’s something at once modern and classic about Armstrong’s script, and I thought about this while listening to Drama on 4: The Film, a small gem of a radio play about a movie. Its subject is a true story. In 1945, Sidney Bernstein, a film-maker and producer, was given hundreds of hours of footage from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shot by British army crews for the Ministry of Information, the footage was basic but devastating, full of appalling, cruel, hellish murder. How to make this into a film that would both engage and expose the public to the horrors of the Holocaust? How to do justice to the suffering? Amazingly, Bernstein asked Alfred Hitchcock to help. And Hitch, initially reluctant, said yes.Written by Martin Jameson, The Film is a Radio 4 drama of ye olde school: rather stagey, with theatrical speeches and performances. But it’s also nicely paced, well acted, clear, moral. I found myself almost relieved that it exists. Not just because it’s about the Holocaust, which should never be forgotten, but because it’s an interesting real-life story that’s a play, as opposed to an episode of a clever news podcast. Old-fashioned audio.View image in fullscreenHere’s an example of new-fashioned audio, and it’s one that promises much. Amy Poehler, delightfully funny comedian and actor, has decided “about four or five years too late” to give us a podcast. The pitch for Good Hang with Amy Poehler must have had producers drooling: Poehler simply scrolls her contacts list, calls up a famous mate and has a chat, avoiding anything controversial in favour of having a laugh.Her first episode was with Tina Fey, who, being Tina Fey, took over and gave us insight (she works 12 hour days, plus “homework” in the evening) and wit (she’s worried about becoming one of those older Hollywood types who just “tells it like it is”). But, God, it only takes a couple of episodes before we find ourselves riding on fumes. All is slapdash and self-congratulatory. An episode with actor Ike Barinholtz gives us almost nothing. There’s a passing reference to him getting in an ecstasy mess in Amsterdam when he was younger, but we breeze past, and by the end of the show we know him no better. In every episode, Poehler enthuses so much about her guest – to their face! – that it feels performative. She laughs too much and for too long. Are these incredibly successful, creative, funny people so insecure that they need bolstering every other sentence? (Yes, clearly.)View image in fullscreenIn a similar vein, please welcome Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s latest podcast venture, Confessions of a Female Founder. Actually, don’t bother, unless OMG-yes-sister-and-you-look-so-good-while-doing-it is your thing. Honestly, I think it’s just how they talk over there. Their idea of a good hang, or a good podcast, is different from ours, and involves a lot less piss-taking.Meghan’s first show is with Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, but, nope, we don’t learn anything much, except about how Megs and Whits met (it was NYE and Wolfe Herd was wearing a rhinestone cowboy costume! The embarrassment!) and how supportive they are of each other.View image in fullscreenIf you want a decent podcast from a 28-year-old entrepreneur who’s already built three companies and is generous with her business tips, then I recommend Grace Beverley’s Working Hard, Hardly Working, now on episode 133. She also interrupts her guests too much to talk about her own life, but you get far more corporate insight and life practicality. The world, it seems, is full of these frantically perfectionist, success-obsessed, greige-swathed young women trying to get their life to work. I’d say relax, but they can’t. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel: ‘Somehow Donald Trump has managed to transform the stock market into Kanye West’

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      Late-night hosts recap Donald Trump’s escalation of a trade war that many expect will lead to a global recession.Jimmy Kimmel“What a crazy country we live in. It’s hard to remember what things we used to be worried about,” said Jimmy Kimmel on Tuesday evening, as the markets once again roiled with Trump’s escalation of his tariffs on nearly all countries. “The Dow, the Nasdaq, the S&P all down again today. Somehow Donald Trump has managed to transform the stock market into Kanye West.”Trump, meanwhile, didn’t seem bothered by the worst week on Wall Street since March 2020. Instead, he posted on Truth Social that he would undergo his annual physical examination at Walter Reed medical center on Friday. “I bet it’s going to be an excellent report,” Kimmel deadpanned. “Let me guess: his physical strength and stamina are extraordinary, his blood pressure is astonishing and he is by far the healthiest president to successfully tank the world economy overnight.“I will say, after all he’s put us through, it will be nice to know that on Friday, somebody will be squeezing his balls for a change,” he added.In light of the economic downturn, Kimmel referenced an old quote of Trump, saying: “There’s a lot of opportunity in the bad times.”“And now there’s nothing but opportunity as far as the eye can see,” Kimmel joked. “It’s a Chernobyl of opportunity right now.”On Tuesday, Trump heaped even more tariffs on Chinese imports, effectively a 104% tax on all goods. “How’s he even coming up with these numbers?” Kimmel fumed. “‘What do you think about a tariff of 100% on China? Not enough! Make it 104!’”In response, the Chinese ministry of commerce said the tariffs were “mistake on top of a mistake” – “which is also what Trump said when Eric was born”, Kimmel quipped.Stephen Colbert“The tariffs are already hitting Americans right in the joystick,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. Gamers were supposed to be able to order Nintendo Switch 2 consoles on Wednesday, but now the company has delayed orders to the US because of Trump’s tariffs.“What am I supposed to do without a new Mario game?” Colbert wondered. “Take a bunch of mushrooms and jump on turtles in real life? That’s what got me banned from the petting zoo.”The markets had a brief upturn on Tuesday, when rumors circulated that Trump may back down from his trade war. Asked by reporters if he would back down or if the tariffs were permanent, Trump answered paradoxically: “It could both be true.”“No, you can’t say it’s temporary and it’s permanent,” said Colbert. “That’s like being asked to call heads or tails and saying ‘I call coin.’”But around noon local time on Tuesday, the White House confirmed that they would levy a 104% tariff on all Chinese imports starting at midnight on Tuesday, “and the market stepped on a rake and then stepped down a mineshaft”, said Colbert. “One hundred and four percent Chinese tariffs are going to make everything more expensive – iPhones, laptops, those wonderful knockoff toys you can find only at the gas station like New Style Ninja Tortoise.”As for the Chinese ministry of commerce’s response – “the US threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake” – Colbert had a wisecrack: “Coincidentally, it’s also what it’s called when Don Jr gives Eric a piggyback ride.”Seth MeyersOn Tuesday, Trump welcomed the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House, and praised star player Shohei Ohtani with “he’s got a good future, I’m telling you”.“Not exactly a bold prediction – ‘I think that guy who won three MVP awards is going to turn out to be a pretty good ballplayer,’” Seth Meyers joked on Late Night.In other news, Elon Musk and the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) are reportedly working with Boeing to resolve delays in the new model of Air Force One. “Because nothing inspires confidence like hearing ‘Boeing built this in a hurry,’” Meyers joked.On Friday, Trump headlined a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago that cost $1m a plate. “Unfortunately, due to the price of groceries, they only broke even,” Meyers quipped.And according to a new analysis by the Washington Post, Trump has spent one-third of his days in office at his golf courses. “And I think we might be better off if we could somehow get that up to three thirds,” said Meyers.The Daily Show“It’s been one week since Donald Trump announced his bold vision for destroying the economy,” said Desi Lydic on the Daily Show. “And guess what? His plan is working.”Lydic pointed to a graph of the Dow Jones since Trump took office, which plunged precipitously after the president announced his tariffs. “I’m not an economist, but it’s probably a bad sign when the chart itself looks like it jumped off the roof,” she said. “Look at that drop! Six Flags is going to make a roller coaster of that.”“The president may have singlehandedly tipped us into a global recession,” Lydic continued. “And with so much uncertainty, the world is glued to the financial news networks, who are surely focusing on this story 24/7, right Fox Business?”In fact, Fox’s business network focused on the LA Dodgers visiting the White House, and not Trump’s 104% tax on Chinese imports. “This is getting really serious. We’ll know exactly how serious one we get China to do the math for us,” Lydic joked. “But point is: Trump is out of control right now. I’d say he’s like a bull in a china shop, but at 104%, I can’t afford to say that.” More

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      Saturday Night Live: Jack Black returns for a stellar episode

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      Saturday Night Live opens with Donald Trump’s (James Austin Johnson’s) “liberation day” speech, where he rolled out his disastrous tariff plan, which he calls Magda: “Make America Great Depression again.” Trump notes that no country is safe from his tariffs, including what he mistakenly thinks is a place called McDonald’s Island (“Get me to God’s country,” he exclaims in the first of two digs at last week’s musical guest, Morgan Wallen, which gets a huge pop from the crowd), as well as South Africa.The mention of the latter nation brings out Elon Musk (Mike Myers), who glitches out before whining about how poorly Tesla is doing. To combat this, he introduces a new, fully self-vandalizing model, which comes complete with AI-powered graffiti. Choice includes penises, swastikas, and his favorite: “Swastikas made out of penises.” Before he can complain about how dumb the tariffs are, Trump pushes him out of the way and wraps things up.This is a thoroughly fine send-up of this week’s big news story. Johnson is on point as ever, Myers’s Musk remains solid and appropriately mean-spirited, and the jokes about the tariffs basically write themselves.Jack Black hosts for the fourth time, but the first time in 20 years. The pressure is too much, so he decides to quit on the spot, until he’s brought back around by the band rocking out. He performs a self-referential version of Steve Winwood’s Back in the Highlife Again, taking it into the crowd before introducing a marching band for the big finish. It is a characteristically electric performance, but one that some of Black’s fans might find hard to fully enjoy in the wake of his throwing longtime friend and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass under the bus this past summer after an on-stage Trump joke led to rightwing backlash.Love Match is a game show where a single gal picks from three available bachelors, none of whom she can see. The contestants include a nerdy nice guy, a baby-faced playboy, and Black’s Gene, an emotionally intuitive man cosplaying as Indiana Jones. When Gene starts to win the girl over, the host intercedes to let her know he’s dressed like the iconic adventurer, which leads to an argument about whether he has ever heard of the character. This is in line with a certain modern-day SNL sketches based entirely around the minutia of a pop culture institution; see the Matt Damon Weezer sketch from a few years back or the Chris Rock Simpsons one from earlier this season. These are usually fun, but this one doesn’t push the premise or specificity far enough.Then, Black teams up with Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah to pitch Flamin’ Hot Preparation H Brief and disposable, but the visual of Black bent over a chair, pants and underwear down around his ankles, applying the burning cream to his hind parts as his CGI pal watches in horror, is good for a laugh.A dinner between college friends turns into a game of liberal one-upmanship, as each of them brag about how they have given up social media and alcohol, only read physical books, shop at thrift stores, watch foreign films with no subtitles, teach Spanish to special needs kids, and swim exclusively at black-owned pools. A solid fart joke can’t save this one from the fourth wall breaking mugging.We travel back in times to Athens, circa 500 BC, to witness the first performance of the first ever play. The audience, not understanding what they’re watching, continually interrupt the performance, accusing the actors of lying and tricking them–at least until they’re promised nudity. This is better in concept than execution.Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim perform a Jamaican reggae song about miserable goth kids dragged to the sunny island on family vacations. Black jumps in as said goth kid all grown up, singing to the tune of My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade. That unexpected moment, along with Michael Longfellow’s very convincing goth brat, make this a winner.Elton John and Brandi Carlile are the night’s musical guests. They play the rollicking honky-tonk song Little Richard’s Bible. This is a breath of fresh air after last week’s miserable turn.Speaking of, Colin Jost kicks off Weekend Update by reporting: “Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at good night.”A little later, he brings back previous Update guests Grant and Alyssa (Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline), the couple you can’t believe are together, to talk about spring romance. The boorish bro and nerdy wallflower explain that their dynamic works because they have ground rules: he does the dishes (“Because I like playing in the water”), she cooks (“Because I’m not allowed to touch the stove”), and finally, per her: “Don’t wear those little shorts around unless you’re trying to drop them.” The characters are clearly heightened versions of the performers, which is a big reason why they land.Jost reports on Russell Brand being charged for rape, before wincingly rolling a clip of Brand as SNL host, introducing musical guest Chris Brown.Then, in response to the White House correspondents’ dinner’s announcement that they will no longer feature a comedian at their yearly celebration out of deference to Trump, Nwodim comes out to make the case for herself hosting. She promises not to talk politics and instead only do material about the actual diner. Taking up Def Jam-inspired persona she performs a tight 3, getting the audience to shout out ‘SHIT!’ at one point. A great turn from Nwodim, whose fake material is funnier than most jokes on SNL these days.Black and Sarah Sherman play a new couple who decide to take things to the next level by sleeping together. This leads to a sensual ballad (which they perform while floating above the bedroom set on wires). But, as described in their song, the lackluster sex (“First we do things to me for a while, then we do things to you not that long”) and dirty talk (“You’ve been so bad I’m gonna … kill you”), lead them to bring in a third (Bowen Yang) and even a fourth (Carlile). Kudos to Carlile for making her comedy debut via literal high-wire act.Next, Black fronts a jam band, inviting musicians in the crowd to jump on stage and get in on their cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. But everyone who joins in – a couple of long-haired hippies, a busty wet T-shirt contestant, a crackhead, even a dog – only plays the bass. Like the musicians in the sketch, this is one-note.John and Carlile perform their second set, then the show wraps up with a black-and-white sketch set on VJ Day. We see the events surrounding the famous photo taken of a returning sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square. The nurse’s actual boyfriend, a hot-dog scarfing doofus who spent the war stateside drawing racist (even for the time) propaganda cartoons, watches in shock and dismay as she makes out with half a dozen returning troops. There’s not much meat on this bone, but the cast is having fun with their old-timey accents. It beats most of the recent episode enders.Following a quick tribute to the late, great Val Kilmer, we get the curtain call, with everyone sticking around this time. This episode was a big improvement over last week’s, thanks to them knowing how to use the host, two excellent performances from real-deal star musicians, and a show-stealing turn from Nwodim. More

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      Stephen Colbert on Trump administration’s deportations: ‘It’s goodbye, habeas corpus’

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      Late-night hosts talk Donald Trump’s alleged “liberation day” of tariffs and the administration’s deportation of people without due process.Stephen Colbert“I don’t know about you, but I am feeling good about America!” joked Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, AKA April Fools Day. “Speaking of fools, Donald Trump” and his “price-raising, economy-breaking tariffs” on what the president is calling “liberation day”.“Yes, ‘liberation day,’” the Late Show host said. “I’m reminded of the immortal words of Patrick Henry: ‘Give me liberty or charge me an extra $10,000 for a Hyundai Elantra.’”“Like everything, he’s gotta make it a spectacle,” Colbert added, noting that Trump planned to unveil his tariffs in a Rose Garden ceremony. “Because when you elect a reality TV star, you get all your economic policy via rose ceremony.”Experts have warned that should the tariffs go into effect and other countries retaliate, the economy would almost immediately tumble into a recession that could last for more than a year. “So, if you have a retirement account, no you don’t,” said Colbert.“Republicans are already scrambling to pre-contain the damage, and they settled on this fun new metaphor,” he continued. That would be the “short-term pain” of remodeling a house, or as senator James Lankford put it: “a bit of a mess at the beginning but everyone has a long term look of where we’re headed”.“Way to connect to people suffering economic hardship, Republicans,” Colbert deadpanned. “You know that thing where you own a home but also have the money to remodel it? OK, you seem angry, let me try another analogy … let’s say one of your boats needs a paint job.”In other news, the Trump administration has done away with due process in deporting suspected “gang members” to El Salvador, even without any evidence. On Monday, the administration admitted that it deported a Maryland father and legal resident because of an “administrative error”; the administration also said they have no ability to bring him back now that he is in Salvadoran custody, arguing that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of the deportee and his family.“If that stands, then it’s goodbye, habeas corpus,” said Colbert. “Trump’s primacy outweighs the courts. And don’t think that that only applies to folks like this detainee. If there’s no due process, we have no idea if any of these people are citizens, meaning that every single person on American soil is now at risk of being disappeared until the day that Trump and his goons are finally out of power.”The Daily Show“For weeks now, Ice has been rounding up any immigrant who they suspect is a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” said Michael Kosta on Tuesday’s The Daily Show. “But this week, we found out that instead of sending these suspects to a trial or a hearing – you know, all the due process shit in the constitution – the Ice agents just fill out a checklist on the suspect. And if the suspect scores an eight or more, they get deported to an El Salvadoran prison.“Look, I’m not a legal expert,” said Kosta. “But I’d rather not be sentenced to life in a foreign prison with the same checklist system that Cosmo uses to decide if I’m good girl or bad girl hot.“And reading through the checklist doesn’t make me feel any better, either,” he continued, saying that one gets points for having a tattoo of a star, clock or Michael Jordan logo, or simply wearing a Chicago Bulls jersey.Kosta also touched on the story of the Maryland father granted protective legal status who was deported to El Salvador because of an “administrative error”.“Could it be that the geniuses who added Jeffrey Goldberg to the strike team group chat aren’t great at identifying the correct people?” he said. “If only there was a way that they could have presented this suspect before another person … someone who, and I’m just spitballing here, maybe could’ve judged whether or not the person could’ve been deported?“We can’t get one person out of a prison that we sent to that prison?” he added. “JD Vance is out there calling dibs on rare earth minerals underneath Greenland and Ukraine, but with El Salvador, suddenly they’re like: ‘Hey, sorry, no hablo español.’”Seth MeyersAnd on Late Night, Seth Meyers looked ahead to Trump’s promised so-called “liberation day” of tariffs. “Ah yes, the day we’ll all finally be liberated from our 401ks,” he joked.Apparently, the Windsor knot is the preferred necktie style for members of the Trump administration. “And the preferred length is 84in,” Meyers joked.During a congressional hearing with public broadcasting officials last week, Republican lawmakers accused NPR representatives of pushing leftwing views. “I told you they were going to come after gay marriage,” Meyers said over a photo of Sesame Street’s Bert and Ernie.And at a rally in Wisconsin, Elon Musk encouraged people to have children because the birth rate is declining, and said that having kids “will make you feel happy”.“At least, the idea of them will,” said Meyers. “You know, just knowing you have 14 or 15 of them out there somewhere, it really warms your heart.” More

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      John Oliver on Signal leak: ‘Deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things’

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      John Oliver ripped Donald Trump’s White House for the ongoing scandal of Signalgate, in which high-level administration officials used the messaging app for military strikes in Yemen, accidentally including the Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat.“The White House tried to do damage control all this week, from playing semantic games of whether they were technically war plans to hinting Goldberg somehow got himself onto the chat, something undercut by literally showing Michael Waltz, the US national security adviser, adding Goldberg in,” the Last Week Tonight host explained on Sunday evening. “And by the way, all of this was in the run up to airstrikes that are estimated to have killed up to 46 civilians on one day, which should be a scandal in and of itself.“And it’s grotesque to see the glib response in the chat afterward,” he added, noting that one official responded to the news of a collapsed building – and civilian death – with a fist emoji, American flag emoji and fire emoji.“And look, those clearly aren’t the right emojis to send after a bombing because the right emojis are no emojis,” Oliver said.“This is something of a motif for this administration: deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things with massively serious consequence,” he added.Oliver encouraged others to “push back hard” against the administration’s behavior, translating the sentiment into “the language that they seem to prefer” – the middle finger emoji, peach, heart and American flag. Or as Oliver put it: “Go fuck yourselves, assholes. Love, America.”In his main segment, Oliver looked into the history and use of Taser stun guns by US law enforcement. The weapon is as ubiquitous in cop shows as in real life – they are now carried by an estimated 400,000 American patrol officers. “Which is obviously great news for the company that makes them,” said Oliver. That would be Axon, which has a market cap of over $40bn.Axon representatives describe the weapon as “about as non-violent as you can get”, which Oliver disputed. “I’m not sure I would describe getting shocked with 50,000 volts is as non-violent as you can get,” he said. “It certainly doesn’t sound that relaxing. There’s a reason people unwind by taking a bath with lit candles or a book instead of with a toaster.”“The reality of Tasers just isn’t that simple,” he explained. There have been multiple instances of people dying after being tased; according to a 2017 investigations, at least 1,000 people died after police used Tasers on them.But the company has worked to obscure that fact by avoiding regulation. The Taser was first invented in the 1970s using gunpowder. When the Smith brothers bought the tech in the early 1990s, they changed the prototype to use compressed nitrogen instead, thus avoiding firearm regulations. By the end of 2003, more than 4,300 police agencies were using Tasers, with plenty of positive news coverage.The company rebranded as Axon in the early 2000s and began selling police bodycams, as well, becoming what Oliver called “the TMZ of state-sanctioned violence”.Oliver broke down two of the company’s main claims: that Tasers are effective and safe. Though Axon says the Taser is effective at subduing a suspect about 90% of the time, some studies found its effectiveness rate as low as 55%, though the company complained that the study did not take into account instances when a suspect was subdued after an officer merely displayed or threatened to use a Taser. “And at that point, that’s not really about their device, is it?” said Oliver. “You could presumably get that result with a gun, a flamethrower or a magic fucking wand.”“Also when we talk about Tasers being effective – at what, exactly?” he continued. “Because it’s often a Taser being used instead of a more lethal option like a gun, and more a Taser being used instead of a less lethal option like talking to someone.”That could make the difference between life and death, as hundreds of people have died after being tased by law enforcement. The company has attributed those deaths to a condition called “excited delirium” unrelated to the weapon. And because Tasers are “virtually unregulated” by any agency, “what that means is, you basically have to take the company’s word for it,” said Oliver.Even some police officers have decried the company’s line that Tasers are safe. After a 16-year-old in Warren, Michigan, died from the use of a Taser, one officer blamed Axon for not accurately marketing the risks: “You swore that this was a statistically normal thing, that these people were not dying at any more of an unusual rate than they would have absent the Taser, you know?”“I get why he’s upset,” said Oliver. “Axon told him the Taser was basically harmless, and the truth is it’s just not. It’s like finding out that a Nerf gun was used to assassinate JFK. I don’t care if Nerf says that was a statistical anomaly, I’m not handling it the same way anymore!”As for what to do about Tasers, “it’s complicated,” said Oliver. “I don’t hate that there’s at least a theoretical alternative to guns, and I guess I’d much rather police tase people than shoot them, although my ultimate preference would be for them to do neither of those and be much more aware of the actual risks involved.”He encouraged regulatory agencies to track stun gun usage more than we already do, and noted that certain states have banned “excited delirium” as a permissible cause of death. In sum, “we shouldn’t keep using Tasers like they’re magic wands, because they’re not,” Oliver concluded, “or pretending deaths that occur after they’re used don’t happen, because they do.” More

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      Jon Stewart on GOP’s obsession with free speech: ‘It’s such blatant hypocrisy’

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      Late-night hosts talked conservatives’ hypocrisy over free speech and the Trump administration accidentally texting an Atlantic editor its war plans.Jon StewartJon Stewart was back in old-school Daily Show mode on Monday evening, pointing out the hypocrisy of Republicans in power. But first, he mocked the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, whose group text on Signal regarding the administration’s plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen accidentally included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.“Back in my day if you were a journalist who wanted leaked war documents, you had to work the sources, meet them in a dark garage, earn the trust, pound the pavement,” Stewart said. “Now? Just wait for the national security adviser to be distracted by The White Lotus while he’s setting up his Bomb Yemen group chat.”Stewart went on: “There are certain hypocrisies and absurdities that we find in our cultural moment that make for great fodder for humorous dialogue: a facial expression, a nod and a wink. Then there are pronouncements by our elected officials, other actions by our government that are so baldly bullshit, even though you know it will have no effect, and that these powerful creatures have been genetically modified to resist shame or self-reflection of any kind, you just can’t help yourself but to go old-school Daily Show gotcha.”He specifically referred to conservatives’ obsession with “free speech” and the liberal “thought police”, while arguing in the same breath for CNN to be banned from the airwaves, among other proposed cancellations and censorship.“Generally, you’ve gotta search the archives for contradictions on one’s stated principles, dig through policy papers to uncover private actions that are undermined by someone’s public stance, but this is so blatant,” said Stewart. “I can’t wrap around it. It’s not even the hypocrisy, it’s that they so fetishize free speech, this thing that they do not in any way actually practice.”Stewart cited Trump banning the AP from the White House for refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America”, and the detainment of Columbia student protester Mahmoud Khalil.“These guys don’t give a fuck about free speech,” he said. “They care about their speech. It’s such blatant hypocrisy.”Stephen Colbert“Our nation is a beautiful pastry spread of freedom and opportunity,” said Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. “And yesterday, I got a closeup look at one of the donuts that Trump has been licking” at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Colbert and a number of comedians attended in support of Conan O’Brien, who received the Mark Twain prize for American humor.“It was a great night full of life and love and laughs,” he said, but the mood in DC was “still grim”. Last week, Trump held his first official meeting with “all of his hand-picked flunkies” that appointed him to the board of the Kennedy Center, “so he knows that they’re all 100% loyal to him”.During the meeting, which was recorded and leaked to the press, Trump said he wanted to make the Kennedy Center programming “slightly more conservative” and feature more “non-woke musicals”. “Non-woke musicals, also known as any musical you take your dad to,” Colbert joked.Besides rambling on about his love for the musical Cats, Trump also put his name forward as a potential host for the annual Kennedy Center Honors. “Man alive, you could’ve given me a thousand guesses, and that would’ve been all of them,” said Colbert, himself a three-time former host of the ceremony. “I tell you what, sir, I’m willing to trade – you host the Kennedy Center Honors, I’ll be president.”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also mocked the administration putting sensitive military information in a group chat with Goldberg. “In other words, our national security is being guarded by a bunch of doofs you wouldn’t trust to throw your cousin a surprise party,” he said. “No one on the chain thought to ask: ‘Who is JG? What are these initials?’ They could’ve been leaking secrets to Jeff Goldblum, for all they knew.”“If Joe Biden’s top military team accidentally texted these plans to a journalist, Laura Ingraham’s erection would be so rock strong, it would break through the wall like the Kool-Aid man,” he added.“This is a crazy mistake by any definition, but you have to remember: Pete Hegseth, our secretary of defense, three months ago was a weekend host on Fox & Friends.” So his former cohost “looked at the bright side” of the story on-air.As Fox’s Will Cain put it: “What you will see is dialogue between vice-president JD Vance, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and many more, in a very collaborative, open, honest, team-based attempt to come to the right decision after years of secrecy and incompetence. If you read the content of these messages, I think you’ll come away proud that these are the leaders making these decisions in America.”“If you read the content of these messages – the point is we’re not supposed to read the content of these messages!” Kimmel exclaimed. “That is a real beauty of a spin.” More

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      Jon Stewart on Democrats: ‘It’s Trump’s world and we’re just cowering in it’

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      Late-night hosts took aim at the ineffective tactics of the Democrats while also taking issue with Donald Trump’s response to the weekend’s deadly storms.Jon StewartOn The Daily Show, Jon Stewart said that “it is Trump’s world and we’re just cowering in it” in a segment devoted to calling out how poorly the Democrats have handled his second presidency.Over the weekend, Trump played golf once again, which led to a picture of him walking into an office “in his golf attire to bomb the shit out of Yemen”. In attacking the country he “continued a presidential tradition going back decades”.With the recent vote over the new Republican budget to avoid a shutdown, Democrats finally had “an opportunity to stand up” to a “wannabe tyrant”.The budget was criticised by some as a non-starter yet Chuck Schumer broke ranks and voted to move it forward. “What the fuck happened?” he asked.In an interview, Schumer said that the party would “keep at it” but Stewart joked: “Don’t you have to start it to keep at it?”In another interview, Schumer said the best time to reason with Republicans was in the gym as they are more open and less inhibited. “That’s your fucking plan?” he asked. “I’m gonna dangle my balls out of my shorts and then … at the gym?”Stewart also found footage of him saying the same thing back in 2019. “You know I’m not here to posture-shame but for a guy who seems to be spending most of his life in gym: a little less talky-talk, a little more core.”He added: “They’re only being agreeable with you because they want you to leave them alone.”Stewart also joked that “pedalling really hard and not going anywhere is a great metaphor for the Democratic party right now”.He also played a montage of Democrats comparing the state of things to a fever that will inevitably break. “These Republicans are committed to a plan born of an ideological 50- to 60-year project to remake the United States … and classifying it as a fever excuses you.”He said it “allows you to pretend that this is an issue of messaging” and that that was “no match for the game the Republicans are playing”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host said that on St Patrick’s Day it was “nice to have an excuse to drink on a Monday” given how bad things currently are.There was “a terrible weekend of deadly storms” yet the president who chided Joe Biden for being away when Hurricane Helene raged decided to play golf once again. “If you scored hypocrisy like golf he’d be 30 strokes under par right now,” he said.Trump claimed victory again but Kimmel asked: “Who are the other players in this tournament?”He joked that it could just be “Eric with his Fisher Price clubs” and demanded “a forensic investigation” into the game.Later that day, Trump finally posted that he would be praying with Melania for those affected. “Praying together might be the only activity those two do less than sleeping together,” Kimmel joked.This weekend also saw Trump get accidentally prodded by a fuzzy microphone during an interview. “How funny would it be if that happened every time he was interviewed from here on out?” he joked. More

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      Seth Meyers on Trump’s Tesla photo-op: ‘This is how oligarchy works’

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      Late-night hosts talked Donald Trump marketing Elon Musk’s Tesla cars with taxpayer money and how Trump’s tariffs are sinking the US economy.Seth MeyersThe one silver lining of the economic downturn since Trump took office, according to Seth Meyers, is that Tesla shares are plummeting too. Musk’s car company is now worth half of what it was at its mid-December peak.On Tuesday, Trump intervened to pump up Tesla’s stock price by doing a promo for the company with taxpayer money. He transformed the south lawn of the White House into a Tesla car lot, looking to “buy” a new car with Musk himself. Asked by reporters if he would pay with a credit card, Trump said he was “old-fashioned” and preferred checks.“So fun to see the crypto president just fully admit he’s still a check guy,” the Late Night host laughed.Trump also climbed into a Tesla with Musk and exclaimed: “That’s beautiful! This is a different pedal … everything is computer!”“You know, I give the man a hard time, but then he says something that really puts something into perspective,” Meyers joked. “Because when you really think about it, everything’s computers.”Musk then had to explain to Trump that driving a car is like “driving a golf cart … it’s like a golf cart that goes really fast.”“A car is a golf cart that goes really fast. I mean, is that how they have to explain things to Trump in the Situation Room?” Meyers wondered.What is Trump getting out of the photo-op? Musk already spent nearly $300m on the 2024 election and has reportedly promised to funnel another $100m directly into political entities controlled by Trump. “And it says everything about Trump that his reaction to that is: ‘Thank you for that, in exchange, I’ll buy one Tesla,’” said Meyers.“This is how oligarchy works,” he added. “If you’re favored by the regime, you get an infomercial paid for by taxpayers.“But you say something the regime doesn’t like, you get disappeared in the middle of the night without any due process or even an accusation of a crime,” he added, pointing to the story of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student and leader of pro-Palestinian protests who was arrested by immigration agents, claiming his student visa was revoked, even though he is a legal permanent resident.Stephen ColbertOn the Late Show, Stephen Colbert lamented the economy’s “toboggan ride to skid row” because of Trump’s tariffs. “But today, Trump implemented a plan to quell fear of tariffs with more tariffs. Remember, you’ve got to fight fire with setting our money on fire,” he joked.Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum went into effect on Wednesday, “Of course, these tariffs, like any tariffs, are a tax that we pay on the stuff that we buy,” Colbert explained, noting that the price of a new car could increase as much as $12,000. “So from now on, teenagers are going to have to try to get to third base in the backseat of a bike.”To quell outrage – even the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal called the tariffs “the dumbest in history” – Trump sent his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to make the rounds on the news. Asked by a CBS journalist if he thought the tariffs would still be worth it if they led to a recession, Lutnick answered: “These policies are the most important thing America has ever had.”“Yes, these tariffs are THE most important thing America has ever had,” Colbert deadpanned. “More important than the Declaration of Independence, more important than landing on the moon, more important than making the taco shell out of the Dorito.”He added: “You know someone is lying when they use that big of a superlative about anything.”Jimmy KimmelAnd in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also checked in on a dire state of affairs. “The prices Trump said he would lower on day one are still high, our eggs have the flu and half the Department of Education is about to get laid off,” he said.Those Department of Education employees are now at the whims of Linda McMahon, education secretary and wife of the WWE founder, Vince McMahon. “Could you imagine getting fired by the wife of the disgraced wrestling meathead? Don’t let the folding chair hit you on the way out,” Kimmel said.“Here’s a math problem: if the Department of Education has 4,000 employees, and the president cuts 50% of the workforce, how many edibles do I need to get through the next four years?”As for Trump, “he’s Thanos-ed the Department of Education,” Kimmel concluded. “Goodbye half the Department of Education. Goodbye half the National Park Service. Goodbye half of our allies, goodbye half of your 401(k). They all disappeared, and they’re not coming back.” More