Hey, everybody. Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, wherever you get your podcast.

You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalist at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, Michael Kosta. Yes. Welcome to The Daily Show. I'm Michael Kosta. We have so much to talk about tonight. The Olympics has big dick energy, construction Conservatives are finally interested in women's sports, and RFK Junior just lost his endorsement from Smoky Bear. Let's get into the headlines. Let's kick things off with the Olympics, a gathering of the world's greatest athletes and also some people who own horses. Now, I've been super interested in these Olympics, mostly because I bet my daughter's college tuition on mixed doubles badmitten. But it's fine. She's not really an academic kid, to be honest with you. So far, it's been incredible. Now, not the badmitten, that's a stupid sport, but the real sports, like the men's 100 meters finals were on Sunday, where American Noah Lyles got the gold medal by five thousandths of a second. Do you realize how little time that is? That's five-thousandths of a second. I just said it. Pay attention. This was the closest finish in over 40 years. I don't want to take anything away from Noah Lyles, but isn't this a tie?

I mean, what do we even have ties for if we're not going to pull it out for stuff like this? I mean, in fact, if you were watching this with just your eyes, all these guys finished at the same time. If these guys were trains, no one would say, My train was late. Another Olympic moment getting a lot of attention is the Pole vaulter who knocked the bar over with his large penis. Now, if you haven't heard about this story, do not Google Penis Olympics. That will take you to the wrong website. What can I say? I like to do my own research. But you also don't really need to Google it because that's the whole story. A pole vaulter lost when his giant schlong got caught on the crossbar. And according to the rules of pole vaulting, you're allowed to touch the crossbar, but you're not allowed to fuck it, so he lost. But this has got to be the best possible way to lose. Yeah, I would have won if it weren't for this damn massive hog. In fact, this is the only event where the guy who won probably felt bad Hey, my dick is good, too.

I will say, next Olympics, this guy should compete in the 100 meters. He'd win from 10 feet back. Everyone loves a good pole-vaulting dick joke. But look, to this athlete, and I know this is tough, but I'll say to you what I say the Little League team I coach. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how gigantic everyone knows your penis is. The biggest story so far is about Algerian boxer Iman Khalif, who's been doing a great job in the women's boxing tournament. Some people would say too good. Some critiques questioning whether Khalif should have been allowed to compete in that ring at all and claiming that Khalif is a man or transgender, something IDOC officials have emphatically denied. The The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport. This is not a transgender case. Seems pretty open and shut to me, right? She was born a woman, lived as a woman, and boxes other women. So what is the argument against that?

This is such an outrage.

Look at this.

This is a man. This is a man who is competing in the boxing tournament for women.

No, she's not. She's a woman. She's a woman like you, Megan Kelly, a woman at the peak of her career, unlike Megan Kelly. But she still is a woman.

You easily could just say, Listen, you could only fight and compete in the gender in which you were born.

Those are just the rules. End of story. Just end it. Okay, but those rules would still let her box with women because, again, she's a woman. She's fought as a woman her whole life. She's even lost to other female boxers nine times. What more proof do you want? Does Fox News need the ghost of Roger Ailes to sexually harass her first? She's a woman. Okay. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and punches like a duck.

I think it's a duck.

All right. Well, look, so she's not a duck. She's a woman. You're not making me question whether I know what a woman is. You're making me question whether you know what a duck is. Because, again, This female boxer is female. Can we stop this before America turns into a presidential campaign issue? The far left wants to allow biological males to beat the living crap out of women in boxing. Is that really what this race is going to be about? Jd Vance is going to be on the campaign trail like, When I was growing up in the hauler, the one thing we cared about was international women's boxing regulations. By the way, if Conservatives are so concerned with women's safety, maybe Can we consider caring about it outside of sports? There are women in America who are like, Help me, I'm having an ectopic pregnancy. Conservatives are like, Shut up. We're trying to protect women over here. Guys, I'm sorry this elite athlete does not look the way you think a woman should look, but a woman is allowed to be dominating and powerful at a sport without you questioning her gender. Because don't forget, these guys Don't forget, these guys dragged her, an Algerian female boxer, into their American conservative culture work.

If they're going to use her as a metaphorical punching bag, the least they can do is step into the ring and let her use them as a literal punching bag. I bet they wouldn't even last a round. All right, let's move on to the presidential race. Kamala Harris is set to announce her running mate at any moment. To balance out the ticket, it'll most likely be a white guy like Josh Shapiro Tim Walls, or the Polevaulter dude with the penis. But let's put that beast to use, breaking the glass ceiling. You guys love a Polevalt dick joke, huh? Meanwhile, Donald Trump is backed out of the September debate he had previously agreed on and is now saying he'll only debate Kamala if it's in a packed arena moderated by Fox News. Also, at any point in the debate, he gets to call the cops on her for loitering. Also, it's not a debate, it's golf. But look, I'm actually sympathetic to Trump. Don't forget, he agreed to this debate against Joe Biden. If I agreed to wrestle an old man, and then at the last second, he taps in a younger opponent whose knees actually work, I might also object.

But look, wrangling over a debate, choosing a VP candidate, these are our normal campaign stories. And since this race has already been so crazy, with Trump getting shot, Biden dropping out, JD Vance being JD Vance, I'm just glad that we finally have a normal presidential race with normal presidential stories. Right? Breaking overnight, RFK Jr. Confesses to leaving a dead bear cub in Central Park. Why he said he did not have the time to skin and eat it. What? I don't know what's worse, that RFK Jr. Dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park or that he said he only did it because he didn't have time to eat it. Let me just back up here. This happened back in 2014, and I remember when they found that dead bear, because you find dead bodies in Central Park all the time. But They're usually tourists, so nobody cares. But a bear, now that's memorable. A decade ago, a Central Park mystery baffled New Yorkers, captured headlines across the country.

Police now want to know how the bear died and how it got into the park.

Now we know. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the independent presidential candidate, says he brought the dead bear to Central Park. In the videotaped confession, Kennedy recounts the strange tale to controversial comedian Roseanne Barr. Okay, I'm sorry. He's admitting this to Roseanne Barr in a kitchen over a plate of Flintstone ribs? I mean, what has happened? Does he think it'll sound more normal if he's telling it to a crazy person? You know what? Let's not judge him too fast. Let's hear him tell Roseanne Barr how he ended up dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park.

I was staying in a group of people, falconing, and up in Cauchy, New York, up in Hudson Valley.

Great start. I was out falconing with my friends. So far, very relatable story.

And that woman in a van in front of me hit bear and killed it, a young bear. So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear. And it was very good condition. And I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in the York State. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear.

Oh, yeah. You saw Paddington get T-Bone, and your first thought was, Pause the falconing. We got to get bear in this car to skin and eat it, which for some reason I know is legal in the state. Yeah, that tracks. Sorry. Keep going.

We had a really good day and we went late. We were catching a lot of game. Instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner at Peter Luger's Steakhouse. Okay.

Yeah. All right, let's just do a quick recap, all right? He already spent all day hunting game with falcons. He's on his way to eat a steak, which is a dead cow. But on the way, he had to stop and pick up a dead bear. And this is the environmental candidate? Oh, and by the way, By the way, Peter Luger's Steakhouse, it's a fancy steakhouse. It's not a place where people pull up to the valet with the bear cubs hanging out of the back seat. Hey, here's the keys. Don't steal the rotting bear.

I'm going to eat that. At the end of the dinner, it went late, and I realized I couldn't go home. I had to go to the airport, and the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car because that would have been bad.

Right. I mean, if you wouldn't want your car to smell like rotting bear, then people might think you're a sociopath. That still doesn't explain why he dumped it in Central Park.

There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes and saw a couple of people got killed. It was every day and people had gotten badly injured. Every day it was in the press. I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of. I said, Let's go put the bear in a Central Park, and we'll make it look like you got in by the name. It'll be fun, funny for people.

I get it. You were making a joke about all the people killed by bicycles. Rosanne gets it, don't you, Rosanne? Can you imagine how weird you have to be for Rosanne to look at you like you're crazy? Honestly, I feel bad for her. She probably thought she was doing a cameo on the bear. None of this story makes sense. If he was late to the airport, you don't drive into the heart of Manhattan to dump a dead bear. You dump it in the East River, or you just bring it on the airplane. You call your emotional support bear carcass. They'll let it on. Look, I will say this. I am one of those people who hates the two-party system, but if this is the candidate of the third party, I say, Screw it. Let's just have a king. For more on this extremely strange story. Let's go out to RFK headquarters with Desi Lydik. Desi. Desi. This is a A really disturbing story RFK told.

Actually, Costa, the campaign is feeling quite confident about how RFK handled this potential PR crisis. It's like he saw a story by the side of the road and said, I can make a meal out of this. Okay, so RFK thinks that filming that video with Roseanne Bart was a good thing? Oh, absolutely. By telling the story to a comedian, he transformed it from disturbing story to funny anecdote. And word is, he's sticking with that strategy going forward. In fact, I'm hearing that he just confessed that he was the diarrhea guy who did diarrhea on that diarrhea plane.

Wait, that plane last year that landed because a guy had diarrhea all over the aisle, RFK was that guy?

That's right. He just sat down in Rob Schneider's garage to tell him this story. See, he was falconing along the Hudson when he found a bunch of loose deli meats by the river, and he was going to throw it out, but he was running late, so he just ate all of it, jumped on the plane, and the rest is history. A lot of people would be embarrassed, but RFK is just putting it all out there, just like he did on that plane.

This is a lot for the American people to process right after the bear thing.

I know, I know. But just wait until they hear about how he caused the BP oil spill in 2010.

Deepwater Horizon, he caused that.

Calm down. He just finished explaining it in Adam Carola's gazebo. So it's a funny story. See, what happened was RFK was Flamingoing upstate, and then he came across a lion giving birth. He wanted to collect the placenta in Mason jars for smoothies, but he had a train to catch in six and a half minutes. What are you even talking about?

These aren't cute, charming stories. They're bizarre and creepy.

Oh, well, you are not going to like the Twitch livestream he did from Carrot Top's Tomato Garden. Oh, my What did he even talk about? Oh, this one's real fun. See, what happened was RFK was swan-tipping upstate. He worked up quite the appetite because those swans don't go down without a fight. So he scoured the local highway for food, but sadly, nothing adorable had been hit by a car. Then he realized he was already on a flight to Wuhan, where he then went to a wet market with no shoes on.

Desi, are you telling me RFK started the COVID pandemic by going barefoot in a wet market?

Well, when you put it that way, it's much less funny. I mean, you're no Roseanne.

Desi Lydic, everyone. When we come back, we'll talk to Roxanne Gay.

Don't go anywhere. Is that true? Hey, everybody. Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to the Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, wherever you get your podcast.

Welcome back to The Daily Show. My guest tonight is a best-selling author, publisher, and a professor, whose new e-book is called Stand Your Ground: A Black Feminist: Reckoning with America's Gun Problem. Please Welcome, Roxanne Gay. Wow. All right. What? What made you want to write this piece about guns?

A lot of different things. But my brother was a big gun owner, very enthusiastic about guns, which was weird because nobody in my family cares about guns. We were like, Where did this come from? He kept trying to get my other brother and I to buy a gun, and we were like, No, we're good. Finally, he broke us all down, and so I got my first gun. One of the things I noticed at the gun store and at the gun range was that there were a lot of people of color and black women in particular. I thought, Why are black women buying guns other than the obvious?

Well, why are black women buying guns?

Black women, I think, are buying guns simply because we often recognize that if we don't protect ourselves, no one else will. A lot of times, it's that we don't trust that the police will come to our homes and protect us. In fact, Sonia Massey's murder recently bears that out among many others. I think it's not a form of empowerment, which I think is overused and cheesy, but it is a form of protection and recognizing that sometimes you have to take your own defense in your own hands.

There's something beautiful about a bunch of white male forefathers 260 years ago not envisioning Black and Brown people at the shooting range.

I know.

Was it beautiful?

I think that there's a lot to be said about the founders and their lack of vision I mean, people always talk about how much vision they have.

You mentioned it in the essay that the Second Amendment wasn't written for black people.

It wasn't written for black people. It wasn't written for women. They saw us as only three-fifths of a person, so I guess we could only use three-fifths of a musket. But now, if the Second Amendment applies to white men, it applies to all of us.

I What's fun about this essay is it's not you writing about people that own guns. You bought a gun. I did. Back to your first gun, the Beretta was a little too big. Then you bought a different gun.

It was just so big. Kind of like the Paul Valtor.

What can you do? What's it like buying a gun? I know that half the country is going to hear that question and laugh and go, I do not. But there's a lot of people that don't-I had no idea. Are afraid of them? Or you even know how to buy a gun?

What was it like buying a gun for you? Well, I live in California most of the time, and so it's a pain, but it should be.

It's a pain to buy a gun. To buy a gun, yes.

It's a pain for other reasons. It's a whole process. You have to take a little test, which is fine. It's like the driver's exam. You study the booklet in their car beforehand. You fill out an application, you get a background check, and then 10 days after you do all of that, you can pick up the gun, which I think is great. Take a At the same time, really think through, do I really need this, or am I angry?

I mean, a gun destroys things.

It does. It takes people's lives. It causes grievous injuries. We talk a lot about the people who die from gun violence, but there are people whose lives are irrevocably changed because of really bad injuries, the loss of limbs, the loss of organs. You really have to think very carefully about why you would welcome a weapon like this into your home. But we don't have children. If we had children, it would be a complete nonstarter.

Well, how did you, and maybe I'm asking selfishly, how did you, or was it hard to convince your wife to have a gun in the house?

No, surprisingly.

But that's another consideration. It wasn't just your life.

It was 100% a consideration. If she said no, the answer would be no. But she's a lifelong New Yorker. She's not afraid of a good fight.

She's like, Why I need a gun when I'm in a gun, I'm a New Yorker? I'll do all my fist.

She does not need a gun at all. She doesn't even need her fist. She has a very capable mouth.

I'm just going to leave that there. What did you learn that maybe you weren't expecting about America's gun epidemic in this process?

I learned so much. I think everyone... I mean, we read the statistics every single time there's a horrific crime and nothing ever changes. But There are more guns than people in this country, which cannot possibly be the case, but yet it is. Only about 35% of Americans own guns, which is to say that the people who own guns really, really love their guns, and they own a whole lot of them. That really surprised me because when you listen to the NRA and other lobbyists talk about gun ownership, they really make it seem like everyone's walking around with a gun in their purse or in the back of their jeans. That's not the case, nor should it be. Yet that's what we hear, that so many people own guns. Now, it's a choice that some people make, and yet those people get a disproportionate amount of our cultural attention.

One thing that really resonated with me in the essay was when you went to the shooting range and you were mentioning the shooting instructor, Raul, how obsessed he was with safety. Yes. I loved hearing that.

Oh, yeah. He was so hardcore.

But I mean, this side of gun ownership isn't always told. A A lot of responsible gun owners are obsessed with safety. Share a little bit of that experience with me.

For sure. When you hear about gun violence, in general, it's irresponsible gun owners. It's people who don't know how to handle it properly. But before we even went to the range, we took some classes because we're nerds, and we sat in an actual classroom, and he was like, Here are the four rules of gun safety. Write it down, which I did. It was really heartening to see that there is a responsible way to go about this, that you don't have to be casual, you don't have to be careless, and you can protect not only yourselves, but the people in your household and also your community by being responsible and also locking up your guns.

Do you feel safer owning a gun?

No, not really. But that's because I know what happens to legal gun ownership for black people when the police are involved. So not necessarily. But I do feel like I get a lot of death threats. That's what precipitated buying a gun.

Yeah, that's what I have friends that say they own guns for defense of their home, and I laugh because I go, You live on 10 acres. You don't even have a neighbor. But when you were describing in the book that you get true death threats and people threatening your wife, that's different now.

It's different, and it starts to get closer and closer to home. And as the threats became more and more specific, particularly during COVID, I just thought, Man, am I going to sit around and wait for something to happen or not? But the thing that makes me feel most safe is we also got a dog during COVID, and he weighs nine pounds and thinks he weighs 90. And he lets us know when someone's even thinking about the house. And so that's actually what makes me feel safe. I don't know if I can stop something, but Max, our dog, Maximus Toretto Blueberry, he's absolutely going to let us know.

I mean, in some states, there's more regulations about dog adoption than getting a gun.

Yes. And in some states, women have more rights as gun owners than they do as women or people with uteruses.

You wrote that black gun ownership is definitely a political act. White gun ownership is generally taken as an inalienable right.Explain.

That to me. Absolutely. We tend to look at the Bill of Rights, I almost said the Ten Commandments.

They're getting closer and closer.

We treat those Bill of Rights as inalienable. But the further The more you get from a white, heterosexual, cisgender man, the more you have to fight for those rights, and the more you are considered an anomaly when you choose to avail yourself of those rights. I'm not the person who's going to rep myself in the Second Amendment. I think that no one should be able to own a gun, and if they want to come take it, feel free. But that said, as long as the right is there, I think there are many black gun owners who say, Why not? Some people are shooting enthusiasts. Some people are concerned with self defense and home protection. And there's room for all of that. We contain multitudes.

I love in your essay, you reminded all of us that the Second Amendment is 27 words. It is.

It is shocking, given how often people talk about it?

I mean, it's like, Hey, guys, we need a little more clarity here.

You would think. Could we be a little more specific? But also in 1787, when they were writing those 27 words, a musket took a long time to load, and it only shot one bullet at a time. I don't think that the founding fathers could have begun to imagine what that gun would become. And the fact that we decided collectively that we were okay with not regulating weapons of mass destruction is something that astonishes me every single day.

Let's talk about stand your ground. You dive into it in the essay. It feels when you start to think, Oh, we actually put a law on the books that you're allowed kill somebody. Should it be more inclusive? Should it be taken off the books? What is a thought you have on Stand Your Ground?

I think it should be more specific. I think that if it applies to one person, it should apply to everyone. George Zimmerman used Stand Your Ground as his excuse for killing Trayvon Martin. But Marissa Alexander also used Stand Your Ground. She was a legal gun owner who shot in the air away from her former partner who was menacing her and against whom she had a restraining order. She spent five years in jail and under house arrest because of that. When black people try to stand their ground in general, it is used against them. And so that's really what we have to change. But I also don't think we should be given carte blanche to take other people's lives.

It's a tough thing. You shared a lot of examples that I was unfamiliar with, and It's a great read. Kamala Harris, how are you feeling?

I'm feeling great. As a black woman, as a feminist, As a gun owner, I don't know if that pertains. It actually doesn't pertain at all. However, I think that I wasn't really advocating for Biden to step down, but I was excited when he did. I think I think that Vice President Harris is going to be a very interesting president. I think we have an opportunity. For so long, we've been told we have to wait till 2024, 2032, 2040, who knows, for real political change. Even in the run-up to Harris becoming the nominee, people were saying that she's not a viable candidate. What about Gavin Newsom? What about Gretchen Whitmer? I think it is a real interesting moment to consider who is Kamala Harris and what President would she be? We don't just have to uncritically engage with her. I think we can ask her genuine political questions about where she stands on the major issues we're dealing with right now, whether it's Gaza, Ukraine, reproductive freedom here in the country, transgender rights, and it's a very long list. But I am encouraged. I think she's going to do the job extremely well. I don't think that she's going to make everyone happy, but I don't think that's possible for a President.

Look at the alternative.

Thank Thank you for talking with us.

The original e-book and audiobook, Danger Ground, is available only on Everend.

Roxanne Gay. We're going to take a quick break and right back after this. Thank you for sharing the story.

Hey, everybody. Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are we're going to be talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. Wherever you get your podcast. That's our show for tonight.

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Hey, everybody. Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, wherever you get your podcast.