Hmm. It's show day. Hmm. I gotta get to work. Never? Wait! Watch the elbows! I'm not gonna make it. “Attention, passengers, we are experiencing delays due
to signal malfunctions.” “Attention, passengers, we are currently delayed due
to train traffic ahead of us.” “We are currently delayed.” “We are currently delayed.
Delayed. Delayed.” “The bus came the minute you left.” Stop! “You're wife won't remember you.” That's not true. “This is happening
because you masturbated in high school.” No. “That's right. Run, you little bitch.” I'm almost there! Almost there. Just play the intro. Oh, my God! Thank you so much. I made it. Thank you. How'd you get here so fast? Thank you so much. I'm Hasan Minhaj.
Welcome to Patriot Act. Thank you. Now, look, tonight, I want to talk
about public transportation. Look, it's not just destroying my life. Everyone hates public transportation. Our transit has never been worse. Enough's enough.
How much can we take? You think this is acceptable
to treat human beings this way? “This woman's look of exasperation
spoke volumes.” Since BART opened at six, it's not been
working, and it's about to be nine. New Jersey Transit is the absolute worst! I'm not gonna get to my game now
because they are... incompetent! Incompetent! “Incompetent!” That guy got so mad,
he went through puberty again. People tweet meaner things
about their public transit than Medicare, the IRS and United Airlines. Do you know how bad you have to be to get more shit than United? You guys remember that time they used
an Asian doctor to wipe down the aisle? And we were all like,
“Have you been on the L train, though? At least this dude is moving.” And that's not wrong. American public transportation
is a disaster. If you commute to work by train,
you may notice this: cracks in America's
crumbling infrastructure. Insufficient funding has left
America's passenger rail network lagging. More than a half dozen MTA buses
have caught fire. This bus driver would only talk
if we concealed their identity. Public transit is sending people
into Witness Protection. Look, I get the whole anonymous thing, but why do they make him sound like
a demon? Like, you want to empathize, but I also feel like he's about
to sacrifice a virgin. Now, this isn't some abstract problem. Good public transit can be life-changing.
This is true. A Harvard study linked shorter commutes
with getting out of poverty. Commute time mattered more than anything. More than schools or crime
in your neighborhood. So if you're a kid
and you're watching this, skip school, steal shit, smoke weed,
but whatever you do... live near the express bus. It makes sense that public transportation
is so important. Think about it. Like, really, it's our lifeline to jobs, education, healthcare, food. And despite that, the American Society of Civil Engineers
recently gave our transportation... a D-, the lowest grade of any U.S. infrastructure. Here's my thing. D-? Just give it the F. Like, whose dignity are you saving
at this point? A D- means that you failed,
but the teacher is afraid of your parents. Last year, because of terrible service
and lack of funding, ridership fell in nearly every major city
where people depend on transit, which can lead to a transit death spiral. When fewer people use public transit,
it makes less money, which means it either has to cut service
or raise fares or both. So even fewer people use it,
which means it makes it even less money, which means even worse service
and higher fares. It's a vicious cycle. It's like what happened to MoviePass. Remember MoviePass? You remember? Like....
They were like, “Ten bucks a month, any movie you want.” Then fewer people used it
and they were like, “All right, hold up, all right, $15 a month.” Then even fewer people used it.
They were like, “It's two grand a week, and you can only see movies where
Timothée Chalamet smokes cigarettes.” We already see
this death spiral happening. People all over the country
are choosing cars over transit. A new study finds
Americans are spending more time behind the wheel than ever before. U.S. motorists spend 70 billion hours
behind the wheel a year. That's up 8% from 2014. 3.2 trillion miles traveled on America's roadways, which was an increase of 12 billion miles
over the previous years. 3.2 trillion miles. Now, obviously... most of that was Beto taking road trips
to find himself. He's like, “I don't need
a campaign manager, man. I got my arms... and the open road.” Now, all this driving might seem natural but unlike the de Blasio campaign,
this wasn't an accident. There are a lot of reasons why American public transportation
is terrible. Zoning laws, mismanagement,
but in particular, your train sucks
because there are hidden forces around the country
that want you in your car. And that's what I want
to focus on tonight. American public transportation
is under attack, from the top down at the federal level
and from the bottom up at the local level. America is killing public transit
the same way a second grade class kills their take-home hamster. Nobody is blameless, but some people did more damage
than others. Just so you know, Brett Russo definitely
killed our second grade hamster. Now, Trump has proposed
increasing spending on highways by more than $1.5 billion, while also trying to slash transit funding
like the Capital Investment Grant Program, which is the main way public transit
gets funded at the federal level. And he's proposed to kill it twice,
which makes sense. Trump doesn't even know what buses are. I mean, the last time he was on one,
he thought it was a locker room. Now, the federal government supports public transit through
the Department of Transportation. Yeah, just catch up. The DOT's job
is pretty straightforward, all right? Congress approves funding and then
the DOT, they hand out the money, right? But under Trump,
the DOT is holding up billions. It now takes twice as long
for projects to get funding, and it's much more expensive. It's longer, harder, and more expensive
than it needs to be. It's basically a destination wedding. I don't know if you guys have friends
that are doing destination weddings but if I have to get vaccine and a machete
to get to your wedding... I'm not coming. They're like, “Hasan, do you love me?” You're not worth Zika. Okay, I'm sorry. Now, if you want an example
of the government messing with transit, look at the Gateway Program,
which is right down the street. Gateway would repair the main tunnel
that connects Jersey to New York. Every day, more than 800,000 people
use this tunnel to get to work. And to borrow a phrase from our president, It's kind of a “shithole.” “The estimated $20 billion project
includes new rail tunnels under the Hudson River.” “The failure of the existing
110-year-old tunnels is imminent.” The existing tunnel
is a single point of failure for 10% of America's
gross domestic product. A collapse of the tunnel
could injure thousands and cost our economy
an estimated $100 million a day. $100 million a day
and thousands of injuries. New York hasn't seen
that kind of destruction since Spider-Man the musical. Look, if this tunnel collapsed, it would shut down northeast transit
from Boston to D.C., a region that experts say accounts
for not just 10%, but 20% of America's GDP. But Trump refuses to pay for Gateway. This is pathetic. If you've traveled, you know this.
Other countries don't do this. Just one of Paris' rail systems
moves more people per year than all of America's
commuter railways combined. Japan has a train that levitates,
it literally floats. And Denmark, they love buses so much,
they made this ad. Okay, we all want to fuck that bus, right? Don't make me feel weird about this. That's what they were going for. Now, look, there are lots of cities
and states in the United States that want to get busy with transit, but... they are facing massive opposition,
especially at the local level. And no one is leading the opposition
more than Charles and David Koch, aka, the Koch Brothers. Now, I know these wrinkled ATMs
are the bad guy of every story. Voter suppression, gerrymandering,
climate denial. I'm sick of them. I don't even want to show their picture because A, they're terrible people, and B, showing their photos
actually makes them money. Koch Industries has a major stake
in Getty Images. Just showing that picture of them
cost us $250. But this is a story about them, so I have to show them,
and it's not just that picture. Every picture we use of the Koch Brothers,
they make money. All of this. This just cost us $1,000. And it's not just the Kochs. I can't show you anything
without them getting paid. I can't show you Yo-Yo Ma. Or this baby eating a lemon
for the first time. They own this baby. This adorable baby, eating a fucking--
They own it. I can't show you things that are weird,
like this old man having fun at the dentist. They own his weird smile. Showing all of that was $1,500. But if we're gonna talk
about public transportation, we're going to have to
talk about the Kochs. Now luckily, there are actually
two Koch Brothers out there who are way more fun to watch. -Camera's on me, bitch.
-It's on me, too. We're the Koch Brothers.
This is Derek. I'm Daniel. “Tonight on Playing With Fire.” We started off in modeling. I shaved my nipple hair last night. Whoo! We own multiple restaurants. Good job tonight, man. Seriously. Even though we've got three restaurants
to run in New York City, our signature Day & Night party
does pop ups everywhere. The easiest way to seduce a woman is
to take her to dinner. You know? -That's cliché, bro.
-No, it's not. Shut the *bleep* up. -What is that hat, Daniel?
-This is money in the bank. My ears are warm. My balls are tingly. All right,
these Florida State Winklevoss twins are Derek and Daniel Koch. They're the other Koch Brothers,
and they're former reality stars. Now these Koch Brothers are amazing. These Koch Brothers suck. So for the rest of this episode, even though I'm talking about
Charles and David, I'm going to show you Daniel and Derek. So the Koch Brothers are conservative billionaires
who have a huge stake in pretty much anything
that has to do with cars. Oil, gas, asphalt, tires, seat belts. They own seat belts. And they have spent millions funding a right-wing political group
called Americans for Prosperity or AFP. And although they deny it,
the Kochs have been quietly working to kill public transit
around the country through AFP. What we are living out here
is a national agenda by the Koch Brothers and others. They believe in fossil fuels,
they mine an awful lot of it. So, all across the country they are trying
to stop public transit because frankly,
it's a far more sustainable alternative. Americans for Prosperity
most recently meddled in a mass transit issue in Nashville. No, I told you,
I don't want to see them anymore. Play the fun Koch Brothers. The Americans for Prosperity
most recently meddled in a mass transit issue in Nashville. See how much better that is? That news is upsetting,
but now it's also hilarious. Nashville shows how much influence
the Kochs really have. The city has a huge traffic problem. So in 2017, the mayor proposed building
new rail and bus lines. It went up for a vote. And early polling showed that nearly 60%
of Nashvillians supported it, but then the Kochs got in the game
and remember... killing transit is good for the Kochs
and it's great for their bottom line. The same way that launching Billie Eilish
in the space would be great for Lorde. It's getting rid of the alternative. Also, it's sending her back
to where she came from. She wants to go home, you guys. Let her go home. In Nashville, AFP activists organized a door-to-door
canvassing campaign against the new rail and bus lines. They told voters it was too expensive
and would raise taxes, and it worked, flipping public opinion from almost 60%
for the transit plan to more than 60% against it. And guess what the Koch Brothers did. Throw a *bleep* party. Whoo! That was 10 a.m. This is their playbook. AFP targets local voters, and then they flip them
with misleading campaigns, and it all looks like
grassroots opposition, but it's actually
mayonnaise billionaire bullshit. They have done this, in at least
ten other states around the country. Just look at Milwaukee, okay? Wisconsin has been the Kochs' private lab
in libertarian fuckery for years. They have a history of opposing
public transit. And for most of the last decade, they've also had a loyal soldier
in the governor's office, Scott Walker, who looks like
if Paul Rudd got less time in the womb. I mean... It's... so accurate. The Kochs spent millions
getting Walker elected, and Walker was more than happy
to attack their favorite targets-- public unions, Medicaid, food stamps. And he also did this: A move by Wisconsin governor
Scott Walker that was likely intended to ingratiate himself in the eyes
of a Jewish constituent has decidedly backfired. “In a letter about a Hanukkah menorah, instead of signing off
with a ‘Mazel Tov,’ Governor Walker wrote,
‘Thank you again and Molotov.’” He signed his letter,
“Thank you again and bomb threat. Also have a happy Hanukkah Matata.” Now, Walker spent nearly 20 years trying to kill public transit. He put the Milwaukee bus system
in a death spiral and killed high-speed rail projects, but when it came to spending on highways,
he didn't bat an eye. As governor, he spent almost two billion
on a single highway junction called the Zoo Interchange,
which sounds like a program that sends pandas to Amsterdam
for a semester and Dutch kids to the Bronx Zoo. But the Zoo Interchange was the most expensive highway project
in Wisconsin's history and ended up costing the same
as 15 years of public transit funding. Now, why did he do this? We didn't need
these gigantic high-speed rail lines like they're seeing becoming
a boondoggle in California. Okay, even though boondoggle
sounds like an STD from 1840, it's a common term people use
to describe a waste of money, especially when it comes
to public transit. A new measure to finish
Honolulu's troubled rail transit project. Critics are calling it
nothing more than a boondoggle. The train is a boondoggle. Rail boondoggles. Gateway-earmarked boondoggle. The boondoggle of boondoggles. Boondoggle. Boondoggle. Boondoggle. Boondoggle! Boondoggle! Okay, what is going on with this guy? He looks like he's either about to expose
a major government conspiracy or himself. Or maybe both. He's just like, “The CIA
killed Avril Lavigne in 2003. Boondoggle!” Now here's the thing. The argument that roads
are a better investment than public transit is nonsense. Every billion dollars spent
on public transit generates over 21,000 jobs. That's more than highways, water, energy, or defense. In fact, for every dollar we invest
in public transit, we get $4 back in economic output. And there are other costs
to ignoring public transit. One of the underlying issues
is always going to be the issue of race. If you're black or Latino
you're six times more likely to not have a car
and to be dependent on public transit. No one cares, you know. Every day, we wait on buses
hours and hours and nothing happens. Okay, that's not true. If you're black and you wait two hours
for the bus, nothing happens. But if you're white and wait two hours
for the bus, you win an Oscar. When we don't fund public transit,
we are basically saying, we care about some people
more than others. And that's exactly what Walker was doing
in Wisconsin. Milwaukee is the most segregated
metro area in the country with one study calling it, “The second worst place to be black in the United States.” Now, obviously... the first place is Joe Biden's house. Look, he doesn't do anything bad. He just keeps saying,
“My good friend Barack.” And you're like... “Why'd you got to say it like that, Joe?” Now, the Zoo Interchange helps wealthier,
mostly white voters with cars, but it does little for poor,
mostly black communities who don't have cars
but need access to jobs, which is why civil rights groups
were furious. The ACLU has filed suit in
federal court over the Zoo Interchange
Expansion Project. They're asking that
a federal judge halt construction until the state
comes up with a new plan that also includes
public transportation. The ACLU is representing the faith-based community group MICAH and the Black Health Coalition
of Wisconsin. By the way, a faith-based community group
named MICAH in Wisconsin is just definitely one dude named Micah. Wisconsin ended up settling the lawsuit. Walker was forced to spend $13.5 million
on three new bus lines and promote bus ridership, which goes against everything
he stands for. The Walker family crest is just
broken trains and a giant comb that he thinks is a menorah. Now, I know that it seems like
there's nothing anyone can do about this, but that's actually not the case
because right now... there's a fight over public transit
in Phoenix, Arizona, where our boys are back at it again. The group behind Four Lanes No Train
has opposed the current plans for light-rail expansion
into south Phoenix for months now. We're here to kill the light rail. No four lane or two lane anymore,
it's just no light rail. Some elected leaders accused the group
behind Four Lanes No Train of taking money from the Koch Brothers. Okay, that sucks. But you know what's cool? Now I know how my hair would look
if I was white. Look, when I-- When I first saw this guy, real talk, I was like, “Dude,
this guy's using too much product.” But then I realized... that's just enough product. Back in 2000, Phoenix voted
to build a new light rail system. The first section has already been built,
and it was a huge success. Way more people use it
than anyone expected. And it has spurred $11 billion
in local development, but now, there's a plan
to extend the system, and it's being opposed by conservative
groups that have ties to the Kochs, and they're running ads like this. “Phoenix voters have been deceived. The price tag for Phoenix light rail
expansion has tripled in three years, costing taxpayers
almost a billion dollars. That's $140,000 per passenger. It would be cheaper to buy every rider
a brand-new Tesla. Prop 105 slams the brakes
on wasteful light rail expansion and puts your tax dollars into
transportation projects that make sense. Vote ‘Yes’ on 105.” Okay, I'm going to be honest. When I first saw this, I was like,
“I want a Tesla. Screw the train.” But this is a Koch-supported ad. So it's obviously misleading. Now, screengrab this and do
long division later, but here's the TLDR,
the ad overstates costs, ignores the value light rail has created and most importantly, completely hides
what Prop 105 would really do. On August 27th, Phoenix is going to vote on Prop 105
and if it passes, it wouldn't just kill
the light rail extension, it would make it impossible
for Phoenix to build any light rail in the future. They're trying to make it illegal
to build trains. That is some movie villain shit. It's like that children's book, <i>The Little Engine That Could,</i>
<i>But Won't If It Knows What's Good for It.</i> Now remember, the Kochs are doing this
around the country. Sorry. You gotta look at the real ones
this time. We can't keep letting them win. We need someone to make a meaningful case
for public transportation. So take on the Koch Brothers... I called... the Koch Brothers. Hey, we're the world's famous Koch Brothers. I'm Derek. I'm the older one. And I'm Daniel, still the hotter one. Don't do that again. -Don't touch my leg, dude.
-I won't. If you want
to live the Koch Brothers life, you gotta do a few things simple. -Number one.
-Support public transit. It's the heart of a healthy economy. People are still trying
to fuck with the bus. Like these Life Alert-looking freaks,
the Koch Brothers. They're fucking with our public transit. And number two. Manscape, guys.
No one should be going full bush. There are guys out there
whose shit looks like retired Letterman. -Like, cut your shit off
-Shave your nuts. and fucking shave your nuts. Support public transportation. -Shave that nose hair, too.
-Can I speak? The Kochs' money is sabotaging transit
all over the country. And the government is M.I. fucking A. The DOT is holding up billions of dollars
in funding. There are few things in this world
that fucking piss me off, people. Inept government bureaucracy... and bars that don't have ladies night. Killing transit hurts some
of the most vulnerable communities -across the U.S.
-We're talking black people, Indian people, Mexicans, -Orientals.
-Bro, you can't say that word. -It's racist.
-What word? What I say? Mexicans. Just call it what it is, pussy. -What's that?
-De facto segregation. -Say it. Say it.
-Don't call me a pussy, bitch. De facto segregation. -Your mom. Your mom.
-Your mother. -Fuck you, we have the same mom.
-Pussy. Remember, living the Koch lifestyle
isn't hard. -Just support public transit.
-And be a patriot and shave your nuts. Fuck ass. All right, America.
you know what you gotta do. Get to trimming.
TL;DR: People will go to the polls later this month in Phoenix to vote on an anti-light rail initiative that is secretly backed by dark money from the Koch brothers, so vote "no" on Prop. 105.
What are the 2020 candidate’s views on public transit? I can easily see public transit argues as a racial equity issue.
Chicago: wut?
The Koch brothers are the reason there should be a 100% inheritance tax over 1 million of value.
That said this really lost a lot of value in trying to deliver jokes, and the film style was painful. I feel John Oliver would have done a better job explaining the situation and how a group billionaire John Birtch society, libertarian nutjobs, effectively impoverish entire metropolitan areas.
By astroturfing against well understood transportation planning, in favor of the everyone for themselves model. Which of course ignores that roads and gas are subsidized by the government.