the great thing about sports is that it is all about character. and you can learn lessons about life even if you don't win. but we did because we were ahead. >> from comedy central's world news headquarters in new york, this is "the daily show" with trevor noah. ( cheers and applause ) ♪ >> trevor: yes! welcome to "the daily show." i'm trevor noah. thank you so much. you're far too kind! thank you for tuning in, everybody! welcome to it! i'm so excited. on tonight's show we're going to be jointed by the star of

boilers and the hit movie "black klansman," john david washington is here, everybody! prepare yourselves, he is very sexy. we're also going to be talking about the latest in the gshed including president trump's trip to the border where he illegally snuck into mix co-the see how they like it. spoiler alert, we are also not sending our best. ( laughter ) but first first let's catch up e headlines. 663 days until the next presidential election but the cam sin is underway. former texas representative and weathered teenage boy beto o'rourke is attempt ago run, talking to everyday americans and posting stories on his instagram. turns out, maybe there is such a thing as too relatable. >> that is, indeed, beto o'rourke in the dentist chair talking to people near the border about what life is like there including to talking to his own dentist.

>> um, so i'm here at the dentist and we're going to continue our series on the people of the border. i'm here with diana, my dental hi jenist, diana is going to tell us a little bit about growing up -- ( indistinguishable ) >> trevor: yeah, beto. he didn't understand what they said when all the kids were flossing. this is a genius way to avoid tough questions. how can you call yourself a presidential candidate when you're drilling for oil in the gulf of mexico -- great question -- question -- ). garble ). moving on, stephen king of iowa faced accusations of racism mostly because of the racist stuff he says. today he defend himself by saying what's wrong with racism anyway?

>> steve king defending himself after a newly accomplished article from the "new york times" saying he's not a racist but then the congressman questions why white nationalist and white supremacist is offensive. >> trevor: yeah! i'm not racist! calm down! ( laughter ) if he did something unforgivable like say mother (~bleep ) or dance on a rooftop, at least. moving to paris. >> the very first restaurant serving only nude diners in paris is shutting down. the restaurant has only been open 15 months. business has been suffering from a lack of customers. not many people want to show up naked. the nudist restaurant plans to close its doors for good on february 16. >> yeah, they had a good run. >> trevor: france's first nude restaurant is closing

february 16 which means my valentines registration is still good to go. nothing quite says love like spilling hot clam chowder on my genitals. can you imagine being a health inspector there? you just walk in and kill yourself? and what if you're a waiter having to deal with the customers? excuse me, there's a hair in my chicken. well, sir, your balls are all over my chair, so we're even. ( laughter ) moving on. today marks day 20 of the federal government shutdown. farmers can't get loans, people are facing evictions and the government's so broke they have to rent lincoln out on the air be been. and some government workers were rallying in d.c. and we sent michael costa to show support. >> it's kay 20 of second longest government shut down in history.

1995, we're coming for you. with no end in sight, civil servants are marching on washington, d.c. and the president knows why. >> people who won't get next week's pay or the following week's pay, i think if you really ever looked at those people, i think they would say, mr. president, keep going. >> he's talking about people who work for the i.r.s. or homeland security or n.a.s.a. are about to miss their first paycheck. time to give these people a chance to speak to the president directly and to tell him to keep going. this is a card for president trump to tell him to keep going. you write whatever you want to president trump and his keep going card. >> american head regulation of government employees, hell, no. >> he wrote, keep going, mr. president! we are all not behind you. you mean not not is what he meant to write. >> stop-the-b.s. >> stop the b.s. bad seeds trying to come in from over the border, right? we got it, right? see, the people do support the president.

you tell president trump exactly how much you support him and what he's doing. ( silence ) don't hold back. i think they need a good simple channel. keep going! keep going! keep going, mr. president! why is everybody leaving? come back! >> trevor: michael kosta, everyone. thank you so much, michael. ( cheers and applause ) now, with all the support behind him, president trump decided to plow forward on proving his case for a boarmd. today the commander-in-chief put on his travel barbee outfit and flew to the southern border to get a firsthand account of the situation while he was there, he gave us all a drunk history lesson. >> they say a wall is medieval. so is a wheel. a wheel is older than a wall. and i look, and every single car out there, even the really expensive ones that the secret

service uses -- and believe me, they are expensive -- i said, do they all have wheels? yes. i thought it was medieval. the wheel is older than the wall, you know that? there are some things that works. you know what? a wheel works and a wall works. ( laughter ) >> trevor: if a football player got up after a tackle and started talking like that, the trainer would be, like, we need to stop now. your brain is not okay. ( laughter ) and by the way, i can't believe we have to say this, if there are any kids watching that are going to use this on a history test, walls are actually much older than the wheel. right? 6,000 years older than the wheel. ( cheers and applause ) back in the day, cave men had walls. ( laughter ) so i guess people should stop calling trump a neanderthal because he would know that. ( laughter ) after putting the president's

word through google trancelet i think what he's trying to say is just because the wall is old technology doesn't mean it's not going to be effective. the only problem, since walls have been around so long, people have had centuries to figure out how to get through them. >> the president in the oval office and his administration have been pushing the idea of a steel slat barrier, already in use along the southern border. we know from d.h.s. testing in the course of last year that all of president trump's prototypes were breachable in some way, but now, for the first time. ncb news exclusively obtained a photograph of the steel slat barrier style boarld design that was cut through with what we are told is a household saw. ( laughter ) >> trevor: you laugh, but to be fair, you can't just get through with a household saw. you need some immigrant can-do work ethic. ( cheers and applause ) because let me tell you, i've tried -- i've tried sawing

before and that shit takes forever! after five minutes i was, like, forget it, i'm just going to bury the body in one piece. ( laughter ) it's so hard to saw through that level of steel that if a mexican manages to saw his way into america, we should just give that person a job. just hire them. here's my pitch, that should be how you do merit-based immigration. however they manage to get in should be the skill that you use to your advantage in america. if you saw through, you work in construction. if you climb over, you're a firefighter, go, go, go! and all of you running away, we'll see you on the olympic team! u.s.a.! u.s.a.! u.s.a.! no, you, a.s. you,s, sa. ( laughter ) now you think the news that you can saw through a steel wall

will be devastating for trump. but apparent hi he knows and is not concerned. >> there are pictures this morning showing steel barrier walls being sawed through. what good is that? >> there's nothing that can't be penetrated, but you fix it, but it's a very difficult thing to do, but that's a wall, and they have other walls. we have many walls under consideration, even concrete. there's as ids that can go through concrete. >> trevor: don't give them more ideas! what are you doing? ( laughter ) i didn't even know that was possible! you're going to build a wall and tell everyone how to get through it? ( laughter ) trump would be the worst bank robber ever. this is a stick up! but i have weak wrists. if you hit me here, the gun will fly out! it's just going to fly out right here! ( laughter ) even if a wall isn't 100 percent impenetrable, it's still better than nothing, and america is going to need all the help they can get because the way trump

tells it, things on the border are about to get nuts. >> here's the story -- there is another major caravan forming right now in honduras, and, so far, we're trying to break it up. but, so far, it's bigger than neg we've seen. >> trevor: wow. another caravan. it's so convenient how, whenever trump needs to win something, a big scary caravan is always coming to kill us all. first it was the midterms, now the shutdown. i feel like if trump isn't careful he will run into a boy who cried wolf situation. some day there there be a big caravan of i.s.i.s. dealers, sh rucksh -- shreks coming over the border. ( laughter ) still, a caravan is forming across the southern border and making its way north. i don't know why but the president makes it sound like a hurricane of hondurans is

heading for the u.s. you know, i mean, say what you want about him as president but donald trump would make a great immigration weather man. >> here's the story -- there is another major caravan forming right now in honduras, and so, far, we're trying to break it up. but, so far, it's bigger than anything we've seen, and a drone isn't going to stop it, and a sensor isn't going to stop it. but you know what's going to stop it in its tracks? a nice powerful wall. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: so, clearly, trump is not budging from his inassistants on a wall, which means this shunt will keep going on for who knows how long, and that's going to be extremely hard for a lot of these workers, especially considering that many of these government employees have to keep working even if they're not getting paid, and

i'm talking everyone, all the way from secret service to the t.s.a. say what you want about the t.s.a. but they work hard to keep us safe. if they don't get paid for a long time, i'm afraid airports could start to look a lot like this. >> hey, did they say we're going to get paid? >> nope. ( beeping ) >> good, man. come on through. ( beeping ) i'm thinking of becoming an uber driver. >> that's a good idea. >> who knows how long it can last. trump said it can be years. >> years? crazy. when i worked at mcdonald's, we could take free burgers home. here, if we take luggage, it's a problem. >> face it, washington doesn't care about the little man ( sirens ) >> whoa, whoa, hey!

that's a sandwich? oh, god, i'm starving. go ahead. have a safe flight. mmm! >> can i get some of that? >> jump in. >> i haven't eaten since tuesday. >> trevor: roy wood, jr., we'll be right back! ( cheers and applause )

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a bold flavor that brings the heat. >> trevor: welcome to "the daily show," everybody. you guys are fun. thanks for being here. ( cheers and applause ) there was a really fascinating

discussion i stumbled upon online, and it was about the new bryan cranston and kevin hart movie. have you seen it? it's a beautiful story that's been adapted. it's from a french movie originally called "the untouchables" and it's a story of, i guess, in the movie, it's an african-american man who lives in france, french guy, and he gets employed by this rich paraplegic man to come and, like, look after him. it's, like, an odd pairing and they get to know each other and it's a beautiful story. i saw kevin hart and brian cranston are remaking the movie and it looks like it will be good. what's interesting is a big outrage opened up online where people were complaining saying why is bryan cranston playing a disabled person, why didn't they get a disabled person to play a disabled person? i'm not going to lie, my first instinct is are you being serious? come on, we're going too far,

now. the actors, actors are going to act. like, the whole point, if we get everyone to be the thing, it's not acting, it's the thing. it's a documentary. that's the whole point of acting. come on, you're going too far, of course he's going to play the person. online, everyone swears at each other. no one has a conversation that new answered. but there's one actor who's in a wheelchair. i didn't know him. he just wrote a really cogent, beautiful response online. didn't fight with anybody, didn't call anything or judge anybody and opened me to a perspective i never thought of. he says i understand what an actor is, i, too, am an actor. me said, but i'm an actor in a wheelchair, and i never see parts that are leading roles for a person in a wheelchair. and, so, the one time i see a role where there's a person in a

wheelchair, i think, wow, this could be it. this could be the moment where i have all of the tools necessary to play this part. do i get a shot at playing it? and he was, like, because, when you think of it on the flip side, they never call people with wheelchairs in to play able-bodied people, and they'll get able-bodied people to play people in wheelchairs. i was, like, snap, i never thought of it like that. my perspective is someone who's not in a wheelchair. i never thought of it that way. i sat there and said, it's powerful because you don't think about representation, you don't think about how important it is for people to see themselves on screen in a real way. at the same time, i don't think bryan cranston did everything wrong. it may be, like, next time in hollywood people will go you can get an unknown actor to play that role and put an a-lister

and this becomes their breakout. that's where you realize how powerful representation is. because if you're a person in a wheelchair, how many movies come along where the lead character is in a wheelchair? virtually none. even myself, i'm, like, oh, man, i have to try to understand that a little bit more. it was eye opening. i did understand it when he said it like that a bit because i remember when they announced the lion king was going to be made in america, and i was, like, my phone's going to ring, right? ( laughter ) i was, like, because, i mean -- ( laughter ) i was, like -- ( applause ) -- the whole time i was waiting and they were, like, beyonce is going to be in it. i'm, okay, cool. wegons yons and -- and another person. and -- donald glover. and, okay, and? i was so ready to be in the

"lion king" that every time my phone rang, i would answer and i started to sing the song, and, hello? no, no, i already have insurance. thank you. why? because i might be in the "lion king." well, thank you. i hope they think that, too. thank you very much. bye. but i will say, it was just a beautiful moment. i will try and be a part of that as a human online and in real life, but i appreciated how that guy who was an actor in a wheelchair took a moment to go, hey, you didn't do anything wrong to me but let me explain to you my point of view. and it was a moment in the internet where i was, like, oh, yeah, this is what i could use this thing for. yeah, nice. a moment of solace. then it went back to you must all die! kill yourself. show me your real face! give me your address, i'll come

and kill you! but that moment was beautiful. yeah. ( laughter ) any questions before we move on? >> what role would you play in line king? >> trevor: i could have played rafiki! are you kidding me? i would have loved to be rafiki. i could have been anything. i'm not even picky about those things. i will be a tree. i will be, like, an african tree in the background. i would have been the rumbling of the buffalo in the stampede. i could have been the -- ( stampede noises ) i just wanted to be a part of it, that's all. i get it. ( audience reacts ) hey, no, don't feel sorry for me. i'm doing great in life. don't feel sorry for me. i'm just saying, you know, it would have been nice. i'm fine, guys. i'm fine. i'm not stressed at all, okay?

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( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: welcome back to "the daily show." my guest tonight is a golden globe nominated actor whose latest film is the critically acclaimed "black klansman." >> this is the job. what's your problem? >> that's my problem, for you it's a crew said. for me it's a job. it's not personal nor should it be. >> why haven't you bought into this? >> why should i? >> because you're jewish, brother, the so-called chosen people. you have been passing for a wasp. white anglo-saxon protestant, cherry hot dog white boy.

some black skinned folks pass for white. doesn't the hatred of the klan piss you off? >> yes. >> trevor: why are you acting like you don't have skin in the game, brother? >> that's my business. >> that's our business. >> trevor: welcome, john david washington. ( cheers and applause ) ♪ >> thank you. thank you. oh, wow, wow. >> trevor: first things first ( someone yelling question in the audience ) >> trevor: welcome to the show and congratulations on your golden globe nomination. that was huge. ( cheers and applause ) >> amazing. i've experienced through the son perspective in my father being nominated, but to get invited to the table, it was a dream come true, it really was. >> trevor: right, you have been someone who's been thrust into the limelight. a lot of people first saw you on

on" ballers ." you were in "malcom x" when you were nine? >> six. i had a line, i'm malcolm x. the first kid that jumps up and says the line. i always wand to be an actor. i knew every line of every character of "glory." all i wanted for christmas was a new vaiches tape because i broke it watching it so much times, and the blue suits that the soldiers wanted, and i got the blue suit and it was off to the races after that. >> trevor: you have an interesting story. you wanted to get into acting and then your love became sport. why did you leave the acting game? you did well in sport as well. what brought you back to acting? >> i did all right. seeing how i was getting treated as my father started becoming more popular, his ascension in the business, the family started getting treated differently. >> trevor: he's talking about denzel washington, just in case you don't know. ( cheers and applause )

>> yeah, yeah, that guy. ( laughter ) so, you know, as i saw us getting treated differently, we went from, you know, going to sis leers to going -- so as i started getting treated differently, i wanted to protect my feelings and myself and i chose football as this independent card. i had a rebellious quest of making it on my own and felt like i could hide in the helmet and get it done myself. >> trevor: it's interesting you combine your skills. in "ballers" you're playing an athlete and an actor at the same time and now we've seen that evolution come to the next level in "black klansman." it was a phenomenal performance. everyone who's watched the movie truly loved it. it was a powerful film as well. what was interesting is you didn't audition for the role. spike lee called you and basically told you you're doing the movie. >> that's kind of right, yeah. i got a text from him saying, yo, this is spike calling. those were the words. and i never talked to him on the cell phone before and i had to investigate because i was

looking for work. i called him, he said i have got a script i want to send you. i read it, called him, said it's amazing, and he said seeio this summer and we went from there. >> trevor: your character ron stallworth is a black police officer in a white police department and infiltrates the klan. >> yes, in the colorado springs in the '70s ron stallworth was the first african-american detective in colorado springs. >> trevor: right. >> he head an add in the paper the ku klux klan were recruiting, in the local paper. he called them up and said how much he hated black people and other minorities and they were, like, great, we would love you to join. >> trevor: when you look at how the story ties into what america is going through today you can't ignore it. >> right. >> trevor: the end of the film has the news