We are joined by Jon Stewart himself. But who else would it be Fareed? It's nice to see you. I love your aquarium. Thank you. Thank you. Exactly. Yes, we can go swimming afterwar So I got to ask you, it's a big thing in the news. Donald Trump indictment there ar I know know. Just stay with me for a minute. There are people watching the live cameras at the courthouse. It's imminent Breathless speculation So there are people who say, yes, you have to indict him beca he has, in fact, broken the laws And there are other people who s this is going to turn him into a This is his path for redemption. How do you think about, oh, I the law should always take into someone's popularity. I think that's that's I mean, what what's happened to our country f It's as though you can't even co financial fraud anymore. You can't you can't inflate the value of your properties. When you need a loan and then de with taxes. I mean, the next thing you know, they're going to send you to jai instead of your lawyer and your accountant and your campaign manager and everyone else around you. It's no to the idea that someone may face accountabi Who's that, rich? And powerful. Is outrageous. And this country shouldn't stand But.
But what if it if what if it turns out to be hi get out of jail free pass. It's his path through. People will see him as a martyr. He gets he. Okay. I agree with that. He is going to become president He could become president. Anyway, Fareed, we either have the rule of law or we have no rule of law. The rule of law does not take into account if that might make you a martyr to somebody. I'd much rather have the convers what is the law? What exactly are we saying that His lawyer went to jail for this same situation for a couple of years. So what is the crime? Is it a crime? The reason people who say it's selective prosecution that this everything is selective prosecut The reason why Donald Trump became popular in the first plac and the reason why these populist movements is that the citizenry have becom with the lack of accountability for those in power. We have no accountability in our financial systems. We have no accountability for the bankers. I mean, our Congress trade stocks with information they get making and they do it to great success. And they won't stop it because they're the ones in char of making the law about it. And instead of bringing accountability to the rampant corruption that is surrounds our government and our financial systems. The Supreme Court just changed the definition of corruption. Rather than prosecuting it, rather than holding people accou They just want How about this? How about, okay, why don't we just say this is you invented that. That was they said you politicia you think that's corruption because you're engaging it. But we actually don't think it's And we're going to tell you, don't worry about it. You can influence pedal as long as you don't explicitly By the way, this money is so that I may influence this law specifically. And you have to lay out like tha what has the lack of confidence that people have in the system i and you even see it throughout t even that conversation. Should we should we not? It's all buddies popular. And then it might make him more popular but not less popular. Did he do something wrong? What was it? Explain that to us. What is the law that he supposedly violated? What are the ramifications of it I don't see him ever actually going to jail. I personally don't even care. I just want a system that somehow finds a consistent accountabilit So in many ways, you, at least f you created or defined American political sa How has that changed? It feels to me like the the stuff you did, you know, the the showing, the v and then commenting. It's become it's everybody does And it's not even it's not even I mean, that's what Tucker Carls when he wants to make his boss. Sure. He's he's borrowing from y Playbook. Yes. No, it's it's a real delight kno it's always good to arm the most cynical and worst people in media. But do you look at it and say, now this whole thing is commodit You Well, it was listen, it was commoditized. You know, I wasn't doing it out of gracious altruism. I mean, we were selling Budweise It's always been commoditized. It was I think it's you know, there's a lot of talk So exposing absurdity or exposing hypocrisy. What's th The point is, is that this is a relentless fight. They always talk about, you know, the the arc of the moral universe is but it bends towards justice, but it doesn't bend towards justice by gravity. Like, you have to bend it. And there's a bunch of people trying to bend it back. And you use every tool in your a and none of them will be you know, the one thing there is no panace It takes, you know, all those different things doing in Washington over these past few years gave me a grade understanding of how things actually get done incrementally and and sometimes in one fell swoop. But our country is held together by hundreds of really talented legislative aides. Their bosses many times are wind up dolls who really don I mean, half of it, if you go do especially the Senate, is like an assisted living facil like the intramural sports at the Senate game. So, you know, it's held together by these legislative ai that are relentlessly trying to do the right thing and by the thousands of grassroots activists that are trying to get access. And they're blocked by a moat of lobbyists and moneyed interes that prevent the people in that building from doing the work that best be all the people outside of that b And that's the process. So you have to use every tool. You have to permeate that force But presumably the people there who are Republicans, who are conservative Republicans those aides think they're doing the right th and they're trying to get across but they're doing it. They're honest. Look, if you can find honest brokers down there, you can work with them. What I'm saying is that forcefield around it is made up of not honest brok its moneyed interests, its lobby It's people who are weaponizing misinformati and disinformation and all of those form of this. It's the most cloistered univers you found. You could deal with very conservative Republica but because there was some way to find common ground, people of good faith. Now, there were huge disagreements about certain thin But when you found someone of go you could always get something d
