et money money, money, money ♪ ♪ and i don't know no other way but try ♪ ♪ and i'ma go hard till the day i die ♪ comedy central >> from comedy central's world news headquarters in new york, this is "the daily show" with trevor noah. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: welcome to "the daily show," everybody. i'm trevor noah. my guest tonight is a really amazing man, a yale law professor who last week won a pulitzer prize for his book "locking up our own." james forman jr. is joining us, everybody! ( cheers and applause ) now, it's going to be a great

conversation because his book is about race and criminal justice, a topic that is very much in the conversation right now. for example, in last couple of days, you may have heard the name meek mill in the news. and if you were just hearing it for the first time, you were probably thinking, "meek mill? is that a gluten-free granola bar or?" it's like, "here at meek mill we only use the gentle coats." meek mill is a bi-time rapper who just dropped a surprise release. >> well-known rapper meek mill, whose arrest drew widespread protest celebrated his freedom last time. the court ordered his release, citing credibility problems with a key witness in his original trial 10 years ago. >> how do you feel? >> i feel great. >> he met with comedian kevin hart in the locker room. >> trevor: damn! who is kevin hart's agent? he's even starring in meek

mill's prison release? he's everywhere. but the story really is agreement news, not just for meek mel but advocates of criminal justice reform because meek mill had become a symbol of a system that tries to keep people in prison rather than genuinely giving them a sub chance. and meek mill's release wasn't the only good news for justice today. >> a verdict in the retrial of comedian bill cosby. the man has now been found guilty on all charges against him. guilty of sexual assault, three second-degree felonies. he faces a possibility of up to 30 years in prison for his crimes. >> trevor: yup, bill cosby, guilty. so i guess once again, he's given us a classic heartwarming ending. so it's officially over for bill cosby now, because, whether he goes to jail or not, the shameful title of sexual predator will hang over his head forever. so he can't do anything now, except maybe run for president. ( laughter ) but let's switch to intercontinental news pup remember how president trump told us he got north korea to

agree it stop conducting nuclear tests? well, it seems that north korea conveniently left something out. >> north korea's only nuclear test site appears to have collapsed. that may be why kim jong-un says he's suspending tests. the site is under a mountain in the northeast part of the country. chinese scientists say it collapsed after five nuclear blasts. >> the north korean test triggered earthquakes, making the area unsafe for further testing. >> trevor: whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! so part of the deal kim jong-un is making is give up the test site that he already destroyed. i didn't realize that out o "art of the deal" was translated into korean. that's a slick move. it's like when your meth lab blows up and the cops arrive and you're like, "okay, i'll make it easy for all of us. you tbiez drop the charges and i'll stop making meth. i'll just stoop it." and by the way, it was always weird that the news said the site was shut down because it was now unsafe to test nuclear weapons. like, how safe does it need to

be to test nukes safely at a site. are there safety inspectors walking around, we'd love to incinerate with the heat of 1,000 suns but that staircase doesn't have a railing. it's just not safe." this is probably my favorite part of theistic the whole north korea part of the story. when kim jong-un goes down to south korea to discuss denuclearization, it's been reported he will be bring his own personal toilet, because-- and this is completely real it's north koreans are afraid that foreign spies are going to try and steal kim's poo, to discover if he has any medical issues. they're going to annual it. and you know the story made me hazel that james bond has really glamorized how we see spies. ( laughter ) because we think it's all like driving aston martins and getting lay in monte carlo. meanwhile, his mission is squatting in a porta potty. ♪ ♪

but let's move on. today was a very bad day for president trump. not only was his favorite comedian found guilty, but then the man he picked for veterans affairs was forced to withdraw from consideration. and on top of all of that, trump's 23andme results came back, and they confirm that he's 50% eric. so-- ( laughter ). >so trump did whateveryone doesg down. he called into a fox news morning exphoa it was honestly epic. normally, when trump has a bad day, we know trump watches "fox & friends" and ideal at the tv. today he did the same thing but we all got to listen in. and you could tell from the start that this was going to be special. >> thank you so much for being with us, mr. president. >> well, good morning. and i picked a very, very special day because it's melania's birthday. so i said, "let's do it on melania's birthday." so happy birthday to melania. >> hopefully there will be visits in between. do you want to tell us what you got her?

>> well, i better not get into that, because i may get in trouble. maybe i didn't get her so much. i'll tell you what she has done-- i got her a beautiful card. ( laughter ) >> trevor: how did trump mess up the world's easiest question. it's like they threw him a softball and he swung and hit himself in the dick. ( laughter ) ( applause ) and, i mean, it's her birthday. i can't believe that cobald didn't get melania anything for her birthday. now she might think he's not a very good husband. ( laughter ) also, i would pay anything to know what he wrote inside that card that he definitely didn't actually get. like, "roses are red. love it is a mystery. i had a historic electoral college victory." why did trump say he called in to "fox & friends"? because it was melania's birthday. like, what does that mean. "honey, i've got a great celebration planned for us today. i'm going to talk to some tv people while sitting on the

toilet." like, "oh, thank you, donald. my life is a beautiful dream." ( laughter ) okay, so, so the interview didn't get off to a great start. but then it got worse. >> i get along with kanye. i get along with a lot of people, frankly. but kanye looks, and he sees black unemployment at the lowest it's been in the history of our country. >> have republicans done a bad job ignoring the black community up until now? >> you know, i think it was just a custom. people don't realize, you know, if you go back to the civil war, it was the republicans that really did the thing. lincoln was a republican. >> trevor: "republicans did the thing"?" ( laughter ) trump would make a dope history teacher. ( laughter ) it would be so easy to pass. "class, what was the turning point in the civil war?" "uh, the thing?" "a-plus."

like he's the first sober person i have heard doing drunk history. that's amazing. the interview was so long and incoherent and rambling, even trump's friends on "fox & friends," became uncomfortable, and you could tell by the looks on their faces. >> i will not be involved with the justice department. i will wait until this is over. it's a total-- it's allalize. it's an absolute disgrace. >> all right. >> and by the way-- >> i want to ask you. >> no, no, but think of it. for their loss of the electoral college that they should never lose because the electoral college is set up-- 700,000 to a group. years to approve them. years. we have judges. you would think these guys would treat me great. i made them a fortune, but they treat me horribly. "you're still looking good, mr. president." there is no collusion with me. i would rather have the popular vote because to me it's much easier -- >> it's a totally different set of goals as opposed to the electoral college. >> we have an electoral college.

i got 306 and she got 223. there was no way to break 270. i heard that on cbs and nbc and abc. they're all fake news. i heard that for so long. and cnn. >> let's talk about-- >> do better than-- >> mr. president. right. we could talk to you all day, but it looks like you have a million things to do. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> trevor: oh! oh wow. i can safely say that i've never seen a news anchor try to bail on an interview with the president of the united states. like, how is it that he was the commander in chief, but it's the couch people who have better things to do. "we'd love to keep chatting but there's a video of a dog skateboarding and we have to go, mr. president. good-bye." if you're at a party and some boring-ass dude wouldn't stop

talking to you you get a drink. but they were on live television. the only thing they could come up with was trump had more important things to do when it was clear he did. no"no, actually, i have the whoe day free. after all, it's melania's birthday." we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause ) ♪ you're simply the best. ♪ better than all the rest ♪ applebee's new bigger bolder grill combos. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: welcome back to "the daily show." you know how-- you know how you always hear about how trump and his people haven't read the constitution part the second amendment? well, today we found out that's not true. they've read up until five.

>> breaking developments in pre's stormy daniels saga. his longtime personal attorney, michael cohen, declaring in federal court papers that he will invoke the fifth amendment in the lawsuit filed against him by the porn star. that's asserting his right not to incriminate himself. >> trevor: guys, this is crazy. you realize prior to this, porn stars and the bill of rights had almost nothing to do with each other. ( laughter ) , i mean, obviously, the first amendment gives you the right to make porn, and the ninth amendment gives you the right to bear dildos, but this is still a big step. that's right, michael cohen, president trump's personal lawyer, is asserting his fifth amendment right. when he is called in to testify, he won't have to answer any questions which might hurt pim hymn. which i'm not going to lie, is one of the most amazing laws america has. i wish i had known that growing up in south africa.

"trevor, who did that to the dog?" "i guess i'm going to invoke the fifth amendment." ( laughter ) now, look, now, look, coep is trump's gay. soguy. trump's guy. thanks to the forensic video engineers here a "the daily sho" labs, we're now able to go into trump's mind and find out what he thinks about any issue. what we call the trump opinionator. this changes. so, let's see how president trump feels about people who plead the fifth. >> when you have your staff taking the fifth amendment, taking the fifth, so they're not prosecuted, i think it's disgraceful. >> trevor: oh, snap. the button works.

( laughter ) ( laughter ) turns out that trump really hates it when people plead the fifth. and who is that lady standing next to him? she looks sort of presidential. anyway... ( laughter ) getting that opinion out of trump was probably lucky. i mean, i bet we can't-- we can't get that to happen a second time. >> you see the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment? >> trevor: oooh! damn! that means michael cohen, trump's lawyer, is no different than the mafia. but then why would trump hire-- oooh! i guess maybe, maybe trump's opinion of the fifth amendment is like flipping a coin. i mean, at some point, it has to come up tails eventually. >> "i want the fifth amendment. i want immunity." the reason they get immunity is because they did something wrong. >> trevor: yeah, president marlon brando is right. ( laughter ) if people plead the fifth, clearly, they did something wrong. ( laughter ) i think that's all the evidence we need, that trump thinks pleading the fifth amendment

counts as guilt. so, good night, everybody. >> fifth amendment. fifth amendment. fifth amendment. horrible. horrible. >> trevor: horrible. ( laughter ) we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause ) today, historical sites are disappearing, but ai can help us bring history back to life. to recreate historical sites, we had to stitch hundreds of pictures one by one. with microsoft ai, we are able to stitch hundreds of thousands of pictures in one night. i need to make it possible, because it's so important to do it. with artificial intelligence you can go in, you can experience it.

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this ijust listen. (vo) there's so much we want to show her. we needed a car that would last long enough to see it all. (avo) subaru outback. ninety eight percent are still on the road after 10 years. come on mom, let's go! >> trevor: welcome back to "the daily show." my guest tonight is a law professor at yale law school and author of the pulitzer prize-winning book, "locking up our own: crime and punishment in black america." please welcome, james forman jr. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> trevor: congratulations on winning the pulitzer prize. i can see why it was awarded to you and your book, because this

is an interesting take on a subject that has really been in many conversations-- criminal justice reform, mass incarceration in america. you have tackled it from a slightly different point of view, locking up our own. what does that mean? >> so i wanted to write a book that put the african american community front and center. i wanted to write a book with black characters, with black judges, black prosecutors, black police officers, black citizen activists-- basically, asking the question, "in the last 50 years, as america has embarked on this process of incarcerating more and more people, what was happening in the black community? what were the debates that were going on to show the multiple perspectives? you know, it's not a monolithic-- we're not a monolithic community-- to show all of those arguments that were happening. so that's what the book tries to do. >> trevor: now what a lot of people may not know-- and i won't lie, i did not know it to the deposition it goes into in the book, a lot of people don't know in america many black leaders and many black communities were instrumental in

igniting and fueling the war on drugs, the war that went on to incarcerate millions and millions of black men in america, and black women as well. this is a difficult subject for many people to broach because it's the black community sometimes from top to bottom that made these decisions, but in the book, you argue that they thought they were doing the right thing. >> yeah, and i think it's important to point out that they were constrained in lots of ways, right. they didn't have all the options that were available to them. so they didn't have money for housing, money for education, money for rehabilitation programs. they couldn't get national gun control passed. so they-- they-- they were constrained. pyeah, in many cases, people mae decisions that were like the decisions that were made in the rest of america. they made decisions that-- that didn't give people second chances, that lengthened prison sentences, that imposed mandatory minimums. and i wanted to-- i wanted to-- i wanted to show that. but it was important for me, while doing that, to not in any

way suggest that the system wasn't full of racism, right. and that the system wasn't a system that grew out of a history and a legacy of slavery. >> trevor: right. >> so i wanted to show how both of those things could be true. there could be this historic racism that is still manifesting itself today, and there could have been some mistakes that were made by some well-meaning african american leaders. >> trevor: when you speak to those leaders today, if you had the chance to, have any of them expressed their regret at the decisions they made? >> politicians aren't great at expressing regret. ( laughter ) >> trevor: right. >> some that have stepped out of office have said, "you know, we got caught up." >> trevor: right. >> it was-- it was a terrible time. the homicide rate tripled in the 1960s in this country, it tripled in d.c., doubled nationally. in the crack years, in the 80s and 90s, it seamed like every day in cities like d.c., new york, atlanta, detroit-- people were dying, multiple people a day.

and people-- and that-- that made communities scared, and that made politicians want to respond. >> trevor: right. >> and, yeah, they said, some people have said to me "we went too far." and some people you can see are now choosing a different approach. eric holder is a great example. he's featured in the book as somebody who pursued some of these policies. and now, he is really leading criminal justice reform. >> trevor: when you talk about criminal justice reform, though, what does that mean? it seems like a term that is used broadly. but what are some of the ideas that you genuinely believe would alleviate the problem of having an entire populations the size of some countries incarcerated in the united states? >> well, first of all, we have to get rid of mandatory minimums. we have to shorten prison sentences. the maximum you can get for most crimes in this country is double and triple what it is around the world. we have to stop putting people-- you talked about meek mill earlier in the segment. we have to stop putting people on probation for five, 10, 15 years at a time. and then as soon as they make a mistake, as soon as they miss an

appointment with the probation officer, test positive for drugs, you have these harsh judges locking them up. and we have to take the money we save to reinvest in communities, to build the drug treatment programs that we know work if we would fund them adequately. to fund after-school programs that all the research shows work and keep kids out of crime if we fund them adequately. so i actually think we know what to do. it's about building a political constituency to do it. and that is starting to happen. you mentioned in philadelphia, larry krasner, the new d.a. he's part of a generation of new district attorneys around the country that is saying, "you know what? the war on crime has been a failure. we need new approaches." and these are prosecutors saying that. that was unimaginable five years ago. >> trevor: it's interesting that there are some d.a.s who are stepping up and saying, "this, needs to change." what would you say is possibly the single biggest aspect? would you say education is the key? because i was shocked to learn

in the book that for young black men who haven't completed high school since the 1960s, they are 10 times more likely to end up in prison, just by not completing high school. is that one of the key things that needs to be worked on? >> yes, both up front, because education keeps people from getting arrested in the first instance, for the reasons you just mentioned. but, also, there's a whole new movement, which i'm a part of, to provide high-quality education to people who are incarcerated. like, it's going to take us a long time, right-- even with some progressive prosecutors, it's going to take us a long time to get out of being the world's largest jailer. >> trevor: right. >> so while we have people incarcerated, let's provide them high-quality education, because the research shows that for every dollar you invest in education of somebody behind bars, we as a society get $5 in return, because crime goes down, recidivism goes down. people are more likely to be employed. so i do think education is-- if you had to pick one thing-- and one of my arguments of the book

is you can't really pick one thing because, you know, there are 50 things we have to do. but if you say, "yeah, okay, forman, but i have to focus on one." that's what i would choose. >> trevor: it's a beautiful book written so well. it gives you the orgyps and consequences of where we are and it's deserving of every award. thank you so much for being on the show. >> thank you. "locking up our own," a fascinating book, is available now. james forman jr., everybody. we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause )

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>> you know, i think he was awake and he had a lot to say. captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> jordan: opposers! huge news today! >> bill cosby. guilty. guilty. guilty. >> guilty! guilty! guilty! >> jordan: would you, i think we're all thinking the same thing: that happened quick! only 43 years, nearly 60 accusers, and two full trials to get justice. wow. i guess it's just that easy. a man can go from free to behind bars in the blink... of a half century. progress is a slippery slope. 'cause if the judicial system starts listening to women this swiftly, what's next? investigating accusations against other former nbc stars