(andy) oh-- oh, come on! [irish accent] angela's ashes. top o' the mornin' to it. frankie's prose is finer than a pot of gold, say i. okay. did you get it out of your system? yep. no, i mean i really liked it. thought it was a fun read. fun? mm-hmm. really? yeah. what was fun about it for you? was it the death of the twins? no, that wasn't...fun. did you even read it? course i read it. (oscar) how does it end? who was the main character? angela. nope. ashes. [mouths word] "sorry" ♪ ♪ >> announcer: from the most trusted journalists at comedy central... it's america's only source for news. this is "the daily show" with your host, michael kosta! [cheers and applause]

♪ ♪ >> michael: all right, yes! welcome to the daily show!" i'm d.j. michael kosta. we've got so much to talk about tonight. the squad is down a man, the supreme court is cool with bribery, and a special appearance from triumph the insult comic dog! let's get into the headlines! ♪ ♪ [cheers and applause] let's kick things off with the primaries yesterday. in new york, progressive jamaal bowman lost re-election to his opponent: money. and in colorado, congresswoman lauren boebert won despite being caught fondling her date at "beetlejuice the musical" last year. but what can i say, in the end she won this race handily. i guess she's just really good at working the base. handjob. but the biggest politics news of

the day didn't come from the primaries. it came from the supreme court, who just made it even easier to bribe elected officials. oh, sorry -- "tip" elected officials. >> breaking news from washington. the united states supreme court has overturned the high-profile bribery conviction of former indiana mayor james snyder. >> in a 6-3 opinion, the court ruled that gifts to a public official can only be considered illegal bribes if they're given before the official act, not after. >> justice kavanaugh wrote that it was not a crime for politicians to "accept gratuities that may be given as a token of appreciation after the official act." >> michael: ah, i see, so if you give a politician money before they do you a favor, it's a bribe, but if you give it to them after, the supreme court says it's just a "gratuity," because they think i'm an idiot. i mean, seriously, a gratuity? tipping culture is was already so out of control. i got to tip at coffee shops, i got to tip at the dry cleaner, i got to tip when i get takeout even though i picked it up and i

took it out. that's why they call it takeout! fine, but if my state senator turns that little screen around on me, i am gonna lose my mind. i'll still give 20% but i'm going to be pissed about it. it seems like every few months, the supreme court makes it easier and easier to bribe government officials. and i don't know why they would do that, but as soon as clarence thomas gets back from the maldives, we can ask him. let's move on to the tech world and talk about artificial intelligence. ai is everywhere these days, which is interesting, because it also [bleep] sucks. it gives me bad google searches. it gives me fake amazon products. it keeps generating images of women with six fingers when i very clearly said i wanted six nipples. but the tech companies won't stop shoving it down our throats, because they need something new to sell to us, because we didn't go for the

metaverse, or self-driving cars, or those weird cyborg helmets. so now i can't sit on a toilet without it being like, "hey, let ai flush your poop for you! sometimes it shoves the poop back up your butt, but it's getting better!" and some ai companies are now offering songs made by ai but now the people who actually make music are fighting back. >> the world's biggest record labels are teaming up to sue two prominent ai music-making companies. universal music group, sony music entertainment, and warner music group are among the companies that filed lawsuits against the ai companies. >> the lawsuits accused the companies of illegally using copyrighted sound recordings to train their ai, raising concerns about the impact on artists' rights and earnings. >> in a statement, suno's chief executive defended his company's products, saying that it's, quote, "designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize or regurgitate preexisting content." >> michael: oh, all right, well! if the chief executive of the ai

company said they're not stealing, that's good enough for me! if the songs its creating are completely new, then we're good. let's move on! you know what? maybe it's better to listen to one of these songs, just to see. >> lawyers for the record labels wrote the prompt "'60s british-rock, male voice, by a band that rhymes with the smeadles" since the generators do not allow naming specific artists. still, the record labels say the ai generator spit out a beatles song. ♪ imagine there's no heaven, ♪ ♪ it's easy if you try ♪ >> michael: wow. that was supposed to be a complete new song? those were the exact words to "imagine!" the ai could have at least used a thesaurus. "envision there's no heaven. it's easy if you endeavor to." who wants this? who wants this? "i got ai to create a brand new song for me!" why? there's no shortage of music! did you finish spotify?

"oh, but i can make a brand new taylor swift song." she drops a double album every two weeks! we don't need it. but this song does bring up an important question, which is, should ai be involved in art? and the answer is: no, it shouldn't. we need to decide as a society that ai is not allowed to make art. it can help make an elevator go faster or analyze medical data, that's fine. but leave art to human artists. [cheers and applause] human artists, they have the things computers will never have: terrible parents. that motivates great art. the bottom line is, no matter how good ai gets, it will never need to prove that it's just as deserving of love as its sister who went to medical school. moving on to a story that is truly out of this world. and it's going to stay out of this world considerably longer

than it would like. >> the return of boeing starliner and its crew has been delayed again. veteran astronauts butch wilmore and sonny williams were only supposed to be up in orbit for a week. they have been up there for about a month, if you can believe it, as nasa and boeing investigate helium leaks and thruster issues on the starliner spacecraft. >> just hours after starliner's june 5th launch came the first sign of trouble. >> starliner, looks like we picked up a couple more helium leaks. >> all right, we're ready to copy and find out exactly what you mean by "picked up another helium leak." >> michael: this guy is very chill considering that his spaceship has sprung a leak. if my wife called me to say, "we've got a few fire situations at the house," i don't think i'd be like, "copy, let's chat when you've got some more details on what the [bleep] that means." just so you know, there's no real danger to the astronauts. they're going to be fine. but a leaky pipe is such a boring earth thing to go wrong.

once you're in space, you should be dealing with problems like "a quantum overload in the dilithium crystals," not a leaky pipe. that's something you call the super for. you know what? that's probably why it's taking so long to fix. they called for the super and nasa was like, "sorry, he's a little busy. we can send his son." "no! tomorrow's fine." either way, i hope they can fix this. imagine if the helium leaks got really bad and they had to say goodbye to their families, like, [in a helium voice] "tell my wife i love her. life is so precious!" how am i going to do the rest of the act now? but good luck to astronauts butch wilmore and sonny williams -- [laughs]

butch wilmore and sonny williams, who i'm confident will figure this out because they have incredible astronaut names. don't they? does nasa screen for that kind of thing? are they like, "well, your physics scores are the highest we've ever seen, but unfortunately, we just can't put a "brayden" on the m sorry, i'm getting a little dizzy right now. by the way, you heard right, that spaceship is made by boeing. jesus christ! it must be so embarrassing to work at boeing right now. their engineers are meeting people at parties, like, "me, i'm, uh, diddy's publicist." for more on the situation at the international space station, let's go there live with ronny chieng. [cheers and applause] you are floating! ronny, you're embedded with the crew? what's the mood up there? >> it's fine, kosta. everyone needs to calm down. this isn't the mets. these people are professionals. yeah, there were a couple of leaks, but they're all fixed and we'll be back on earth soon.

>> michael: that's great news. and perfect timing, because the trump-biden debate is tomorrow and we need you back to watch the whole thing. >> oh... right. the debates are tomorrow. yeah, very excited for that. oh, wait, what's that? what did you say, real astronaut right over there? oh, wow, michael, they just discovered a new leak. it's going to take exactly one more day to fix it. >> michael: that's terrible news. you'll miss the debate. >> i know, i really wanted to cover two men trying to out-dementia each other. but unfortunately now i have to stay up here and eat that cool astronaut ice cream. oh, no. >> michael: that's okay, though. you'll be back in plenty of time to report at the conventions. so that's good. >> uh-huh, great, awesome. oh, shit, michael, there's been another malfunction.

it looks like the antimatter crypto wi-fi is down. it's probably going to be a couple months to fix whatever that was. >> michael: oh, my god, ronny, that's terrible! >> i know, i'm so bummed, i really wanted to be in chicago in the summer, with the team... but i guess we'll be up here until then. >> michael: take the time you need. you'll be back in time for the rest of the campaign season. lots of opportunities to report on trump and biden -- ronny? ronny? ronny? >> argh! i am an alien! i have taken over the ship! it will take ronny exactly six months to defeat me. leave him alone, and send up potato chips. >> michael: ronny, that's obviously a sock puppet. if you don't want to come back, just say so. >> i don't want to come back. >> michael: okay. ronny chieng, everybody. when we come back, triumph the insult comic dog will be here!

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[cheers and applause] >> michael: welcome back to "the daily show." as crazy as it might seem, there are still a lot of voters who aren't sure whether to vote for

donald trump or joe biden. so we sent a special correspondent to interview some of them. >> all right. welcome to our focus group of undecided voters. thank you for coming to our marketing research offices. i want to stress that there is nobody masturbating behind this two way mirror. no matter what you hear. so as undecideds, let's go around the room. tell us your name and what your [bleep] problem is. >> we have never had worse choices in my opinion. >> i don't like either candidate. >> same as other people said, i'm not crazy about either candidate. >> okay, i see some of you feel you need more information about the candidates and i get it. we know so little about trump and biden, apart from their campaign issues, their actions as president, their handling of the global pandemic, their criminal indictments, who may have showered with, and a very

detailed description of trump's penis from a former porn star. but we still don't know -- okay, if you are leaning toward biden, please raise your hand. if you are leaning toward biden. if you are leaning toward trump, raise your hand. okay. raise it at the 45-degree angle, please. a little straighter. don't bend the elbow. that's good. [laughter] it is a hitler joke. you see, you support a fascist. we are having fun. okay. raise your hand if you feel like voters are easily manipulated. who doesn't think so? okay, now lower your hands. okay, now raise them again. okay, now lower them again. raise them up one more time. raise both hands. now lower one.

now everyone say "i cannot be manipulated." of beco i cannot be manipulated. >> which candidate would you have a beer with? >> trump. >> which candidate would you go to a baseball game with? >> biden thomas. >> trump. >> which candidate would you let eat sugar cubes out of your h hand? >> biden. >> biden. >> why? more gummy? less likely to bite you? [laughter] >> yeah. >> gentler. [laughter] >> which candidate would you want to be behind in the human centipede? keep in mind, no matter what you answer, we will all think you are disgusting. [laughter] okay. this is tough, guys. i said that you find yourselves undecided about a lot of things. >> my problem is, i'm not sure which one is going to die first. >> thomas, i have to ask, why are you struggling with this decision when you had no problem deciding to leave the barbershop

with those sideburns. it is like my mom always used to say. shit or get off the lawn. it is your civic duty. would you agree with that? >> yes, i would agree with that. >> what is your gut telling you? i mean, other than seat belts do not come in my size? >> i can't trust biden or trump. >> i like rfk. >> rfk jr., interesting. also known as the evidence that the kennedys [bleep] each other. maybe this will have you guys decide between the candidates. here are two sandwiches, all right? one is old and moldy. and the other has chlamydia. raise your hand if you are eating a sandwich on its deathbed or raise your left hand if you want the sandwich that we have on tape using the n-word? oh okay. they are having their first debate. you hope the moderators will ask trump or biden the really tough questions, like, do you know

where you are, and can you read on this mirror? >> probably going to call out each other on stuff. >> both sides are constantly saying, "this is the end of democracy." both sides agree. so maybe instead of worrying about all of this voting stuff, we should just decide on an escape plan. does anyone have a bunker? thomas, you look like you already live underground. will the other mole people mind if we crash? it was time to switch tactics. perhaps if they practice making any kind of decision, they would prepare them for november. you have all been given cheesecake factory menus to share. now take a look at them and make a choice. you can do this! >> a lot of options. >> entrees, we will find out what i usually get. >> fried calamari. >> i usually get orange chicken. that is one of my favorites. >> filet mignon. ♪ ♪

>> all right, you know what, forget it. i knew that wouldn't work. at this stage, there was only one option left. look, you guys have barely given me anything so i am just going to tell you who you are voting for. darrell, you are going to miss election day because there weren't any reminders on por pornhub. you want a safer, brighter future for your children so you are going to move to ukraine. thomas, i think you should just stay home. this is a big one. very important election. we need you to sit down. and mark emma whatever you decide, i recommend you listen to your heart, or at least to let a medical professional listen to it. thank you, all, for being here. we have learned a lot. we will see you in four years when you can't decide between voting for aoc or kyle rittenhouse. [cheers and applause] >> michael: thank you, triumph. when we come back, sharon lerner will be joining me on the show.

so don't go away. [cheers and applause] see that beer cap? it's the luckiest piece of metal in the world. it could've been a screw on a patio chair. or, a bent staple, that just won't staple. but here it is, chairing the welcome committee for an authentic, mexican dos equis. (♪♪)

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but you kinda need... ugh. sfx: [phone buzz] wow, i could build my credit that fast? nice. everything you need to outsmart the system. intuit credit karma. i'm adding downy unstopables to my wash. now i'll be smelling fresh all day long. [sniff] still fresh. ♪♪ get 6x longer-lasting freshness, plus odor protection. try for under $5! [cheers and applause] >> michael: welcome back to "the daily show." my guest tonight is a propublica reporter whose recent article, in collaboration with "the new yorker," investigates 3m's use of forever chemicals. please welcome sharon lerner! ♪ ♪ [cheers and applause] hi, sharon, how are you? thank you for being here. all right. [cheers and applause] thank you for coming. thank you for writing this piece. this is a testament to

investigative journalism. how long does it take to write this piece? >> well, it took about a year. a little more than a year, but i was doing other things in the middle. >> michael: what exactly are forever chemicals? what did 3m do? what were you uncovering in this piece? >> so i was writing about forever chemicals, which are pfas, is the name of the compounds. basically, they are called forever chemicals because they last forever in the environment and they accumulate in your body. and we all knew, we have known for a while, that 3m made these chemicals, and i have been reporting on them for a while. what was new with this story was that someone who had worked in the company came to me and offered to tell me her story. >> michael: right. >> it ended up shedding terrible light, really, on the company,

and on the delay. the decades of delay for them to reveal the truth of what was going on. >> michael: she was testing blood and was finding that everyone's blood had forever chemicals in it and how did 3m respond to her research? >> right. so she ended up, she was asked by her boss to test all these blood samples. these were samples of blood from the general public. so she starts testing them and she keeps finding trace amounts of this chemical, pfos, which was made by her employer, in everyone's blood. it's not supposed to be there. and then she tests different parts of the country, she tests animals, and she finally brings her results to her boss and in response, her superiors were not happy with her work. she thought they would be happy. you found this amazing thing. >> michael: she is a

scientist. >> she is in the environmental lab. it is her job. right? and in fact, what they ended up doing was questioning her and saying, this can't be right and your equipment is probably messed up and why don't you repeat the experiment? and eventually what she finds is that there was another chemist at the company who had discovered the same thing in 1975. so decades earlier. [audience reacts] >> michael: so you talked about it on the article but part of what solidified her belief in her research was she actually tested old blood. what was that? >> yeah. so she is testing all these samples from around the country, and they all contain pfos and her boss and started saying -- >> michael: you get pfos, it's like we all get it. >> and then started saying, are you sure? because maybe you think it is everywhere. you are delusional, basically. and then she ends up testing the

sample from rural china and an old sample, and it was the first one she tested that didn't have any of the chemical in it. >> michael: wow. >> and she realized, here it is. >> michael: someone in rural china who is probably dead at this point does not have forever chemicals in their blood. >> then she ended up testing someone, a war veteran, who, blood sample was from 1957 before scotchgard entered the market. >> michael: so let's talk about that. what are forever chemicals in? you mentioned scotchgard. >> so initially, they were in scotchgard, which is this coating for fabrics. >> michael: carpets. >> and carpets. >> michael: couches. >> they had a product that was for food packaging and it was also in firefighting foam. that was the beginning. now i cannot name all of the products that it is in. thousands, really. the companies say they are in every car and cell phone, they are in makeup, they are in everything. 3m put out a little spreadsheet

in 2022 of just their products that contain pfas and it had more than 16,000. >> michael: i love that they put out a spreadsheet in 2022 and they've known about this since 1975. so 50 years later. super helpful. this is a problem. what can you leave us with? everybody here is now newly aware. should we call our congresspeople? should we stop buying plastics? >> here is something really focused we could do. >> michael: i like focused. >> the entire audience. one of the crazy things is that pfas are -- new ones -- are still being introduced. we still have thousands that are being used but they are still introducing new ones. that seems bananas to me and that seems like a very focused point that we could, you know, do something about. >> michael: yeah. thank you very much for writing this article. thank you for coming on "the daily show" and talking with us. "you make me sick" is available online at "the new yorker" and propublica. sharon lerner. we're going to take a quick break, we'll be right back

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>> this is not a president of grievance. this is a president who is showing joy, showing a sense of humor. he is rallying the crowd. and i say this term again, the happy warrior. he is like popeye with two cans of spinach and it is working for of spinach and it is working for - ♪ i'm going down to south park ♪ ♪ gonna have myself a time ♪ both: ♪ friendly faces everywhere ♪ ♪ humble folks without temptation ♪ - ♪ i'm going down to south park ♪ ♪ gonna leave my woes behind ♪ - ♪ ample parking day or night ♪ ♪ people spouting "howdy neighbor" ♪ - ♪ headin' on up to south park ♪ ♪ gonna see if i can't unwind ♪ - ♪ [muffled] ♪ - ♪ come on down to south park ♪ ♪ and meet some friends of mine ♪

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