announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: thank you for doing this. an oral history? was taken.title because -- charlie: it is an oral history. chris: the voices of people who write and perform are interesting and not terribly

known outside the 22 minutes a night that jon and everyone else did for 16 years. stephen colbert has done interviews, samantha bee has done interviews. the process, the making of the show, that was not something that was exactly kept secret, but it was kept close because jon and everyone else was so focused on those four days a week and getting it done and that is a really hard job. the actual process, the making of the show, the evolution, the growth internally and externally was a story best told by the people who lived it. charlie: you have to go to jon and everyone else and ask. always enjoyed his reporting and i have known chris for a long time. cames never -- he always at things from a really thorough and fair, when you were reading york" magazinew

it also -- always felt invested but not purposely pejorative. really well done. were so involved over those 16 years and people have said what was it like, what was your -- what was your favorite parts? i do not know. charlie: you learned something about the perspective of the guys you were with, the men and women who made up "the daily show." jon: it was going to be told i wanted it told as thoroughly and fairly, warts and all, as it could possibly be. i thought chris was a great reporter to be able to do that. charlie: over the 16 years, how did the show evolve? what did it become that it was not at the beginning? jon: the evolution of the show, we just became better at doing

it. there is two separate things, what the show became and what people thought of the show and the outside perspective of it. that was the thing that i think i talked to chris a lot about which is you have to ignore, what we try to develop was a decent, internal barometer of what worked for the show and how well we could execute it. you could never look at a piece and go, i do not know if this is emmy-worthy. we are an emmy award-winning show. ownhad to try and keep your morality and integrity as the beacon for where you wanted the material to go. was your instinct almost always write about what would be funny and what would not be funny? jon: i think we got better at that. there is something fragile about dy.ity and one man -- come

another man's is pratfall. they would be upon that -- there that would,.n we spent the whole day crafting this beautiful comedic essay but they just like the pun on the 007, ok. of the things that was fascinating to go back and look at in great detail, people "the daily show" existed before jon they laid a good foundation. with the mock correspondence, the satire of news. the town and the focus was different. it was much more of a parity of

local newscasts in a way that could be main spirited -- mean-spirited, they were much more interested in celebrity and hollywood and showbiz stuff. punched down at times in a way that could be funny, but was kind of ephemeral. and one of the things that was interesting in talking to jon and other folks when he came in in 1999, he knew he wanted it to be more substantive. he did not have a master plan, he did not really have a blueprint of them ok, here is where we are going. charlie: you said i just wanted to last nine months. jon: that was my general goal. charlie: do you know why you are successful this time? was it the best extension of your talent? the bestlieve it was

extension of what i know how to do and perhaps i did not necessarily know that at the time but beyond that, cable is a very different animal, especially during that time, the network is, it has a different level of pressures. and a different level of performance. you are able to use it as a laboratory in ways that you would not be able to do on a network. the network lives or dies by the overnights, whereas in cable, they had this crazy deal worked out where they live and die by the carriage. charlie: they have to revenue streams. jon: their goal was to throw things out there. i knew we had more time and i think maybe that allowed me a little bit more confidence to push it. i had to push them as well because it was not necessarily the direction that they wanted to go. charlie: you were running the show, too, you were there in the trenches.

chris: if you have a craft services table generally that is not the trenches. of metaphorsber that were involved in the creation of "the daily show." charlie: it became for all of us a kind of cultural event. more than a show. chris: yeah, and jon started to touch on this, too. it was easy to forget what the media looked like in 1996, 1997, 1999 where comedy central was still kind of a sketchy proposition, where msnbc and fox news had just launched at the show"time that "the daily was coming into being. facebook did not exist and now it has had a major and -- influence on a presidential election. heat it by hand.

charlie: we just went through an election. jon: what? charlie: your reaction to this election? chris: surprise. all ties together. here is what i would honestly say. i do not believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks were a monthwe ago. we are the same country with all of its grace and flaws and volatility and insecurity and strength and resilience, it exists today as existed two weeks ago, the same country that elected donald trump, elected barack obama and those thisadictions are,

election to me is just another extension of the long argument that we have had for -- from our founder. which is, what are we? ideal, or aree an -- eme form of as no-state thno state? people fory for the whom this election will mean more uncertainty and insecurity. like this fight has never been easy. like we were a couple when we met. the first fight we had when we i mean, look, the people on our money had slaves. the people we honor had slaves. the people who wrote all men are created equal had slaves.

it is not like they did not know what was -- that it was wrong. charlie cole and many came from a slaveowning state. jon: right. the ideals of inalienable rights in slavery, we had the same argument over and over again. at times it has been more fall -- volatile. at times it has been more violent but it has never been easy. , i do notng for this see this as some form of endpoint. it is a continuation of a long battle to determine what we are. it made me wonder, one of the things that i think struck me andabout this election, maybe i just missed it. nobody asked donald trump what makes america great. that was the part -- charlie: nobody said to him, what is it that makes america great, what is it you want to

do, what is it that we are not doing now? jon: what are the metrics. it seems like from listening to him, the metrics are that it is a competition. and losses.is wins we are going to win more and that is what makes us great? and i think what many would say is,what makes us great america is an anomaly in the world. there are a lot of people, and i think his candidacy has animated that thought that a multi-ethnic democracy, a multicultural democracy is impossible. what america, by its founding and constitutionally is. charlie: and is becoming more and more, year by year. some people were worried that it meant different things to them and their life was changing because of that. and there was a certain fear. no question.

the people -- insecurities that people feel as marginalized populations, a rust belt worker who lost his job in in manufacturing, feels insecure but look at all the terrible things he says and they might say, i live in an area that voted for him. charlie: did democrats ended secretary clinton open the door for donald trump because she did not or could not speak to them? whether or not she opened the door not, i do nothing it was her door to open. i think it is, you're talking about a global issue. globalization and the push back ates, it in ethno-st makes more sense that we have an ethnic identity, but when you live in a state that is an bar of entry? the the bar of entry is, i agree with you.

people have inalienable rights and you can, and i commend -- can i come in? let's not pretend that this is a battle that has been revisited time and time again. that is why i feel we have a resilience to it, that we have to continue to fight. charlie: there is the sense of finding out who we are. whether we have gone off track in some way. jon: absolutely. i would rather have this conversation openly and honestly than in dog whistles. someone was saying there might be an anti-semi that is working in the white house and, have you listened to the next and tapes -- nixon tapes? have you read lbj? do you know our history? and we also have to caution ourselves to the complexity of that history. i thought donald trump disqualified himself at numerous

points, but there is now this idea that anyone who voted for him has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric. i think it is a big mistake. i think that our relationship status with our own worst impulses is complicated and you have to remember, who is the most progressive president in our history who is lionized? it is roosevelt. franklin done all -- delano roosevelt who also interred asian americans during world war ii. complicated and real people. i know the hardest thing for me during this election was the disconnect i had between watching the rallies which i generally because it is a rally, the wisdom of crowds is never particularly moderate. herto see locker up -- lock

the media,ting at and usa, and some terrible things that happened, and his inability to in any way temp that down and in some cases, inspire it, to view that with my peopleerience with real that i knew were voting for trump who are friends of mine who i do not tolerate because, are irredeemable and deplorable, i love. there are guys in mind of it that i love that i respect, that i think have incredible qualities, who are not afraid of mexicans and muslims and not afraid of blacks. they are afraid of their insurance premiums. that they represent, they have given tacit approval to a dictator and a madman, look

at your phone, look at everything we have. we make those kinds of compromises every day for x what tate of purposes. i have gone on too long. exploitative purposes. i have gone on too long. ou miss it during the campaign? jon: no. charlie: to be able to do what you just did, tell us what you thought with satire and comedy and reason. jon: not at all. no. rage wears onnt you. charlie: meaning that you could be full of rage but it would not make any difference? jon: correct. almost any artistic pursuit for whatever effect it has on its audience is a relatively selfish

pursuit. it is a catharsis for the individual. it is a way to express ideas and get them out and feel the seduction of it is, it is going to score, it is not going to score. that is the hit, that is the adrenaline. what begins to wear on you is where it is taken. i think this election could be a great lesson in that controlling the culture is not the same thing as power, and a viral video eviscerating racists is not the same as a grassroots that seeks to have common ground with people and create a multiethnic coalition that understands that other people's hierarchy of needs is not necessarily your hierarchy of needs. charlie: the idea of what "the became is not the idea banging around in your head when you took this job. jon: what was banging around in

my head is is there a better way comedyute public affairs that means something to me. if i am going to spend this time, i have hosted talk shows, i did one on mtv and diet -- and i did one syndicated. -- spending 12 hours a day on things that did not feel substantial and meaningful to me. can ias a chance to, in a way icomedy about because i have been fired. it is easy to go, i could suck

at this. i am going to put it on the line. input out what he about -- i am going to put out what i care about. a way ing to do it in think is the best iteration of my abilities and if that goes down, i can [indiscernible] charlie: yes, you could. ♪

charlie: was there a moment, a time, an event that you said, we have got it, we have traction, i can be confirmed in my belief that when i was willing to -- rolling the dice on has come up winner? jon: no.n i charlie: in terms of the confidence, what i was insisting on doing. jon: it was morbidly be built -- more would wejon: be able to dep a process. it was a juxtaposition, can we

build a machine that is redundant and up and rigid enough that it can sustain improvisation and creativity? charlie: five days week. when did that happen, did the process kick in? jon: that was not my concern. when did that happen? announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." the technology caught up with what "the daily show" was doing. they pioneered not just the form but the assembly of these kind of -- kinds of montages. they found what

early on was a tone to what they and while it bans went on in the outside world that changed what they thought, they found a tone in a piece steve carell did with john mccain on the straight talk express in late 1999 where where hees a preamble is chasing the bus and trying to get on the bus, one had [indiscernible] andthey go to cindy mccain she is appalled and she says, come on. what you do not know is all the work that went into this. it became a prototype of how jon shifted field pieces away from in his phrase, abject cruelty to an actual point of

view. carell and the producer of that, piece a guy named new commit out. had laid ouit question and he says x, this is how you respond. one of many difficulties is you have world-class improvisers working with civilians who do not know they are in an improv. they develop all these questions of what they are going to ask mccain and most of them are softball like, what kind of tree would you be? what became famous at the end of that piece, at a turning point in the development of the show was carell asked mccain, senator, you have been a strident opponent of poor girl spending. how can you justify when you are chair of the commerce committee, you ok'd billions of dollars in

pork barrel spending and mccain freezes. it is a deer in the headlights moment. and then carell burress the tension by saying -- bursts the tension by saying i was just joking. what was fascinating to me and carell had not remembered it until i talked to him. they found the question in "time magazine" driving over to the shoot and that kind of structure improvisatory genius is something that jon held through his run of the show. jon: it also brings up the "th daily show" para in that moment you holddox. to account a senator whose entire identity is based on a hypocritical behavior.

i am against this type of pork barrel politics unless it nailed you, and what do we have to do at that point question mark we let you go. it is catch and release. we undercut it with a laugh. he gets to the joy and frustration -- it gets to the joy and frustration of doing that type of job. we realize that access did not help us. it is that idea, i got you and here's my one moment area and going to, with a scalpel, go at the crux of your identity as a politician and expose it for everybody to see and then i will have to make a joke about it and walk away and you are going to laugh and it will humanize you. one of the difficulties of this is satire began to take the , this has been given a

greater place in the discussion and a larger role in the discourse than is warranted. happen, that started to begin to question if it is a good thing or bad thing. i know it is not a black and white issue. -- but controlling the culture, as much fun as it taking over a schoolboard. democrats won a popular vote and they do not control the house or the senate, they do not control governorships, they do not control state legislatures. this may be the largest

disconnect between majority rule and majority power that we have had in this country in ages. way -- no way saying i am responsible, we are responsible. there is a comforting culture that can be mistaken for real power. there is only two towns in the world i have ever been that i thought were delusional. thewas washington, d.c. and other was los angeles. the only difference between los washington is they believe they have power. but d.c., that is where it is. the irony -- they have power. charlie: they just believe they have power. jon: that is correct. charlie: i is saying essentially that whatever we are saying about culture and the influence you have on the culture, in the end it is not political power and it is not. jon: it is not real cultural influence. it is a story we tell ourselves

about the rightness of our position and it is not relevant and it is not without weight but it is not with so much weight. i believe that culture played a good role in marriage equality. out that hadstory been, so much of what occurs with inequality is malevolence. i have no experience, i do not know what that is so exposure to that can be positive although generally in eight entertainment since -- in a entertainment's sense. they enjoyed it, it gave them a sense of being part of something that was hip and i n. jon: i will say they did not enjoy it. chris wallace of fox news

said almost exactly those words to me, his kids were never more impressed with him than when he show," and itaily felt like you had been invited to become a member of a hipper club. take it and you had to to the club. that is power. chris: it is power in the way that a bouncer has power. drive down 14th street down by 2nd avenue, palladium ain't there anymore. it is a condom now. -- a condo now. chris: there is a marching band and dancing girls and free jell-o shots. speaking of fox news,

it was the gift that kept on giving. it was the relentless were a good foil because they were offering toicism, which they continue offer. there is no more cynical enterprise than fox news for whatever they want to say about -- liberal media charlie: or fair and balanced. jon: which may be the most cynical expression of any slogan in the history of slogans. that is like if coca-cola when out there and said, healthy vitamins for children. it is completely not fat. fox news is reactionary. in a way that "the daily show" is reactionary. a lot of this new media is a reaction to what they see as either unfairness or something hidden. charlie: did you see what you are doing as simply offering an

alternative -- an alternative to what fox is saying? it, the headline for ison "the huffington post" ewart eviscerates arguments against gay marriage and we would think of it as "the daily show comes up with a somewhat humorous look at where they think is a hypocritical stance on personal freedoms. weight that it should be given. charlie: you saw hypocrisy like you have not seen. that would be the point where you would say -- jon: it was animated by visceral feelings, no question. that is the stuff that this show is basically, if you imagine in general and i hate to do this to your audience and i do not know if this is pbs.

if you want to do a trigger warning. daily show" was a satirical expression of me sitting in my underwear yelling at the television and now i get to go back and do that. chris: there's a point in the book where a lot of different people, among them, an guy john [indiscernible] walk us through what jon and others did to get the permanent extension of the syndrome a bill -- zedroga bill. we can debate influence and power. there were points where "the daily show" had real impact .

does not raise his hand and say, i did that. there are a lot of first responders who will have their medical ills paid because of his focus on this. in that discussion, jon at one point in the book says, in some ways, the debate over zedroga is what "the daily show" fior me was -- for me was all about. thise looking at it that is crazy that it is not getting done. why is this not happening? charlie: the commonsense argument. chris: he and the show were ahead of the curve and people talk about this in the book, and recognizing on the left and the right how government was not functioning for a lot of average americans. they pointed that out in all sorts of ways from the health care debate to the government shutdown, minimum wage, all sorts of things. point, there was a

four -- former correspondent, unhappy experience. about what worked and what did not. he talks in there about how he does not think bernie sanders would have been possible if not for "the daily show." there is a generation of people who grew up thinking about government and to have her see and politicians in terms that jon and "the daily show" defined. you have a lot of reporters who grew up watching. and maybe in this campaign it was too little, too late. maybe it was more print than tv. can we curse? there were a lot of people in --s campaign who called bull

and annotating lies. andt was something that jon with bush andone obama. filtering through media culture. force with meet i would say we are, i am not saying this to denigrate what we did. jon: this was the best iteration of for me what i could do with we prosecuted it to its fullest extent, as far as my brain could go. i was going to be redundant and keep going back and forth with the same thing. i am going to do a terrible analogy. we were patrick swayze after he died in "ghost." we were in the subway yelling at

dead people. and raging and no one could hear if we focused everything we had in one moment at just the right time, at just the right moment, with everything we had, nnes just ave to ca little bit. do you understand question mark we are impotently raging. was 10 years of backbreaking labor. it was corruption at a government level at the highest order that could be done read it was the people that had inhaled as heroes, that ran into burning buildings that were told by our government that the air was safe but there was not safe. they are dying. they continue to die to the

state. they were forced with all their afflictions to go down and hat in hand, knock on doors to people who would not meet their eyesight and those 10 years of working, they did all the construction and at the very in withdy lou who came a little star and got more credit. the ultimate irony of this election is the cynical strategy of the republicans which our government does not work, we're going to make sure that it does not work. they are not draining the swamp. mcconnell and ryan, those guys are the swamp area and what they decided to do was i am going to make sure government does not work and then i will use the the lack of working as evidence of it. not just ap is reaction to democrats by republicans. he is not a republican. he is a repudiation of republicans but they will reap

the benefit of his victory in all of their cynicism and all of their, i will guarantee republicans are going to come to jesus now about that power of government. they are going to suddenly realize, you know what, it is actually not tyranny. when we have won it. it is actually authority and consent to the people. and you know what, you wanted infrastructure project? -- you want a infrastructure project, let me give you tax cuts and see how far you take it. charlie: you are arguing that this country has a long and tortured history of going back and forth on these debates. just on race. jon: i'm talking about the find at -- foundational creed of the country. we were white anglo-saxon protestant. like with immigration. who symbolizes the

complexity and frustration, almost more than anybody, susan b anthony. she fought desperately for women, she was a hero and people were voting for hillary. think steeped in racism and did not want black men to vote before women got the vote. that would not have been fair to her because white women, white is better than black men. those are the inherent contradictions. did that negate all the good that she did? of course not. it tells the story with the complexity that it deserves and to see eachlows us other more clearly and have an empathy and compassion to the complexity of people's hierarchy of needs and not negate people for the worst statement they the liberald or in community, you hate this idea of

creating evil as a monolith. do not look at muslims as a monolith. they are individuals. but everybody who voted for trump is a monolith. racist. that is again, that hypocrisy is also real in our country. fight thats is the we wage against ourselves create america is not natural. natural is tribal. we are fighting against thousands of years of human behavior and history to create something that no one has ever -- that is what is exceptional about america and this ain't easy, it is an incredible thing. i had one of the things hoped the book does is illustrate that in some small way. over thehe show made course of the years of the show involved -- evolved a very effort to diversify

the ranks to on camera to off-camera. new the end of -- near the end rule, there was a confrontation he had with one of the correspondence, an african-american. we go into some detail about how and why that happened. i think it is a fascinating illustration of how people of good intention, strong values, these are tough things to wrestle with day in and day out in workplaces and creative environments. ms. a total coincidence, coates was a guest. and heviewed coates

said, people struggle with racism in good ways all the time that we do not see and hear about. we hear about the confrontation, the conflict. jon did over what the course of a number of years sometimes did not make anybody -- everybody happy but was moving the ball forward, was good intention and progressive in every way. faced with that type of criticism, your first response is generally defensiveness. that is what -- when we first ,tarted the show, comedy especially late night was the realm of late-night ironists. did very witty and people very well in their sats, and

they wrote for their rivals, papers at their colleges and the room was populated with a variety of relatively unathletic white men. charlie: who loved sports. jon: who did not love sports. usually one guy, we would go back to the marvel universe. it, sometimesn the systems that perpetuate different forms of either racism or patriarchy or any of those things, you do not realize you are in it when you are in it, right question mark you certainly do not think of it -- of that as yourself. an article came out that said they do not have women writing for the show and on and on. my first response to it, is they do not understand him a there

are women here, they are in power, this is not a sexist environment, i was raised by a single mother. i went through every little who do they think -- and i thought there were things in the article i thought were cheap shots, and room and the writer's looked around and oh, we are just white dudes with different facial here. i took that as diversity. that guy thinks more in terms of structure. that guy is a pretty good narrative guy. this guy is crazy. we will stay out of his way. every three weeks he will say something and we will go, that is great. charlie: that justifies your existence. jon: right. we had had a policy that you do not put your name on your submissions and i thought that is what made is progressive. what we forgot was the system you women, itel you, wom

funnels the same people. when i call an agency and go, i --looking for writiers, writers, they are going to send me 100 white male writers. i'm not going to look at their names because i do not want to be prejudiced but what you forget is changes effort -- change is effort. it is not effort for efforts sake. it is effort because it makes the show better, stronger, different viewpoints are what gave the show strength. what we had to say is, by the way, thank you for sending those names. send me your women. get me those submissions, please. the same with when we are adding correspondence. you have to do that actively. you deserve no credit for that. but it is, you have to, to a is tacitent, inertia

in its complicity with the system. charlie: by doing so you are ignoring half of the population. jon: and you're not getting the best stuff. chris: it was not publicly known. in a variety of respects over the years felt i am going to be out there talking about veterans, i will make jokes, i should go to the va and actually talk to veterans. ah-hae: did you have that moment in the writer's room? everyone has blind spots and it is hard to overcome your own ignorance and that is what i had to face in myself which is, it is gut wrenching sometimes. ♪

charlie: do you think because of all this and you found the right expression, that you can find something that is equally right for you again? home run simply hit a there, you found the perfect place for you and it was 17 years of -- jon: yes. and i will never have that again, but i should not. was, that it that

was fortunate enough to be graced with four of that time and be in contact with all those incredible people but i do not that -- to find that again. what i found is a more balanced existence where i get, there is a difference between satisfaction and joy. this gave me great satisfaction. they gave me great confidence, but joy, joy. driving a couple of knucklehead kids home from school. i get to listen, joy. you need to have that as well. that is an obsession think, to be able to do it as well as we did, to me felt like the only way we could do it, but at a certain point, you have to hang up your cleats and go, i got out of this more than anybody, my cup runneth over and

edeis time to see the -- c that to someone who's vigor and intellectual curiosity will carry this forward and involve it in new ways and ring into a place that it needs to be that i am incapable of doing. charlie: did you find that joy in making movies? jon: work is work. people say when you're not working, when something happens and you are not at work, you are like, i wish i was at work. you int ever happened to your life? when you are not at work and you think to yourself, i just heard there was, i work in a bar and i heard a bus load of people came in for drinks, i wish i was back there. charlie: what is the most unusual insight from the book, all these interviews of people who were part of the family that you had the privilege to talk to and to get their sense of what was going on? --is: i do not know that

unusual so much as striking that so many of the people working --unaware is too strong but did not realize or take in how much the outside world was paying attention, because the grind of doing the showed day in and day out and the ease those that -- ethos all thoseet, we won emmy awards and we are speaking truth to power. it was about showing up and doing the best show that day possible. sure, they knew people were paying attention, they would go out to the emmys and except awards. but the ability to stay in the moment of the creation of the show to me was really kind of surprising. charlie: you do except the idea that because of the audience,

even people who said it was their source of news, as you know, were influenced by "the daily show" in terms of curiosity and the mindset and those young people especially are going out now and doing this with interesting stuff. they were influenced by you. as a teacher, as an influence. chris: david stimulated a curiosity for people -- if it stimulative a curiosity for people to make arguments, if it stimulated a curiosity for people to look at much a look behind the veil of what is seen publicly and try and deconstruct what they see on television and what they see in political campaigns, i would consider that an incredible consonant to the show and to the legacy. charlie: anti-e.u.. -- and to you. it. my name was on i would also caution everybody, it did not come from our perspective. there were a lot of people out .here who thought it was unfair

one of the big things people said, when people pushed back you say, i am just a comedian. i never really said that. i had every utterance of 20 years. i will vouch for that. he never said i am just a comedian. he took responsibility in all kinds of ways or the point of view as well as the jokes. jon: and the material. that is not to say, this is comedy, it does not matter. the point is to say that the language of satire is different than the language of news and the language of media. our weapons are hyperbole and satire and hard juxtapositions cudgetl a cordial -- when news media could use a scalpel. charlie: the book written by

chris smith, forward by jon stewart. ♪

♪ david: did you think you would grow up to be the ceo of a large company like pepsi? ms. nooyi: it is a dream come true. david: to get advice from people all the time and do ever listen to it? ms. nooyi: you never know if a nugget of an idea can translate into a success. my job is not to keep an activist happy to keep the company performing well. david: suppose someone has a company based in atlanta and you see it in the refrigerator, what do you do? ms. nooyi: and let it be known that i am very unhappy. >> can you fix your tide please. david: