Transcript of The Precap | Desi Lydic on the Blue Wave, Republican Pivot, and Spam Economics

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Hello, and welcome to The Precap, a Daily Show podcast where we sit down with this week's host to recap some of the latest news and preview what's coming up next. My name is Devin Delacuonte, I'm a writer at the show, and I am joined today by your host for the week, Desi Lydic.

Dev!

Hello, Desi. How are you?

How you feeling?

I'm feeling good. How are you feeling?

I'm feeling great.

It's exciting times.

It's very exciting.

Yeah, a lot of energy.

I have an unfamiliar feeling in my gut. I don't know what this is. It's like the opposite of despair. I want to say hope?

Really?

Maybe.

Really?

Like I can unclench my butthole for two seconds.

Well, that's good.

And it's not even my anniversary.

Well, congratulations.

Thank you.

How wonderful.

On which part?

Yeah.

How you feeling?

I'm good. I'm really good. Yeah, as we do this, it is a week after the midterms. We're six days out, and we're kind of in the mix of taking stock of where we are as a country. So how are you? How was your midterms?

I feel like I can take a deep breath for the first time in 10 years. It feels really good.

Very good.

Feels very nice.

How did you spend the night? How did you watch the returns come in? What was your experience of the evening itself?

I don't know how you felt, but I was a complete nervous wreck all day going into the evening. I was at home. I prepared to protect my nervous system for what was to come by making a nice cup of hot tea and sitting underneath my weighted blanket as I flipped back and forth between CNN and Fox News, watching like this through my fingers.

Sure. Horror movie style?

Horror movie style.

Very good.

Well, you know, we're just so conditioned to brace for impact on these nights, right?

And we don't really know what to expect.

Yeah.

It's like we're so we don't trust polls, and it's like we don't know until it's over and we know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't know. I don't know how you felt. I went in, I was feeling cautiously optimistic, but I have felt cautiously optimistic before, and so I was extra cautious in my optimism.

Sure.

But then the results started coming through, and I was just like, holy shit.

Yeah.

This is what is this unfamiliar feeling of the opposite of despair, like slight butterflies in your stomach at what could be ahead? Is it hope, perhaps?

No, I don't.

You don't recognize.

Recognize that feeling.

Yeah, you don't recognize that feeling.

No, no, that part of me died.

Yeah, yeah, that's gone long ago.

Was there a moment you knew? Was there a moment where you thought, oh, OK, it's like it's clear what is happening, and I know what the feeling is? Because early on, you never necessarily know. There's like mirages or any kind of thing of like the early vote or whatever it is where you're like, no, no, this is happening.

I mean, Texas was undeniable.

That is true.

Texas was undeniable. And just the margins that were coming in, in Georgia, and so many exciting firsts, right? The first female Black governor.

Yes, in American history.

In American history?

Yes.

How the fuck did it take us this long?

Yeah, it's shocking. But you're like, yeah, first in American history.

Yeah.

That took way too long.

Way too long.

Way too long.

First Native American woman governor, the first Native woman senator, first openly gay male senator. Is that right, Chris Pappas?

Yes.

I mean, it just was it just felt really, really exciting and hopeful in the sense that all of this racial, cultural, gender divisiveness that was employed by the far right to exploit Americans is, in this moment, not working.

Yeah. We were talking about this in the office. They spent so much of the Trump administration, when they came in, spent so much time pulling firsts off of websites.

Yeah.

Like the Department of Defense pulling down different things or like, oh, this web page about Jackie Robinson has been pulled down. And now there are so many more firsts that just happened in the Senate and the governor's houses.

Great.

It's like, there's going to be a lot more websites from this guy. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry you had to you took down the one page. Here's 90 more pages you're going to have to add.

A lot more web pages.

A lot more web pages.

That's it.

And the youth, so many exciting new young candidates. Like that, it feels like we're kind of ushering in a new guard. And that feels really exciting too.

Yeah, it was a huge wave of election. The moment I knew, it felt you could kind of feel I was watching bouncing around channels.

You were at home, right?

I was at home.

Yeah.

I was bouncing around different channels and sort of we're all kind of like keeping an eye on how it's going and writing stuff and bouncing around ideas. And so I didn't necessarily know what channel I was on at a given moment. And I was looking at my computer. And then all of a sudden, I knew I was watching Fox News because I heard an ad for a life-size Noah's Ark, where they were like there was an ad for a theme park that has a Noah's Ark. And I was like, man, the Blue Wave is so big that Fox News is advertising life-size arks for people to get on.

Oh, wow. By the way, that is in my hometown of Kentucky.

Is it really?

Yes.

Have you ever been there?

Yes. Well, not in Louisville, but it is somewhere in Kentucky.

Somewhere in Kentucky.

I've never been there.

You've never been.

But you know, anything could happen. We don't have our holiday plans yet, so.

I think we have the ad, actually. I want to play it because this is how I experienced it sitting on my couch.

Oh, great.

That is a big ark.

That's a big ark.

What if.

That's a very big ark. What if you could go back in time to before these election results came in?

If I could go back in time to two years ago.

Yes, yes. Oh, wow. Yeah, you know things are not going well when you're running that ad.

No. Normally on Fox News, it's ads for like catheters and gold bars. And this was like, guys, I think our viewers need an ark to get on.

They need an ark.

It is a blue tsunami out there. We've got to start loading animals two by two onto this thing.

Oh, man.

So that was the moment I knew it was going to be.

Blue Wave was intense.

I don't think this is going the way they thought it was going to go. And it was also remarkable to me how much you could see the narrative changing throughout the night, that in the week leading up, it had been so much about.

The Cheesecake Factory?

The Cheesecake Factory was the number one thing, that Barack Obama made that joke that the White House looks like Saddam Hussein decorated the Cheesecake Factory, which then.

Which they really stumbled their way through finding figuring out what they were upset about.

Yes. Because the joke was that the president is too focused on tacky renovations.

Yes.

That's the idea that was being communicated.

Yeah.

Which then bounced around the echo chambers of the news into, well, Obama was condescending to the Cheesecake Factory, which wasn't what was happening, but also no one was talking about the Cheesecake Factory on election night.

It was Cheesecake Factory is blue collar, all American. Then it was the Cheesecake Factory is elitist. It was very, very confusing. I think they didn't even know what they were talking about. And then it was just like such a that was a beautiful trap that Obama laid because Trump could not resist. He said, are you insulting my decorating skills? Let me talk about all of my decorating skills for the next eight days.

That's absolutely true. And he was like, have you seen how nice these columns are? These are the best columns. How dare you compare them to the Cheesecake Factory, which is a great business. I don't know what world we're in.

What are we talking about?

But this is not the real issues that Americans care about.

That's exactly right.

Same way the renovations are not the real issues that Americans care about, and on and on. So yeah, it was kind of clear that you could tell that the message of the high prices and gas and the just complete discontentment with the war in Iran, that became the driving message of the evening.

Yes.

And somehow the Cheesecake Factory was not the thing.

Not the thing anymore.

Which is ironic because Saddam Hussein was a Middle East quagmire that America got into.

This is true.

And we completely ignored that.

This is true.

The Saddam Hussein part of it, we're like, no, no, no. We're more interested in the Cheesecake Factory.

That's not where I take issue.

Cheesecake.

This is about the Cheesecake Factory.

Exactly. But so all of that kind of drained away, and you could tell like, oh, all right, this is a moment of reckoning for this movement and kind of across the country. So yeah, I mean, I'll read some of the other big things, like some of the flip states or unexpected wins.

Yeah.

Texas going blue, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio for the Senate. The Democrats were on track to win the popular vote by 13%.

13?

Which is wild.

Lucky number 13.

Largest popular victory in the National Congress vote for either party in 50 years, according to The New York Times. So yeah, I mean, it just felt like a real rejection of that movement in a way that we haven't seen in 11 years.

Right.

Yeah.

And the last two years have very much felt like smoke the whole pack two years.

Yeah.

Like, is this what you want? Let's go 300% towards this. And that's what the administration did. And the American people went, wait, that's not that is not what we want. This is not working for us.

Yeah. And I think so much of the last two years has been this sort of feeling of, well, the guardrails are off. Congress isn't doing anything to check what's going on. They're like, oh, the deep state is stopping me. Like, that was all done. It was all lawless in the cabinet. So it was like, this is the vision that it's always been since the escalator of like, this is how I want to govern. Like, if you go back and watch the coming down the escalator speech, it was like, I'm going to put tariffs on everything. It was the they're rapist, all that kind of thing. But it was also the economic vision of tariffs, and then that completely wiped them out.

Right.

And it was so he was able to kind of enact his vision. And then I think that sense of relief you're talking about is we saw what that was, and then it was like, oh, no, Americans roundly rejected it.

Yes.

That it didn't work. And Fox was kind of coming to grips with that in the moment of, well, then what are we in the future going forward?

Right.

And yeah, I think that it is I think a lot of people, in what I've seen, are relieved to feel that, that we are not this kind of American id of greed or anything like that. And we are trying to find something that isn't the chaos of the last two years as it was felt.

Right. And people are hurting. There is no doubt people are hurting. John spoke to Sarah Longwell, and she used this example of Americans were kind of in this position of needing to touch the stove, needing to feel the burn before going, OK, OK, this is absolutely not what we want. It seemed intriguing at first. He's making all of these promises, and then finding out, oh, no, this is not what we voted for.

Yeah.

So there's definitely some peace and catharsis in knowing that Americans are overwhelmingly feeling this way, although I hate that Americans had to go through all of this and that people are hurting the way they are to get there.

It's interesting to be in this moment in between where we don't know what we're going toward.

Yeah.

We know what has been rejected and what is being kind of swept out, but we don't know what the identity will be after this, what the national kind of mood or what will be worked toward. So it's curious to see where that's going to go. I feel like I kind of had this sense earlier in the year, and it kind of came to fruition, is that I feel like the national vibe shifted in halftime of game four of the NBA Finals. Like, there was just that moment where the Knicks were down 29, and it was like, OK.

Yes.

And in a way, like, sometimes sports will do that. Or like, sometimes there's cultural moments like that. And I remember with the Patriots and the Falcons in that one Super Bowl where the Falcons were up so big, it was like, this is over. And then Tom Brady's like, no, no, no, the Patriots are coming back and winning. And that felt like the cultural moment.

Yeah.

And the Knicks felt that way too.

Yes.

Of this like, what New York City is and represents and diversity and all the kind of messiness of what New York City is, that that is and that it came back and it won in that moment.

Both being nothing short of a miracle. I mean, both of those things were absolutely miraculous.

Yes.

I think also watching Vivek and his despicable, disgusting campaign ads on Amy Acton and then seeing her win.

Yeah.

Just that alone to me felt like this momentary win of this tearing each other apart, this disgusting divisiveness that Trump has started and the rest of his cronies have followed through with. It just felt like that is the American people are rejecting that kind of cruelty.

Yeah. And that there was a moment where JD Vance doubled down on it when he didn't have to.

Yeah.

He could have just laid out there, but he was like, no, we are standing by this thing. And that was also roundly rejected.

Yeah.

So it's been interesting to see their reaction after the fact because JD Vance put out a very long tweet or X or whatever it is about like, hey, here's what I think we did wrong. Then Ted Cruz put out one of those. So I don't know if you saw oh, my God. So yeah.

This is where I zone out. This is.

You put on the screen. It is wait, I wrote it down. It's 617 words, 3,371 characters. Twitter used to be what, 140 characters?

This is like when someone sends you an epically long text, and you just throw your phone away. You can't even.

Yeah, yeah. You're like, look, we're broken up. I don't know what to tell you.

I will never speak to you again.

I'm not going to read this. I'm deleting you from my phone.

I don't know you anymore.

Wait, the Ted Cruz one is 1,749 words. He broke down all of the reasons that we lost. Clearly, they were talking to pollsters or whatever. But JD Vance first was he was talking about like, the reason we won is like the Iran war was why we lost. And we won two years ago on America first. We lost because we didn't deal with that, and the prices are too high. But it's I don't understand how they went from this is the greatest presidency in American history.

Yes.

Then a day later, they're like, yo, have you seen these prices? This is crazy.

Yes.

When Americans were suffering. You guys had no idea. It's like, yeah, we knew. We knew. Did you not know, or were you pretending that you didn't know?

I think that I think that one.

Yeah.

I think they were pretending that they did not know.

It was.

But it's amazing how quick the pivot is when they realize that their stance is not popular.

It was a golden age on Monday.

Yeah.

Monday was the golden age. And now it's like, I don't know, guys. People are unhappy. Have you seen this?

Have you too, yeah.

And then Ted Cruz had a thing in his post. I'll read from it because it was like I hadn't seen this, and it was genuinely shocking to me, where he broke down like the nine issues that were the biggest thing in the exit polls they saw. So a real stat is that spam, the canned meat spam.

Yes.

It broke record sales selling 113 million cans last year. That is nearly as much spam as was sold during the entirety of World War II. Things aren't going well if people are eating that much spam. Like, canned meat is not a good sign in the economy.

Definitely not.

And so did they not know that we were in like the spam times?

Is this new information for them?

I don't like, yeah, it was really shocking to me to see that and to understand that that's how dire things can be. But also, did he know that before? Did he Google like, what are the spam numbers right now? It's like, oh, man, this is way too much spam.

I think he's been spitting on that. That's right.

That's different.

I think he's been that's different. I think he's been sitting on that spam stat for quite some time, just waiting to pull it out.

I think so.

Waiting.

And clearly, I think he, JD Vance and Ted Cruz are like, well, I got to pivot to my own run.

Right.

For president at 2028. And they clearly have pollsters who work for them and are like, oh, these are the issues. But.

That's all they care about.

Yeah.

That's all they care about. DeSantis.

Yes. Same thing. He had a big thing calling it what, like an extinction event?

Just short of an extinction?

Yeah.

Is that what he said?

Yeah. And that you can't gaslight people on gas prices. And yeah.

How interesting to have that kind of clarity the day after the midterms.

Do you buy it from any of them? Do you think, yeah, they know. They feel the pain of the people.

No, I think they have known this entire time, and now it serves them to distance themselves from the president that they were blowing for the last 10 years.

Yes. I think you're right. His canned meat. You know, looking at the Ted Cruz and the JD Vance posts, it feels like they put those things out. You know when you get in trouble at school and your teacher is like, young man, I need you to write a 2,000-word essay about how you failed the voters and how you're never going to do it again? They're like, yes, yes. No, OK, I'll write it. Please, here it is. No, this is it. We'll do better on the economy. I promise that we'll be better. I won't be so in on the data centers. I'm sorry. We won't do as much corruption next time. I promise. Please, just let me save a student in 2028.

2,000 where a lot of ands and the's to fill the space.

It was a very like.

Here's my apology essay.

Yeah. Which also, that's a real dork move.

Yeah, come on.

Like, again, you're not doing like.

Dork.

I retweeted his treatise on how he failed us.

Yeah.

Get out of here. I think another clip we've also seen people in sort of the right-wing ecosystem reckoning with this moment. And one of the things that jumped out at me was this clip from Megyn Kelly where she spoke to how voters were feeling and tried to echo those concerns.

Right.

And I think we can actually play a clip of that.

Oh, goodie.

We're no longer interested in the Trump show. We're over the antics, the grift, the making money off of the backs of the American people who just wanted you to help them. Not you, not yourself, not make your $1 billion go to $12 to surround yourself with a field of grifters who want to make money off of the presidency as opposed to serve, be actual public servants in a humble role that was never meant to make someone a million or billionaire.

Coming from a woman who has made a ton of money off of this president and this administration and those same views and values. Unbelievable. It's a real pot calling the kettle blackface.

Watching that clip, like, I'm shocked that she's shocked.

Of course.

Like, you didn't think they were going to sell act like, this is a man who was selling Bibles to people in the lead-up to the 2024 election. I have like the Trump brand Bible.

Bibles, watches, stakes, hats.

Water, crypto.

Crypto.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All of it.

Green cards.

You didn't think they were going to sell pardons?

Come on.

It's the only thing they haven't sold yet.

Yes.

It makes no sense to like, yeah, I just don't I'm shocked that they're shocked. It was like, yeah, this is it makes me sad to be like, this is what it always was.

Right.

How do you not know?

And they do know.

They must know.

They know that.

Yeah.

They know.

If it's just performative, like I'm going to like, I'm going to be so mad about it. It's like, yeah, they were never in it for that.

Yeah.

They were never in it for people. They were never in it like, I'm going to bring down prices on day one. It's like, no, I'm going to like, Kimberly Guilfoyle is going to get her Amex got paid, guys.

Totally.

This is the plan.

Totally.

Alina Haba is going to sell some pardons and get $50 million to get this job, and it's going to be great. We're going to dine out on this. And I think when people say that corruption is their issue or something that really bothers them, it's always in combination with I don't feel like I'm getting ahead. I see these people getting rich. I see these people getting government contracts or whatever it is or no-show jobs or selling access. And then they say like, we're living in a golden age. It's like, you're living in a golden age? Yes, because you have access to this thing, and you are abusing the public trust that way.

That's exactly right.

And yeah. And I don't know if you saw so those were the responses from the Republican leaders and then sort of the media figures. And then it was very interesting to contrast that with how Donald Trump reacted.

Yes. He had quite a lot to say.

Yes.

And where was he speaking from again? Was he at the gas pump or?

No, I don't think he was at the gas pump.

The grocery aisle?

No, he wasn't in the grocery aisle.

Oh.

Maybe an Oval Office address alleviating people's concerns.

Sure. Something official, like I've got things under control.

No.

No. Instead, where was he speaking from?

I think it was the was it the ballroom?

Yes. It was the ballroom.

Oh, he was in the ballroom. Yeah, let's hear him in the ballroom.

Right here is the ballroom. Over here, you're going to have magnificent columns on this side. Outside, exterior columns very much like the Supreme Court. They're actually taller, and they're even more magnificent. They're fabricated now. They're being carved out of beautiful limestone. And there'll be Corinthian, the Corinthian design, which is considered the crème de la crème.

The crème de la crème. 100% authentically fabricated.

Can you make ballroom columns out of empty spam cans? Because that seems like it could be a good bridge between the two.

I sure would like to try.

Wouldn't that be great?

This is a moment where I feel like I just want to continue to stay in this joy and feeling of hope and excitement for what's to come. But I'm also kind of bracing myself for where the Democrats take it from here. It's like the moment after the Knicks won the championship, but the moment right before I realized I'm also a Jets fan. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Yeah.

An ultimate feeling of disappointment.

Yeah.

That you know you'll be disappointed.

Where will the Democrats take it from here? All gas, no brakes?

Yeah. Well, they better focus on gas is the first thing. They'll be like, we heard you. Gas prices.

Yeah.

I don't even think they can agree on what gas means.

Probably not.

Yeah. That's going to splinter the coalition immediately.

Oh, man.

But we have to have hope in this moment, right?

Maybe they can get unified in how they squander it.

Yes.

This is the moment.

No.

We're not I'm not even going to say it. I'm not even going to say it.

Well, this is the moment like, you know when you've graduated and you've thrown your cap up in the air, but it hasn't landed yet? And you're like, as soon as the cap lands, you're like, oh, I got to go get a job.

And you realize how in debt you are?

Yeah. You're like, oh, I don't have health insurance.

Yeah.

Like, that it's that moment. But look, cap's in the air right now. That's how people like, you know, people are I think Democrats are feeling that way.

Yeah.

So enjoy the cap being in the air while it's in the air. But once it hits the ground, it's time to hit the ground.

Time to hit the ground.

Yeah.

Are they do you think that the party will focus on governing and supporting the people? Or do you think that there's going to be this overwhelming revenge and retribution and seeking justice?

Yeah, I mean, this is the big question. I don't know. I think the best course of action is to do things for the people, to try to fix the issues that people really are hurting.

Yeah.

That's the move. And I know I see a lot of posts of people who are like in the retribution camp and want that kind of thing.

Of course.

But I think a legitimate concern with that is they don't have the levers of power to do that in a lot of ways. Like, they don't control the Department of Justice.

Right.

And I was talking to our researcher before we came down here.

Yeah.

And even if they use the committees and the oversight and all that kind of thing and like, go after things that are genuine crimes. Like, if Kimberly Guilfoyle is selling access to the presidency or there's people selling pardons, like, you have to that has to be something where you get justice for those kinds of things.

Of course.

We can't.

People need to be held accountable for their actions.

Exactly.

However.

However.

Who does it fall on?

For the Oversight Committee, if they subpoena and someone doesn't do it, it goes to Jeanine Pirro.

Pirro!

Like, Jeanine I don't think Jeanine Pirro is going to be like, you know what? I'm hauling in Don Jr. right now.

Exactly.

It's just so there are a lot of.

So a lot of this could end up being fruitless at the end of the day.

Yeah. Maybe. I mean, you know, I think that the rule of law is an important thing, especially in a democracy like this, to have the feeling that it's like you're not going to get away with doing things like that. But what is the they have to multitask. They have to find a way to multitask.

Can they walk and chew gum at the same time?

Probably not. I don't know. I've seen Chuck Schumer. I don't know if he can do either of those things independently.

Oh, God.

But we'll see. I mean, they are coming off a historic win, so we'll have to figure it is. But.

I think they just can't they have to be extremely intentional and strategic about the fact that the American voters voted for this war to end, for health care, for ICE to get the fuck off the streets, for reproductive rights to be restored, for child care, for health care. Like, they can't lose sight of all of that. They have to hit the ground running on it.

I think that's one of the issues in an election like this is a lot of that is reading the exit polls for those priorities. Because there is no like, show your work for your vote where you say like, oh, Democrats won. Why? High prices or the war or reproductive rights or like, and on and on. So there should be like a you check your vote, and then you have a why section where you're like, this is the why.

An essay portion.

An essay portion.

Of the ballot.

The ballot should have yes, an optional essay portion where you can fill out the reasons why.

But not as many words as what Ted Cruz submitted.

That yes, you have to file.

No one has time to read that.

Yeah. Why are the ones who lost writing the essays?

We could never count the votes.

No, you could not. Are there any things in particular that you would like to see in terms of accountability or for example, I would love to I think I would love to see someone subpoena Robert F. Kennedy's fridge.

Oh, yes.

I want to know what's in that freezer.

A lot of beef tallow.

A lot of beef tallow. This is a man who has a lot of roadkill in his life.

Oh, boy.

Who had a bear cub in his trunk.

Are you sure you want to look in that fridge?

He had a raccoon penis.

Oh, man.

I think just law enforcement needs to look at that fridge just to understand what's going on there.

Yes, I agree with you. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I did have an advent calendar made for all of the arrests I'd like to see.

Wow, that is very specific.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It fills up all of December.

Wow. Who's on Christmas Eve?

You're going to have to order it to find out.

OK. That's fine. Now, are they little chocolates?

They are little.

It's going to be subpoenaed, and then you open the tiny box.

They are little chocolates, but it's not real chocolate because apparently all American chocolate is fake chocolate.

Is it really?

It's like wax or something. I don't know.

That's not good.

I don't know. I didn't actually read the article. I just saw the headline.

Well, you know who's going to fix that? Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oh.

Once you subpoena that fridge, you'll see that he has all kinds of good plans for chocolates and a whale head in there for some reason.

Oh, God. I don't need to see what's in that fridge.

You don't?

Mm-mm.

All right.

I don't.

I just I can't help but stress that he is neither a doctor nor a scientist. And he often has a lot of dead animal carcasses just as a civilian?

Oh, my God.

That seems weird to me. I don't know.

It's weird on weird on weird on weird.

Yeah.

I would like to see an investigation into what Bessent looks like without his makeup.

That would be pretty good.

I'm just curious.

Yeah.

It's not at the top of my list, but it's on the list.

Sometimes justice ain't pretty.

Yeah.

And that might be this case. That's it. Yeah, I'm curious as to where it's going to go. But you know, when they talk about I've seen a lot of the clips where they're like, well, the Democrats are just going to try to get retribution. And that's the way some like, they indicted James Comey over seashells, guys.

Yeah.

Do you remember this? He had beach art, and they're like, we're sending prosecutors after you.

That's right.

Like, I don't know what world we live in anymore.

Yeah.

I don't know what we have to do or yeah.

Yeah.

They're like, this man's beach Instagrams. He has to go down. We have to send a message about the things that he is posting on his Instagram.

How crazy was that?

This was on your grid, sir. Have you no decency?

Please don't look at my grid.

Really?

I have all kinds of beach art.

Can we subpoena your grid?

Alan, could you have someone delete my grid?

I think that's deleting evidence. See, that's the great thing about leaving evidence on the beach is it just gets washed away.

Yes.

It's not your fault.

Sorry.

Perfect crime. So yeah, a lot of questions that still remain to be answered. But one thing, as we look forward, you have three wonderful guests coming up on the show.

I do.

Yes. Why don't you tell us about them?

I have a very exciting week of guests. Tuesday night, we have Katherine Hahn.

Wonderful.

Comedy goddess.

Yes.

Ron Howard is coming on to promote his new documentary about Richard Avadon.

Very exciting.

Which is fascinating.

Have you seen it?

I have seen it. Of course I've seen it. I do my research.

Yes. Yes. No, I know.

And I did not know very much about Richard Avadon. And then suddenly, I'm watching this documentary, and I see all of these iconic photos that he took that I had no idea who the photographer was. He had 16,000-plus sittings.

Really?

Of photographing people.

That's awful.

16,000. And they have all of these archives. I mean, his body of work is incredible.

Wow.

Went to high school with James Baldwin.

Really?

And then collaborated with him on a few projects.

Wow.

So James would write, and he would do the photography.

Oh, that's incredible.

Just a fascinating artist. It's a really, really beautiful documentary. So I'm excited to have Ron on to talk about that. And then Thursday, we have Heather Cox Richardson.

Oh, very nice. Historian.

Historian.

Nice.

Writer.

Very nice.

I'm very interested to get to have a conversation with her post-midterms.

Yes, get some historical context to what this moment means.

Exactly. And where do we go from here? And where do we go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Knicks are indeed responsible for the American history vibe shift that we're going through.

I'm going to say yes.

You think so?

I will bring it up to her.

America's in the Knicks in five era, I think.

That's what I think.

And it's going to last forever, right?

I think.

I think these things never end.

I can't imagine it ending. I can't imagine.

Another interesting Ron Howard fact, director of the movie Hillbilly Elegy.

Yes.

J.D. Vance story. More and more relevant.

Oh, boy.

Future presidential candidate, J.D. Vance.

Oh, boy.

Possibly current vice president.

Oh.

So we can see.

Sequel?

Bone to pick with

him.

Sequel in the mix?

I don't know.

We could see.

Not ruling it out.

That's it.

Anything's possible.

So that's all exciting. Great guests. Did you pick them yourselves?

I definitely had a hand in yes, I had a hand in picking them. But we have incredible producers here at the show.

That is true.

Beth and Shana, who do a lot of work in reaching out and making requests.

I thought you would just slide into people's DMs directly.

I mean, sometimes I do.

You can come to the show.

I actually I did to Lyvern Cox.

You did?

Yes. That's how we got Lyvern Cox on the show.

Really?

Well, I ran into her at her party, and then I followed up with a DM. And then she came on the show and did an In My Opinion and was fantastic.

Oh, very good.

And I think won a GLAAD Award for her appearance on the show.

That's right.

She was.

That's so exciting.

Amazing.

Look at that.

So sometimes sliding into someone's DMs, it works out.

It's very that's wonderful.

I'm not above it.

Do you stay in touch with them afterwards as well, now that you've like, you know, we've shared this moment on television, and you know, we can, you know.

I try.

Keep it going?

I try. And sometimes I get ignored.

Really?

But that's OK.

Oh, that's I'm sorry.

Yeah. No, no. That's not true.

No?

No. I do.

Ever blocked?

I don't think so.

Never like, oh, did they they're not I don't know. Did we not connect? Did we not.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes people ignore me because I think we've made this connection, and I think we're friends, and then they just don't respond back. But that's cool. I've got plenty of other friends.

Yeah.

Like you, Devin, right? You're my friend, right?

Yeah. No, no. Yeah, of course.

You're my friend, right?

Definitely, yeah. No, that's.

Like, we're real friends?

Yeah, no, of course.

Not just coworkers?

No, no. Yeah, no. We yeah.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I enjoy your company in the office.

Cool. Cool.

It's a good time. Yeah, I'm going to I got to hit the bathroom, actually. No, we'll catch up later.

Do you need a cornacchi break?

Yeah. I'm going to well, I'm just going to wander off into the wilderness.

Never come back?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

No, you'll see me again. That's for sure. Three hours later, there's a tweet like.

Oh, man.

I thought I could hang out with Desi for 13 hours, but I could only make it for 25 minutes.

No one makes it. Oh, boy. Wait, what's your Daily Show and Tell? My Daily Show and Tell was the Richard Avadon documentary, so I already kind of blew my I'm sorry. I jumped to it too quickly.

No, that's fine.

So.

It's a perfectly good Daily Show and Tell.

I should ask you, what is your Daily Show and Tell?

My Daily Show and Tell. I have recently been watching this documentary show on HBO called 100 Foot Wave. I don't know if you've seen it.

It's a show or it's a.

It's a show.

OK.

It's a docu-series.

OK.

I think the first season was in like 2021, and then the second was in 2023, and then the most recent season was 2025. It's about it follows this a set of big wave surfers, one of whom is named Garrett McNamara. He's kind of like the guy who trailblaze this particular break in Portugal called Nazaré. And it's remarkable. And it's a story of these athletes who are kind of they're surfers, but they're more than that because it's toe-in surfing where they have jet skis, and they have to be there all winter, and they live in Portugal, and they have a relationship with the local community. And it's so great.

Oh, my God.

And I'm about to watch the third season. I'm going to start it soon.

OK.

So great, great, great show.

Excellent recommendation.

Yes.

Were you inspired to watch it because of the Blue Wave? OK. This is why you this is why you won't hang out with me.

I watched it before the Blue Wave. So maybe it was a manifestation of it. Possibly.

All right. Maybe you made it happen.

Possibly. Maybe Garrett McNamara made it happen. GMAC himself.

Wow.

And one other thing I wanted to shout out is I read this book that I think you would love. It's called Hellgate Bridge: A Memoir of Motherhood, Madness, and Hope by an author named Barry Mishkin.

Oh, my God.

It was on like a Washington Post list of like notable reads.

Yeah.

And it's about this mother's struggle with like being diagnosed postpartum and going through this health care journey. And it was kind of a nightmare. And it was like I know her, and it was a really like profound, beautiful book and a story of kind of like getting to the other side of this dark period. So yeah, Hellgate Bridge, a memoir.

Hellgate Bridge.

Yeah.

OK.

Beautiful, beautiful book. So that's another a bonus Daily Show and Tell.

Look at that.

There you go. So I think that's all we have time for on the Precap. My name, again, is Devin Delaconte. Be sure to catch Desi Lydic hosting this week on Comedy Central, Paramount+, and right here on podcast forum on the Daily Show Ears Edition.

Thanks, Devin.

Bye. Thank you, Desi. What a good time.

What a good time.

So yeah, I got to go. I'll.

You don't want to stay and hang out and just like keep talking?

I have a thing. I'm so sorry. It's.

It didn't no, I think you.

And you're so busy with hosting.

Not really. I've pretty much done all my prep.

No, that's.

I can just. Paying if you want to just like, I don't know, order a pizza.

I don't know, like getting your way.