♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: kurt andersen is here. his new article "how america lost its mind" is the cover issue of the atlantic. his new article traces the history of today's assault on truth and fact, looking to the 1960's. he writes that the election of donald trump revealed a critical mass of americans have become untethered from reality. here is how that happened. his article was adapted from the upcoming book, "fantasyland: how american went haywire." that will be published later this month. i am glad to have curt anderson

back at this table. let's talk about the big book. it goes all the way back to the 1500s? kurt: it is called "fantasyland: how american went haywire, a 500 year history." it goes back to the pilgrims. charlie: religion is a part of the story. kurt: it is definitely part of the story, as is smoke and mirrors, american business, show business, lots of stuff. we always were big dreamers and true believers, believers of the fanciful and dubious, with an equilibrium with practicality and pragmatism, yankee clarity. as i talk about in this book, in the 1960's, that balance went away. we lost the balance. suddenly, everybody was permitted to find their own truth and create their own reality.

judgementalism was no longer permissible. part of what is interesting was that part of my story, this several hundred year journey, was what happened in the 1960's. these things that happened on the cultural left, the bohemian left, the countercultural left, , theeft in academia relativism and the find your own truth came out of that world in the late 1960's and 1970's, has empowered the far right, and empowered donald. isn't that ironic? charlie: it is, indeed. how did it do that? kurt: what started in academia, san francisco, in woodstock, all of these things, these

phenomenon of the late 1960's and early this relativism, this 1970's, is your truth and my truth, it became the american way of thinking. it enabled nonsense and preposterous ideas all over the map, including some of alternative health ideas and other things on the "left." i argue it also, more consequentially, what used to marginalized far right ideas, and more generally of i just want to believe what i want, and it enabled it on the right. he started saying you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. he started saying that at a time when people starting acting as if they were entitled to their own facts. be, in yourl there

judgment, a reaction to what we are going through now -- a corrective action? kurt: we can hope. charlie: what does history tell us to expect? kurt: history tells us -- the silent majority and nixon was a reality to the kurt: 1960's. i worry that we can contain it, but there's probably no rolling it back. that the belief that whatever i want to believe to be true, i'm going to believe to be true, that we no longer have an establishment setting down a set of shared, factual, empirical agreement, that there may not be a hopeful end. where it will go back to the way it was. charlie: i'm not sure whether this is new or not, but you have a president of the u.s. saying what people are telling you is not true, it's fake news, and you can't believe the media. kurt: anything that is inconvenient to me or that i disagree with is fake.

charlie: there's no objective standard we can look at. kurt: which is dangerous. charlie: because, among other things, what happens when someone like the national security council or national intelligence apparatus might recommend something based on hard-nosed reality, and the president doesn't believe it because he has created this disrespect for what people we have depended on are telling us? kurt: right. and there are decent people of integrity on the right, what i call true conservatives, who are coming out and saying, "we are culpable for convincing our followers that to distrust reality with which they disagree -- " and it has been going on

again through media, talk radio, talk television the internet, to , enable people to make them think they are entitled to their own facts. if climate scientists or national security expert comes on and says come here at the facts, i do not have to believe that because it doesn't conform , with my opinion. a climate denier, a believer that vaccines cause autism that -- when that is not true we can , go on and on. charlie: and they can say that i read it on twitter. kurt: as the president said, more than once, i don't know, i saw it on the internet. charlie: that's another part of the scary thing. there's so much on the internet that is not believable. that is not true. therefore -- but it gets distinguished from that which is

believable. if you have not made a serious attention to the facts, you may not know the difference. kurt: that's the problem. things on the internet for 20 years look real. it looks like "the economist," or "the washington post," but is from fantasyland. charlie: in the 1960's, it was driven by youth culture. what is happening today is not driven by youth culture. kurt: and it was driven by middle-aged people who decided -- people in academia who decided to pander to youth culture. it's not. that is what is so strange. it has seeped into all of american culture now for so many years. have your own truth, find your own truth, do your own thing, that it is no longer about youth. it is part of the american mental operating system. charlie: what happened in the 1970's to change what was coming out of the 1960's?

kurt: it scaled. instead of being this thing that a few thousand, maybe a few million hippies acted upon, and a few hundred or a few thousand academics, what happened on campuses and at woodstock didn't stay there. it filtered out into the whole world. then we got the internet. we got technologies, cable, talk radio, and the internet that gave this alternative facts world their own infrastructure. an infrastructure that i don't deny all the virtues of the internet, but i think there are half been unreckoned costs. charlie: is there anything we can do about it? kurt: no. i look back at the founders.

thomas jefferson eloquently wrote about how he would rather have all this nonsense, because reason will always triumph, because in the marketplace of ideas, it will push away the bad. well, part of the problem is, in terms of internet search for starters, the way its constructed is that it rewards the excitingly untrue and false. charlie: because it is exciting? kurt: yes because it is , exciting. like religion, it's more interesting to think that there are puppet masters pulling all of the strings like god, but in this case -- charlie: or the conspiracy idea of adults getting together in different places around the world to control the world. kurt: exactly. and to make it a very tightening fiction in a way

reality seldom is. charlie: they believe something, there must be some power they are not familiar with in control of things. kurt: that there must be some saying -- if not god, then dark, sinister forces in control. charlie: is that why donald trump had appealed to people, of that belief? they believed because he created his own image that he was rich enough and strong enough and unwilling to back down after saying the most outrageous things, they saw him as a figure to go to battle for them? kurt: he had been in these kabals where the puppet masters work, so he understood it. charlie: even though the facts are that he was incentivized by the fact that he wasn't part of the establishment. kurt: indeed. his presentation is what he -- that resentment is what he

shares with his base. charlie: why does he do it? kurt: the thing i have always thought about donald trump -- charlie: he was a primary target when you were a young editor. kurt: a journalist and satirist at "spy magazine." charlie: you were 25? kurt: not 25, but not much older. charlie: you ripped apart donald trump, satirized him. kurt: we observed him closely. what always astounded me about him, and still does, was his thirst for, need for attention, the way you and i need water and air and food. literally like a drug addict needs drugs. the thing is, he's now getting more attention than anyone on earth perhaps has ever gotten. charlie: no doubt about it, the most famous person, maybe in history, in terms of more people know who he is than anybody else. kurt: and you and ion everyone

we know were thinking about him. charlie: back to the youth thing. the 1960's were fueled by people like timothy leary, and some philosophers that were middle-aged, and musicians. but today, the youth are a smaller part of the antiestablishment. in brexit, they assumed the young would vote to remain. kurt: and they did. charlie: what remained was in fact -- people who wanted to leave for the populists and the anti-globalists. kurt: and older people wanted it to be the way it was before. charlie: and who worried somebody in brussels would take away their pension. kurt: right. part of what i'm talking about here in this article in "the

atlantic" and in this book is this anti-elite, antiestablishment thing, which has always been part of the american idea and character. that's what i'm saying got a little bit out of control in the late 1960's and 1970's, and never got -- the establishment basically never regained full control of the discourse. of, this is true and this is false. that's where we are today. charlie: you think of the establishment as universities, academia, wall street, media. kurt: and the republican party. the karl rove-bush establishment, now beleaguered small wing of the republican party, thought they were in control until the spring of 2016. they thought all these people

that we riled up -- we will still nominate marco rubio or jeb bush, that's one of ours. they realized they were out of control. charlie: factor in religion. kurt: america is exceptionally religious and has always been compared to the rest -- charlie: founded by people seeking religious freedom. kurt: that is a terrible way of putting it. founded by a theocratic cult of religion. so we have always been more religious than the rest of the developed world. more than europe back then, more than japan and australia and canada now. we are outliers in religiosity compared to the rest of the developed world. not just a little bit. a lot. we are more extravagantly religious. we are more religious. there is no coincidence that we invented mormonism and

pentecostalism. compared to our set of europe, canada, australia, the modern, developed world, we are not like any of them. as a culture, once you are more inclined to believe in magic and supernatural events, it will not stay in the religious realm. it will leach out into not believing in climate change. charlie: what is the fantasy industrial complex? all the things we have been talking about, or something else? kurt: it is all the things we define as the entertainment business. movies, television, video games, now the internet and all that. but it is the way in which in america, not uniquely, but quintessentially -- everything

becomes entertainment. real estate becomes entertainment. restaurants become themed. everything becomes part of show business. the great religious entrepreneurs starting through the 1700s, through the 1800s and 1900s, were showmen, empresarios. charlie: they all had personalities. kurt: but joseph smith and billy sunday, and in the 20th century they began understanding, i'm , using newsreels, radio, tv. charlie: they really did understand television. he would buy their own television time, and all of a sudden there wasn't one church

with 200 parishioners, it was one church with 5 million parishioners, coming together on sunday morning on television. kurt: correct. when cable came along, not just sunday morning, but all the time. the title is "fantasyland: how america went haywire: a 500 year history." you can get a taste of it in "the atlantic monthly's september issue. a little piece of it. charlie: thank you for dropping by. the great kurt anderson. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ charlie: the global economy and

financial markets were brought to their knees a decade ago in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the great depression. 10 years ago this week, bnp paribas restricted exposure to subprime assets. many consider that event as the moment the crisis began. the following year, lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy, setting off a cascade of bank failures and bailouts that reverberated across the globe. "the financial times" launched an online series looking at the causes and legacy of the crisis. it will run through september 2. gillian is the managing editor. i am pleased to have her.

how did you measure with the 10 years should be delineated? gillian: the reason why them bnp event was important is that was a moment investors could wake up and realize they are the reason why credit markets -- that moment that it relies solely on faith and confidence. that was a moment investor confidence in the financial system began to crack. he became contagious. it became a bit like the financial equivalent of a food poisoning scam. what started to happen with people woke up one day and realized there were some dodgy mortgage-backed securities and systems. no one knew where the rotten securities were. just like a food poisoning crisis when parents panic and

stop kids eating all burgers because a few cows got sick, suddenly investors panicked and stopped dealing with the financial system. charlie: we know that a year earlier, u.s. house prices reached their peak. gillian: it is a classic example. it is like a cartoon when someone goes off their cliff and they hover midair with of their legs running, and they look down and suddenly crash. there have been signs from the middle of 2006 that the housing market was overextended. there were dangerous things happening. i had been writing a column saying, this is complete madness. and yet when the music is playing, we all keep dancing until suddenly they look down. confidence began to evaporate. and the system cracked. charlie: in 2007, hsbc announces losses tied to the u.s. subprime mortgage is this. they knew they were in deep trouble. gillian: the real problem was

people knew there were problems , but could not identify where they were. essentially, they built such a complicated system that nobody knew how the inner workings were operating. it was really a panic about what people didn't know rather than what they did know that started the whole crisis. charlie: if you don't know what you don't know, you have a problem in terms of trust, credibility, everything else. gillian: absolutely. as always, the things that caused biggest crises are not always the things everyone knows are risky. is what comes with a triple a label and what seems so normal. what's amazing about the crisis looking back a decade ago, this stuff wasn't hidden by any kind of plot. cabal oft a james bond

bankers trying to blow up the world. this was actually happening in plain sight, but everyone chose to avert their eyes. charlie: because they had never seen it go down. gillian: they didn't question it. charlie: a new century subprime lender filed for bankruptcy in 2007. gillian: at that point, we are looking at subprime lenders filing bankruptcy. what happens to the extended loans? people were too busy dancing to the music. charlie: in june 2007, hedge funds were in trouble. that's when i began to notice it. the mainstream media began to talk about it. gillian: when the mainstream media began to talk about it what became clear if people did , not understand what was happening. one thing i remember at the time is that i would have central bankers call me up and ask what i thought was going on. charlie: bankers? gillian: on both sides of the

atlantic. covering the weeds -- charlie: that's like having janet yellen calling you up. gillian: it wasn't quite janet yellen, but i had been running the financial times in london, and i was looking very closely at the financial system, one of the few people warning about it. there was such a lack of knowledge about what was happening that central bankers were calling up, saying do you know what these weird products with funny acronyms, -- extraordinary moment. charlie: august 9, 2007, bnp paribas shuts access to investment funds who had large holdings of subprime mortgages. gillian: the moment is important because that is when the european central bank stepped in and tried to quell what it saw was initially a small crisis by providing support to the markets.

no one noticed at the time, but if you look, that was the beginning of a decade-long experiment. the central banks had not done that kind of emergency crisis. ecb stepped in, very badly, and set the stage for a lot more action by central banks later on . charlie: after that it was too late. gillian: in summer, the markets calmed down in the autumn. in the u.k., you had a collapse, the beginnings of problems. the real storm in the u.s. did not happen until 2008, when there was a serious of missed opportunities. the real problem was that what happened in the u.s. after the loss of confidence was the american authorities trying to sweep it under.

they tried to provide vehicles to freeze that assets in the system. to avoid having to face up to the scale of the problem, we will write it off quickly. the japanese had been through the crisis a decade earlier. they came to me because surely they got what the americans have to do is wake up, face the problems, and create a support package. but washington tried to sweep it under the carpet for years. charlie: some people did try to speak out. gillian: they did try, but there was an overwhelming belief in the superiority of the american system. i was working in japan a decade earlier and i had seen what happens.

the american leadership was convinced that it would be fine. gillian: charlie: most people believe timothy geithner, saved the american system. do you believe that? gillian: i think they did a pretty remarkable job after the event started. it took a long time to act. if they had acted more decisively earlier they could , have staved off a lot of the crisis and damage. but they did come in in the end, and by early 2009, after the lehman brothers collapsed, the agi fiasco, they were stepping in. they were supporting financial markets. charlie: even some who didn't want to, like j.p. morgan. gillian: exactly. they were forcing write-downs.

today from the vantage point of europe, if europe had done that at the same time as americans, the european banking system would be much healthier. it is not, because they delayed even more than the americans. another big lesson is you have to act decisively quickly and early to make the crisis better. charlie: that is the lesson of the u.s. and japan. gillian: japan took a long time before they realized it. they delayed a decade. charlie: where are we today? gillian: we have a financial system that is a lot healthier, particularly in america. charlie: with more regulation. now the president would like to eliminate some of that. gillian: he wants to roll it back. some of the regulation was sensible, some was not. the problem is we do have a financial system that has become addicted to incredibly cheap, if not free money, from central banks. it is unclear how it can go back to anything resembling normality. essentially the financial activity is not happening in

banks, it's happening outside banks. charlie: hedge funds and the like. gillian: it is still a very distorted financial system. the big question with the federal reserve raising rates is what on earth is going to happen as rates begin to go up and normality returns? will there be a smooth landing, or will we turn around and discover actually the whole system today is propped up on confidence in central banks? charlie: the chairman of the european central bank made a famous statement, we will do what it takes -- they gave confidence to the system. gillian: the last 10 years, that confidence turned out to be more durable than the confidence in private banks a decade ago. charlie: china is a big problem. support of central banks is a big problem.

in terms of the dependence on central banks. what are the other big problems? gillian: one of the big issues is cybersecurity. the entire modern financial system is dependent on cyberspace and cyber links working. nobody has yet to work out what would happen if -- charlie: why did they do that? i do not understand why, as smart as everyone is, why they can't figure out what to do if there is a hacking of some significant financial institution. gillian: there is a very unequal power balance. the banks are doing a remarkable job in the west and getting better with cybersecurity problems. charlie: there are attacks all the time. gillian: absolutely. but the reality is the world is becoming a lot more unstable

politically, and we should be grateful there have not been more shocks. the other big question is what on earth is going to happen if we see more geopolitical instability? equity markets are discounting that. we have a soaring stock market. charlie: explain that to me. all these things you're suggesting are there and very, very dicey. the stock market is exploding. gillian: i think the financial system is a lot more robust than it was a decade ago. charlie: timothy geithner sat at this table and others, and ben bernanke, and they said that the thing that stunned them the most was how fragile the financial system was. gillian: as i say, there's a reason why the roots of the word credit comes from the meaning to believe. you have to trust. if you don't have trust, credit markets do not work. when they woke up and realized they couldn't value anything, everyone is today, just like 2006, everyone had investment portfolios indirectly dependent on subprime mortgage.

today the portfolios depends on china. almost everybody has some element of a chinese exposed asset in their portfolio. you are indirectly exposed. we live in a very connected world where contagion can spread quickly. it is very opaque still. there is a lot we do not understand. the other issue which i keep coming back to is the bond market. we have bonds now at extraordinarily high prices and interest rates at low prices. everyone is saying i'm so , confident that the economy will stay stable, and the government will pay back my money, and i will lend the government money and get almost no return back over 5, 10, 20 years. that requires a leap of blind faith because bond prices are so

low so people are taking. charlie: explain to me -- when equity markets are hot like today, what happens to the bond market? gillian: normally, that implies there will be growth. bond prices go down. bond yields, which move in opposite direction, go up. one of the most remarkable things is that equity markets are high and bond prices stay high as well. right now, there's a lot of money swirling around the system, looking for a home. that has pushed up equity prices, bond prices real estate , prices. charlie: do we have to much -- too much liquidity? gillian: i would argue yes. after crisis, it's like throwing fuel onto the fire.

the central bank kept putting more fuel on the fire. now we have the beginning of a flame. the risk is, you end up with too much fuel. it's a bonfire they can't control. the central bankers themselves know about the problem. they want to adjust to more normal situations, but nobody in history has ever done anything like this before. the federal reserve one from $1 trillion on the balance sheet to $4 trillion. can you trim that back? they are trying, but it is where the rubber will hit the road. it's not just stopping the financial crisis, it's getting back to normal. charlie: what's the likelihood of that? gillian: i think they've done a good job so far in terms of the experiment. i have a fair degree of confidence and what they call

normalizing the balance sheet, shrinking the balance sheet. i certainly wouldn't bet on that happening without any more mini squalls. the best way to go out against a -- to guard against a financial crisis is to have small regular crises. not big enough to block the entire system, but not so small no one notices. human nature is, we all have short memories. you need to have a little bit of a shock every few years to keep everyone on their toes and not become complacent. charlie: lack of enough of a shock so you go to the doctor for an examination. thank you for coming. gillian tett, u.s. managing editor of "the financial times." they are beginning a series looking at the financial crisis and the present state of the global economy. back in a moment. stay with us. ♪ whoooo.

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donald trump has led to a wealth of opportunity for political satirists in late-night television programs. "full frontal with samantha bee," has received critical and commercial success for the commentary on donald trump. the new yorker called samantha bee america's new comedian in chief. in the new yorker, one of the

few comforts of trump in the white house is the fact that bee is there to hold him and the rest of us to account. this series is nominated for seven emmy awards. including outstanding variety talk series and writing for a variety series. they were also nominated for outstanding variety special. in last week's episode, samantha traveled to kurdistan, where she found a surprising amount of support for donald trump. samantha: did you say donald trump is your best chance? when donald trump says to black people, what have you got to lose, that is true, no one else is going to do it? why not donald trump? >>[speaking foreign language]

charlie: joining me is the creator and star of "full frontal," samantha bee, jo miller, and miles kahn. i am pleased to have them all at this table. is the success of this making you giddy, and you are having too much time, or is it so hard to be funny? even 30 minutes a week, you have no time to do anything but comedy. samantha: it is all the things you just said. [laughter] it's amazing and fun, and of course we're giddy, and we also work incredibly hard. it's difficult, because anything worth doing is incredibly difficult. you know that. does donald make it much easier? samantha: no, he blows up our show every day. [laughter]

jo: we had a show in the can around 8:00 p.m. tuesday night, the earliest we had gotten it done. and then he had fired comey. [laughter] charlie: you couldn't let that go. jo: we went into the control room for rehearsal, and then someone said that trump just tweeted a ban of transgender soldiers. charlie: but has satire changed? is it different than it was because of trump, because of the times changing, because we have so much late-night comedy today? samantha: there are certainly more people. i don't think satire has changed. i think our process has intensified. i think our level of fear and anxiety has intensified. charlie: fear and anxiety. jo: we were screaming a long time before the election.

brexit, remember our screeching? [laughter] samantha: nobody ever listens to us. charlie: you tried to warn us about brexit. is that because of your european audience? [laughter] samantha: yeah, nobody ever listens to us, and this is the result of that. so people should get on the ball. charlie: where do you draw the line? there is a definition that this side is satire and this side is activism. on this side is an agenda, and on this side is people who want to make you think and laugh. samantha: there is a very fine line. everything in the show is very intentional. balling. free we walk that line very carefully. charlie: you did something for the committee for journalism?

jo: we do a lot of campaigns to raise money. if there's an opportunity to raise money for causes. miles: we raised awareness for getting felons rights to vote back in florida. charlie: how do do it? miles: so many different ways. we do it as a way to put a package together in the field and say, listen, we need to do something for the people. we have to amplify the message. we have to make it funny. we can't do the activism part if it's not funny. we bought a newspaper once, too. [laughter] charlie: expensive? samantha: not very. [laughter]

if we do something like that, it has to be very authentic to the show. it has to come from an organic place. charlie: what is the line? what is it you try not to do in terms of not being preachy? you don't want to be preachy. samantha: no. charlie: that is what amateurs do? samantha: it's not fun. we don't send a partisan message because that is tedious. charlie: is it a partisan message in the end? there is an edge that says, left of center. samantha: for a lot of things, but not everything. it just emerges the way we want it to. we don't care what other people think. charlie: but do you think of yourself as a political animal? samantha: not really. jo: everyone in america is a political animal now. samantha: we have to be

political animals now. have you had a conversation in a cab that was not political for the past six months? jo: i have not. charlie: when you get into a cab, what do they say? samantha: i love talking. i love talking to people in taxis. charlie: but nothing surprises you anymore? samantha: i always get surprised. i was surprised by the depths that we can descend to. is whatsurprising this makes it difficult. it is like standing on a log that is rolling. i never realized before how much predictability made our job easier. we had been doing this for years at "the daily show." we had seen where things go and we knew where they would land. we had seen the show before. miles: there was a cycle to it. you could take a breath, process

one thing at a time. maybe the accidental genius of this administration is that every two hours it is a new breaking news story. charlie: but it may be changing because of kelly. miles: he sent out like a dozen tweets. he started trashing blumenthal. [laughter] it's raining outside, tee time got pushed. [laughter] so he had nothing to do today. charlie: i thought kelly had him go through a filter. then i guess he did not go on vacation with him. but kelly ann went on vacation with him? samantha: it didn't help anything. i don't feel like we have found the bottom. i don't think we have even come close. charlie: kurt andersen is coming on the show and he will talk about "fantasyland," his take on the trump administration. can you imagine what it's like on the bottom? samantha: i have a complete

failure of imagination. miles: we tried before the election to see what the bottom looked like. she reminded us you are not there yet. you won't see it at first. it will become normal. charlie: she had seen what had happened with vladimir putin, so she was saying you can't imagine , before until you see it? miles: yes. and children who are born now think it is regular. he has been in power for 17 years. it's a normal if you have grown up there. charlie: tell me about this. this is dana rohrabacher. i think in the nixon administration as a young aide, then became a congressman from -- what did he do in moscow?

jo: remember the republican meeting when somebody quipped there were only two people in the pay of vladimir putin, dana rohrabacher and trump? and paul ryan last and said not to repeat that. charlie: here's a clip. samantha: we turn to c-span to hear dana rohrabacher talk about collusion. apparently after a liquid lunch at the grill. >> if someone says to you they want to give you information, there's nothing wrong with that. that was a legitimate thing to ask, and determine, absolutely, there's nothing wrong with -- by the way, i am the chairman of asian and, europe and eurasian subcommittee, including emerging threats. [laughter] samantha: you are? jesus. somebody get him off.

before he accidentally starts a war in -- you have slurred your piece. i'm sure the rest of your colleagues would like a turn. >> i appreciate it so much, my very good friend from california. samantha: nice crowd you guys got there. i haven't seen that many empty seats since ted cruz's birthday party. charlie: are you still happy that is a 30 minute show once a week? are you relieved? samantha: yes. we never want to do more than one show per week. can you imagine? charlie: what if it was an hour? some of your specials, people say it would be so good if you were on for one hour. samantha: nobody wants to watch an hour of me. even 30 minutes four times a week. it gives you enough space from the other shows you can sit back , a little and watch the stories emerge in a different way. you can also have a bit of a life.

which is nice. jo: what? [laughter] samantha: you know, you can go to kurdistan. there's a little leeway to do a few more things. jo: you can do things more in-depth and digest them. newsweek is a good thing. nobody wants it to be the size of a phone book. charlie: it could be the size of a postcard. samantha: it is a hot cake. it's good to sit back a little bit. charlie: less is more. jo: twitter can handle the one-liners. we have a social presence. charlie: does the internet make it easier and more fun, because of twitter, everything that's possible? because it has created a class of people who knows what everyone else is saying. samantha: it is fun. it is engagement. miles: it's terrifying for me. i wake up and i scare myself.

the first thing i do is i scroll. charlie: to see what insane thing has been said? miles: we are constantly bombarded with information. it is fun and terrifying. jo: someone said the other night, i feel like i can't go to bed because twitter is still on. [laughter] but it does mean that we can expect a level of basic -- base knowledge in our audience. people used to say they got their news from "the daily show," which they shouldn't do, but they did. now we are getting it from twitter so we can build on a base of knowledge and not have to retell the story. so we can assume they have read it and we can tell the jokes. charlie: is "the daily show," a perfect training ground for what you do? samantha: certainly. we all come from there. charlie: what did you learn? samantha: you learn how to tell stories, you learn timing, the stories you feel passionately about.

jo: you learn how to write a comedic essay. charlie: do you learn the difference in what is funny and what is not funny? jo: you don't get the job unless you know that. samantha: that comes from within. charlie: is it changing other than the ratings are growing? is anything else changing? i know you are traveling. curtis stamm, moscow. samantha: that was always a part of it. charlie: was that a part of going in, or is it something you just thought of one day, let's go to russia? samantha: for the first few shows, i went to jordan. the big part of the thought process behind creating this show -- miles: we have to get her in the field. it is what she is good at. samantha: i do not feel like we are changing. everybody is getting better at their job. other things are

flowing into the stream. samantha: we did a musical. charlie: tell me about the not the white house correspondents dinner. how did that come about? samantha: i was sitting in my office with jo and another one of our producers. we were having a fun conversation. newt gingrich said something about how the white house press corps was an anachronism and we should get rid of it. we were talking and riffing and having a nice conversation. we were wondering if the white house correspondents would exist. that was last november. charlie: what's amazing, we do the same thing. we see something in the paper and decide we would like to have them as a guest. but from such small acorns, big trees grow.

it is the idea of sitting around the office one big idea from , newt gingrich. samantha: that's why the show works. charlie: take a look at samantha's opening monologue. samantha: as much as i might love poking fun at the media, and as much as you all kind of deserve it sometimes, i know your job has never been harder. potus convinced 88% of his fans that you are an enemy of the people. you get paid to stand in a cage while a geriatric orangutan and his pet mob screams that you. it's like a reverse zoo. but you carry on. you dig up misdeeds and fraud by the powerful, you expose injustice against the week and you continue to fact check the president as if someday he might someday get embarrassed. [laughter] [applause] so tonight is for you. tonight, the president screams

at a pen that katy tur is not in. cheers. charlie: she is now writing a book about her experience. jo: i know, i cannot wait. samantha: we will have to fight over her. [laughter] charlie: when you sit in the room to talk about these things, do the ideas come flowing out? samantha: they do. and they come out on our computers, too. everyone is throwing in ideas all the time. it's a pretty democratic experience. miles: the office is like a creative incubator. everybody is constantly feeling ideas throwing lines out. ,they find if that works. charlie: thank you. it is great to have you here. much success. "full frontal with samantha bee," is on wednesday nights. thank you for joining us. ♪ ♪

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alisa: i'm alisa parenti in washington and you are watching "bloomberg technology." let's start with a check of your first word news. president trump sent a warning to north korea that threats to the u.s. could be met with "fire and fury." that is after pyongyang said that the u.s. would pay dearly for imposing sanctions. meantime, the post reported today that north korea had developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that fit into missiles. democrats on the house oversight committee are making a push for additional information on money spent by the federal government that trump for profit properties. they sent letters to cabinet secretaries and departments across the country, requesting documents detailing payments to trump business.