American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Christiana 0:00 [upbeat music] A lot of politicians, if they're accusing like the Pelosi or the Clinton-

Trevor Noah 0:08 Ah, okay

Christiana 0:08 ... class, really don't know what ordinary people are feeling.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:12 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 0:12 Right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:13 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 0:13 And for some reason, he's able to be tuned into the culture wars-

Trevor Noah 0:17 That's a good point. No, that's a good point

Christiana 0:18 ... in ways that-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:19 Mm-hmm

Christiana 0:19 ... like, surprise me.

Trevor Noah 0:20 He's chronically online.

Christiana 0:21 He's like, he's like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:22 Yes, he is.

Christiana 0:22 But then sometimes-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:23 I was just about to say, let me tell you what the through line is for me that-

Christiana 0:25 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:25 ... resolves, I would say, about 80% of this-

Christiana 0:28 Okay

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:28 ... for me. And I'm like you, Christiana. I've spent a lot, a lot, a lot of time thinking about this, and kinda like holding that voter up in f- like, perverse fascination, like what's happening in there. And I do think your point gets at it, Trevor, which is I'm not sure that understand is the right word. I don't think you need to understand to act.

Trevor Noah 0:47 Yeah.

Christiana 0:48 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:48 To be able to observe something accurately doesn't mean you diagnose it properly.

Trevor Noah 0:53 Yes, that's what I mean. Thank you.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:54 Right? He is the only politician out there right now who says a thing

Tressie McMillan Cottom 0:59 is a thing.

Trevor Noah 1:00 Thank you.

Christiana 1:00 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:00 That's what I mean.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:01 That doesn't mean that-

Trevor Noah 1:01 This is why I need Tressie around.

Christiana 1:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:03 This is what I need.

Christiana 1:05 Tressie, you came here to be on my side.

Trevor Noah 1:06 No, I'm not on sides.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:07 Okay. No, no, no. Ah, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga.

Trevor Noah 1:08 What I mean is that she articulates-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:09 You're right.

Christiana 1:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:09 ... this is what Tressie does brilliantly. She articulates an idea-

Christiana 1:12 She sees the sides of it, right, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:13 ... in the, in the most crystal way possible. It's exactly this. [upbeat music] This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Please tell me, did you see the, uh, Elon Musk Trump White House Tesla sale?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:37 Car. Car sale show?

Christiana 1:38 No, I didn't see that.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:38 Oh, yeah. Only thing it was missing was Vanna White.

Christiana 1:40 No. When was this?

Trevor Noah 1:41 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:42 Yesterday. So [laughs] literally, it's so funny, 'cause we've been talking about Elon Musk-

Christiana 1:46 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:46 ... on the podc- all these things. Trump brought Elon Musk-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:50 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:50 ... to the White House. Or Elon Musk-

Christiana 1:52 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:52 ... brought Trump to the White House.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:53 Who kn- yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:53 Depending on how you wanna-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:54 Yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:54 ... depending on who, w- where you think the power lies, right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 1:57 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:57 So Elon Musk is there and Trump's there. They bring a Tesla, and Trump's like, "I'm buying a Tesla with my own money, and, and-"

Christiana 2:05 Oh my God

Trevor Noah 2:06 ... guys-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:06 Which nobody believes

Trevor Noah 2:07 ... and the man did a full-on infomercial.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 2:09 Someone took a picture of Trump's notes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:13 He was, yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:13 He was, he was handed the sales notes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:15 [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:16 So the price of each car with self-drive.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:19 Yeah.

Christiana 2:19 This is so embarrassing.

Trevor Noah 2:20 And, and then like a little asterisk, with like terms and conditions at the bottom.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:22 "Please self-drive is free, it just needs to be activated on all of the cars. This car costs this much. That one costs this much."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:28 "For low zero APR for 36 months." I'm like, "This is the President-

Christiana 2:33 That's so-

Trevor Noah 2:33 ... of the United States-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:34 Yep

Trevor Noah 2:34 ... shilling cars-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:36 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 2:36 ... on the front." You know what it was for me? If Trump had even a modicum of panache, he would have brought it as more of a, "This is American ingenuity."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:46 American energy. That's what's supposed to happen.

Christiana 2:47 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:47 That's right.

Trevor Noah 2:47 Yes. You go-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:48 Yeah

Trevor Noah 2:48 ... "I just wanted to take a moment to show you why America is great."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:52 And, you know, Elon, here's-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 2:54 Mm

Trevor Noah 2:54 ... like, just like, you know, just try and find, in, in South Africa, we used, we used to say, like, desist. It means like, it's almost like find a way to, like, um, it's like just add, add a little opaqueness-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:03 Finesse

Trevor Noah 3:03 ... to what you're doing.

Christiana 3:04 Yeah. Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:04 Just make it a little cool.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:06 Uh-huh. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:06 Make it a little, you know what I mean.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:07 Uh-huh.

Trevor Noah 3:07 Bring in like three cars, but then focus on Elon's one. No, no, no.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:11 This man full on, "For this low price, one time offer."

Christiana 3:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:15 And then he gets, guys, at this moment, you know Trump [laughs] , only Donald Trump, he gets in the car. And-

Christiana 3:21 He gets ... So the car is there.

Trevor Noah 3:22 The car's there. The car's there.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:23 He's on the lawn.

Christiana 3:24 There are three, four-

Trevor Noah 3:24 No, the car's on, like, you know the, the front of the White House, I guess-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:27 Yeah

Trevor Noah 3:27 ... is where this is, right?

Christiana 3:28 This is so gross.

Trevor Noah 3:28 So the car's there.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:29 They've pulled it up.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:31 And then they get in, right? And Trump goes, first of all, Trump's like, "No, I can't drive. I'm not, because I'm not allowed to dri-" I wanna be like, "Can you drive?" I don't think that man can drive.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:39 No.

Christiana 3:39 No.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:39 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:39 But he's like, he's like, "I would drive, but I can't. They don't allow me. I'm not allowed, no drive, to drive, to drive." Does this whole thing. They get in the car, and then the President of the United States, the man who claims to know where technology, economies, markets, all of it is going.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:54 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 3:55 He gets in the car, he looks at the instrument panel-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 3:58 Yeah

Trevor Noah 3:58 ... and exclaims, like somebody who has discovered a new world.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:02 He's like, "Wow, it's all computer."

Christiana 4:05 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:06 Guys, he says, "It's all computer."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:08 All computer.

Christiana 4:09 So he's never been in a Tesla.

Trevor Noah 4:10 He, yeah, but he doesn't say, "It's all digital."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:11 No. "It's all computer," like your grandma.

Trevor Noah 4:14 "It's all com- it's all computer."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:15 Yeah, they put computer in car.

Trevor Noah 4:17 And he shouts it out to us like we don't know.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:19 Yeah.

Christiana 4:19 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:20 Uh-huh.

Trevor Noah 4:20 He's like, "Yo, yeah, it's all computer. Wow, you look inside all of it, all computer. It's all, wow, this" ...

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:27 Yep. That's the man with the nuclear codes for you. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:31 Actually, I felt more calm. I was like, "I actually don't mind if he had the nuclear codes."

Christiana 4:35 [laughs] Because he can't use them.

Trevor Noah 4:36 Because if the man calls it computer, if the car's all computer, that man cannot launch anything.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:41 [laughs] You know who's sitting somewhere right now going, "Are you kidding me?" It is Hillary Clinton. Do you remember when they made fun of her because she couldn't work the soda machine in a convenience store?

Trevor Noah 4:52 Oh, in a convenience store.

Christiana 4:53 I don't remember. Where was, was that-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:54 Oh

Christiana 4:54 ... on the campaign trail?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:55 Yes.

Christiana 4:55 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:55 Campaign trail, so, you know, America-

Christiana 4:57 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 4:57 ... you know, being a regular American, so they go to like a 7-11.

Trevor Noah 5:00 Yeah. Yeah. Go in and do the thing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:01 And I always felt sorry for her because I do think those machines actually are overly complicated. [laughs]

Christiana 5:07 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:08 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:08 And I really felt a rare moment of deep empathy for Hillary Rodham Clinton, 'cause she was like, she's got her cup, you know?

Christiana 5:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:15 And it used to be a physical thing. You'd press that.

Trevor Noah 5:18 Yes.

Christiana 5:18 The lever, right.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:19 11. Well, that's not no more. You know that thing now that spins your cup-

Christiana 5:22 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:22 ... and it does, and you mix some flavors and all that. And she was overwhelmed.

Christiana 5:26 Mm.

Trevor Noah 5:26 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:27 And they acted like that woman had lost her mind.

Trevor Noah 5:31 Yes.

Christiana 5:31 Double standards.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:32 Yes. Now Donald Trump can get in a car and say computer-

Trevor Noah 5:34 Well, but, but I think Trump is the only one who gets the double standard, to be honest with you. I think-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:38 You think so

Trevor Noah 5:38 ... every other politician gets nailed for the smallest things. Eating pizza with a knife and fork.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:43 Uh.

Christiana 5:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:44 Um, w- who's the guy who's screaming, "Yeah!"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:46 Oh, Howard Dean.

Trevor Noah 5:47 Howard Dean.

Christiana 5:48 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:48 More Howard Dean. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:49 It doesn't matter if you're a man or woman. Binders full of women.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:52 Women.

Christiana 5:52 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:52 You name it, you get-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:53 Yeah

Trevor Noah 5:53 ... Trump has some ... That's why they call him the Teflon Don.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 5:56 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 5:57 The man does things that no other person could do. Guys, there is no one who could maintain- The level of respect that he will still maintain from his people after getting in a car and saying, "It's all computer"

Christiana 6:09 Yeah. Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:10 I agree.

Trevor Noah 6:10 If, if, if my six-year-old-

Christiana 6:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 6:13 ... or seven-year-old said that, I would be slightly disappointed, 'cause I would go, "But you know that th- that's not how you say it."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:19 Yeah.

Christiana 6:19 I would get them assessed.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 6:21 [laughs]

Christiana 6:22 As a m- I'd be like, "Let me get you assessed."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:25 Right.

Christiana 6:25 "Let's find out what's going on here"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:26 Yeah, 'cause baby, you've seen the tablet.

Christiana 6:28 Yeah, you know the iPad.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:28 You know the iPad.

Trevor Noah 6:29 That's what I mean.

Christiana 6:30 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:30 Yeah, yeah, because you-

Trevor Noah 6:31 But also, for me, it was also the, it's because of how Trump likes to paint himself as the pinnacle of-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:38 Of everything

Trevor Noah 6:38 ... of evolution.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:39 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:39 You know? I don't know why I get, I get hung up on these things more than I do on him dismantling democracy, 'cause that to me is almost, I don't know how to explain. It's almost obvious.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:49 Okay.

Christiana 6:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:49 Like he's just doing it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:50 He's doing it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:50 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:50 And he said he's gonna do it

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:51 There's subtext, and he's doing it, right.

Trevor Noah 6:52 Yes. He said he's gonna do it, and then he's doing it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 6:54 Yeah.

Christiana 6:54 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 6:55 But then there are the small elements where he gets exposed for not being what he pretends to be-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:00 Yeah

Trevor Noah 7:00 ... in upper society.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 7:01 Like when they asked him about immigration, and he said, he said, "We need to be bringing in experts into the... We gotta get im- 'cause H-1B is very good. H-1B1, very good, very important. We gotta bring, we need more people in, like wine experts."

Christiana 7:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 7:16 I was like, "You mean a sommelier."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 7:19 Like, if you're in upper society, if you are up in that world-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:22 You don't say a wine expert

Trevor Noah 7:22 ... you don't say a wine expert.

Christiana 7:24 No, you don't.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:24 Right.

Trevor Noah 7:25 Do you know what I mean? That's-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:26 Yeah

Trevor Noah 7:26 ... that's-

Christiana 7:26 My quote from him is when he said, "People are dying who have never died before." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 7:31 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:31 Okay, but to be fair, as a Black American, I loved that one.

Trevor Noah 7:35 [laughs]

Christiana 7:35 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:35 Let me just tell you-

Christiana 7:36 When he's in-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:36 ... the number of times I've heard a old Black woman say, "They dying like they ain't never died before"

Trevor Noah 7:41 [laughs]

Christiana 7:41 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:41 I thought, "Okay, well, now that one-

Trevor Noah 7:43 Oh, man

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:44 ... I can kinda get with"

Christiana 7:46 People are dying who have never died before.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:47 Never died before. Yeah.

Christiana 7:49 During COVID.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 7:50 That one, yeah. We have a deep funeral culture where I'm from, and I was like, "I could see that one popping off" You know, but think about Donald Trump, are the moments, like you, I'm a little obsessed with these moments where he's clearly revealed.

Trevor Noah 8:01 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:01 And I think a lot about why didn't that work, like right, why didn't that work? 'Cause the great story to me of Donald Trump is, you know, he's New York's version of a country bumpkin.

Trevor Noah 8:10 Yes.

Christiana 8:10 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:10 He's not a Manhattanite. He was never accepted here. That's what a lot of his grudge is about.

Christiana 8:15 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:15 He learned, however, that if you just win enough, they will at least give you a ticket, right? [laughs] He knows he's not invited because they like him.

Trevor Noah 8:23 Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Christiana 8:23 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:24 But, you know, he learned that, and I think he's just got still... And I hate all the psychological explanations, by the way.

Christiana 8:28 Why? Why do you, why do you hate them?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:30 Oh, you know, 'cause I just think it's very American of us-

Christiana 8:32 Or is it because you're a sociologist?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:33 Like, yes, that's part of it.

Christiana 8:34 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:34 This is absolutely professional envy. But because psychologists keep winning, and I'm not sure they have all the answers.

Trevor Noah 8:40 [laughs]

Christiana 8:40 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:40 You know what I'm saying? But I also think it's, like, very American of us to think that, oh, it's only true if he really meant it, if there's something deep inside.

Trevor Noah 8:49 Oh, okay.

Christiana 8:50 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:51 You know? And I'm like, it doesn't matter whether he means it. It matters that he does it, and I'm like, you know-

Christiana 8:57 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 8:57 ... I don't really care if it's because he's insecure or if he... Lots of people are insecure, and they still don't do horrible things to people.

Christiana 9:04 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:04 So I think we can kind over rely on psychology to excuse away-

Christiana 9:08 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:08 ... bad behavior-

Christiana 9:10 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:10 ... um, especially in politics. I'm like, does it really matter if he really hates-

Trevor Noah 9:14 That's an interesting-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:15 ... trans people?

Trevor Noah 9:15 Yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:16 Like, why are we so obsessed?

Trevor Noah 9:17 I've heard people, I've heard, I've heard people have the same argument around Kanye.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:20 Yes.

Trevor Noah 9:20 So they'll go-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:21 Yes

Trevor Noah 9:21 ... "Yeah, okay, fine. He's bipolar. Fine, but still-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:25 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 9:25 ... he's doing the thing."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:26 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:26 There are many bipolar people who are not doing the thing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:28 That's exactly right.

Christiana 9:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:28 But the one, the one element I keep throwing out is, yes, but how many bipolar people are billionaires?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:34 Yes. It's the billionaire problem.

Trevor Noah 9:35 It's the billionaire part.

Christiana 9:35 Well, Kanye, I think he has a brain injury. He kind of went through a car, right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:39 Oh, my...

Christiana 9:39 He had that-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:39 Yeah. I've never heard-

Trevor Noah 9:40 He's got, he's got traumatic brain injury

Christiana 9:41 ... you know? He went through a car.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:42 I've never thought of it that way.

Christiana 9:43 To me, it's like, you know those athletes with CTE-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:45 Yes

Christiana 9:45 ... who, like, kill their wives eventually?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:47 And it changes your whole personality. I've never thought of that.

Christiana 9:50 I'm like, this guy has a traumatic brain injury, and bipolar, and a billion dollars. Put those three things together.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:54 Oh, my God.

Christiana 9:54 That's why Kanye is here.

Trevor Noah 9:55 Oh, that's your theory.

Christiana 9:56 As in, yeah.

Trevor Noah 9:56 Interesting.

Christiana 9:56 And I'm just like, "Yeah, I think he's got TBI."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 9:58 I can't believe I never thought of that.

Christiana 9:59 He, he displays all the traits.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:00 The violence.

Christiana 10:01 Yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:02 The, yeah, the unpredictability.

Trevor Noah 10:03 But I don't, I don't know if, if, yeah, I, I, I'm conflicted on that because I, I often go-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 10:09 ... how much time should we spend trying to understand how people got there?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:13 Yes.

Trevor Noah 10:13 And I, I almost feel like maybe the two can hap- it's not binary.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:16 No.

Christiana 10:17 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 10:17 On the one hand, we can say it's good to understand it, because maybe if we understand it, we un- we can try and figure out how to not let it happen again.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:23 Yeah.

Christiana 10:23 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 10:24 You know? But then on the other hand, to your point, we shouldn't be using it as an excuse.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:28 So my thing on that is I think this might be a division of labor problem, which, I mean, like, does everybody need to understand it to condemn it?

Trevor Noah 10:34 Oh.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:34 Right? The behavior.

Trevor Noah 10:35 I like this. Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:35 It may just be that, okay, there are people who will puzzle out the how and the why, and then the rest of us, I think it takes a little humility to say, "Hey, I don't do that. I don't know anything about it."

Christiana 10:48 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 10:48 "But I do know that he said this thing that I find abhorrent, and so that's enough for me." I think the problem is there are too many people who feel like [laughs] they can diagnose. So for them, that I need to personally understand-

Trevor Noah 11:02 Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:02 ... before I can act.

Trevor Noah 11:03 Yeah.

Christiana 11:04 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:04 I'm like, the world's just too complicated for that.

Christiana 11:06 That's true. I think the thing I am still fascinated by is the Trump voter.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:11 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Christiana 11:12 I'm curious about the psychology of the Tr- I, I-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:15 Mm

Christiana 11:15 ... and I know a bunch of Trump voters.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:17 Yeah.

Christiana 11:18 Might be surprisingly.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:18 Where do you, where do you hang out?

Trevor Noah 11:20 Okay.

Christiana 11:20 Because people tell me their truth. That's why. People are, I like-

Trevor Noah 11:22 But wait, what are, what are you, what are you fascinated by? What is it that you either don't understand or are trying to understand or, you know?

Christiana 11:29 Because I think that when he first came to power, the- Liberal media establishment spent a long time being like, "Oh, it's because of they're economically disempowered"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:41 Right

Christiana 11:41 And then the data show that they weren't economically disempowered

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:44 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 11:44 It said they are afraid of being in these diverse neighborhoods with lots of immigrants, and it kind of showed that, well, that's, that's not the neighborhoods they were living in.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:52 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:52 Yeah.

Christiana 11:53 Like, we've never been able to understand-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 11:54 Mm-hmm

Christiana 11:55 ... these people, and it's, instead of them diminishing, it seems like there's more of them, and there's more consensus. And I think there's lots of simple explanations to why they do what they do, but he understands them.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:05 Yes.

Christiana 12:05 Right? So I wanna understand the people he understands.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:08 Yeah.

Christiana 12:08 'Cause he understands his voter more than-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:10 Uh-huh

Christiana 12:11 ... anybody else in the world.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:12 I strong agree.

Christiana 12:13 He, he knows-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:13 His political instincts-

Christiana 12:13 ... he can say they-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:14 ... are out of this world

Christiana 12:15 He said, "I can say they're eating cats and dogs, and my, my people-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:18 Yeah

Christiana 12:18 ... are not gonna care." And he, and he knows where the kind of like, the what is it, the third rail is.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:22 Yes.

Christiana 12:22 Like, Trump knows where not to go, right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:25 Yes.

Christiana 12:25 In ways that-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:26 We act like he is reckless-

Christiana 12:28 He knows we're not

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:28 ... to an unfathomable degree, but I have seen him sometimes cakewalk up to a line that you would assume he would cross.

Trevor Noah 12:35 Yeah.

Christiana 12:35 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 12:35 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:35 And he doesn't.

Christiana 12:37 Right. He knew saying Black jobs-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:39 Yeah

Christiana 12:39 ... would resonate with, like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:40 That's right

Christiana 12:40 ... the foundational Black Americans [laughs] on Twitter.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:42 That's right.

Christiana 12:43 And they were like, "Yeah, we know what he's talking about."

Trevor Noah 12:44 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:44 Yeah.

Christiana 12:45 So he understands them, but many other people-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:48 Mm-hmm

Christiana 12:48 ... don't understand them, especially the Democrats, the people saving democracy and trying to stave off fascism.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:52 Oh, wait, wait, wait.

Christiana 12:53 Like, we don't get it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:53 Is that what they doing?

Christiana 12:54 Well, they claim to be doing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:55 Oh, okay.

Christiana 12:56 That's what they- [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:56 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 12:56 That's a follow-up question I had, personally.

Trevor Noah 12:59 Okay, well, here's two things that I, I think of sometimes in that regard. I'd love to

Trevor Noah 13:03 hear how you see it, Tressie, 'cause I go, on the one hand, I don't think that his understanding is special.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:08 Mm.

Trevor Noah 13:08 I'll put, I'll put it there first.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 13:09 What I do think is he, he is thriving in an environment where everyone else spends more time, to your point, trying to understand-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:17 Yes

Trevor Noah 13:18 ... things, as opposed to just pointing them out.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:20 Yep.

Trevor Noah 13:20 You with me?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:20 Yes.

Christiana 13:21 Okay, go on.

Trevor Noah 13:21 So what I mean is, Trump will go, "The immigrants are coming in. Too many immigrants." Then h- the person who's running against him will spend more time going, "We need to understand how, you know, people move around the globe, and what migrationary patterns tell us about the stability of other co-..." You've lost people.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:39 Mm.

Trevor Noah 13:39 So what Trump does really well is he starts with the problem-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:42 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 13:42 ... and then he goes, like, "We'll figure out the solution." So let's think of it this way. If you were walking across the road and a bus was coming towards you, bus was gonna, gonna hit you, who would you prefer? The person who says-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:55 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 13:55 ... "Watch out, there's a truck." It's not a truck, it's a bus.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 13:59 Mm.

Christiana 13:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:59 Or the person who says to you, "Ah, if you, excuse me, if you do not vacate the road as, as quickly-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:06 Mm

Trevor Noah 14:06 ... as possible, there may be a vehicle that might make contact with..." And what I mean by that is, like, there's some politicians I find who spend a lot of time delicately trying to-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:17 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 14:17 ... answer a ques- Ask most politicians, "Uh, so do you think, uh, homelessness is bad in California?" "Well, you know, I think be- before we talk about what we need to think..." You see, and then where he's winning is he's just being blunt.

Christiana 14:28 But that's not, that's not what I'm talking about.

Trevor Noah 14:30 That's what Black jobs is. It's a shortcut to say something.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:32 Yes, it is.

Christiana 14:32 But I, I think it's the way he's able to intuit what people's problems are, being a man with no problems, right? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:39 Nobody has them, by the way.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:40 Uh-huh.

Christiana 14:40 Sure he does.

Trevor Noah 14:41 No, he genuinely believes he has them.

Christiana 14:42 Yeah, he believes he has them.

Trevor Noah 14:42 That's what I mean.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:42 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 14:43 That's the difference.

Christiana 14:44 But I-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:44 And his diag- but his diagnosis feels right.

Trevor Noah 14:46 Yes.

Christiana 14:47 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:47 Right? That is wh- what I think, by the way, has cut across class and across race.

Trevor Noah 14:51 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 14:52 This is what, like, my great aunt is 91, 92 years old, and she goes, "No, you are right. He is right. There are a lot of people out there who shouldn't be here."

Trevor Noah 15:04 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:04 So-

Trevor Noah 15:05 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:05 ... remove them. That seems like the most straightforward solution. Now, removing them means violating the Constitution-

Christiana 15:12 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:12 ... [laughs] you know, violating human rights.

Trevor Noah 15:13 Oh, even as they've learned not having enough planes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:15 Not having enough planes.

Christiana 15:15 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:15 Right? There are all types of complications to that.

Christiana 15:17 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 15:18 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:18 But remove them resonates deeply with a lot of people, for whom observing the problem is the diagnosis of the problem-

Trevor Noah 15:26 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:26 ... for them.

Christiana 15:27 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:27 Yeah. Remove problem.

Trevor Noah 15:28 Yes. It's exactly that. The other one I think that we take for granted, especially if you spend all your time in America, is this, and I love this because I go home so frequently now-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:38 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 15:38 ... be in South Africa, and then obviously I live in America, but I'll go home to South Africa, go back to South Africa, go back to South Africa. The biggest thing I've noticed is we take for granted that when you give people two choices, they will pick one of the two choices.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:51 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 15:52 Right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 15:52 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 15:52 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 15:53 And then you will spend a lot of time asking yourself why they've picked one of the two choices, but you're not asking yourself what having more choices would have revealed to you.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:02 Right?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:02 And that's a good point.

Trevor Noah 16:02 So let's, let's, let's think of it through the lens of sports. One of the things that I've been most fascinated by in the world of sports is how fervently people support a team, and yet how nuanced they are in their ability to support another team. And what I mean by that is someone will go, "I'm a Lakers fan. Who are you?" And then the person will be like, "Uh, I'm an Oklahoma City fan." They're like, "Ah, okay, you cool."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:24 But, but why?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:24 'Cause you hate who I hate, and then you didn't lose-

Trevor Noah 16:26 Because as long as you're not a Boston Celtics fan-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:27 That's right. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 16:28 As long as you're not a Celtics fan, we good.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:30 Who are you? Oh, you're a Knicks fan.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:32 Mm.

Trevor Noah 16:32 You're this fan. You're... And that's what happens in sports, is even when we talk about football in England-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:37 Yeah

Trevor Noah 16:37 ... I'm a Liverpool fan, and then when we talk about who we, we go, like, "If Man City wins, I mean, what's a Man- who's a Man City supporter?"

Christiana 16:44 When Arsenal wins.

Trevor Noah 16:44 You see.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:45 Yeah. [laughs]

Christiana 16:45 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 16:45 It's a thing. And if Man United wins-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:47 Yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 16:47 ... it's even more now because it's like, okay, we're in the same region of the-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 16:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:50 So, so what I think sometimes people forget when they look at American politics is they spend a lot of time going, "Why did these people choose this?" But they don't realize that if there are two choices, they will choose one.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 17:01 And because the parties themselves have become almost, like, I, I don't know what the right word would be, but they, they've almost gone, "If you have the issue, we don't have it."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:11 Oh, yeah.

Trevor Noah 17:11 "And if you have the issue, we don't have it."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:12 That's mutually exclusive.

Trevor Noah 17:13 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:13 You care about immigration, so we can't.

Trevor Noah 17:15 That's my thing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:16 Right.

Trevor Noah 17:16 So Democ- so if I say to you, "Okay, who is a fan of saying whatever you want?"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 17:21 Who would you say?

Christiana 17:22 Republicans.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:22 Republicans.

Trevor Noah 17:22 You see? Okay.

Christiana 17:23 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 17:23 And if I say to you, "Who's a fan of lower taxes?"

Christiana 17:26 Republicans.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:26 Republicans.

Trevor Noah 17:26 All right. If I said to you, "Who's a fan of, um, free healthcare?"

Christiana 17:30 Democrats.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:30 Democrats.

Trevor Noah 17:31 You see, it sh- I don't think it should be like this.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:33 Mm.

Trevor Noah 17:33 Politics should, you should not be able to pinpoint just, like, entire swaths or groups in it. You should be able to say-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:40 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 17:40 ... oh, these parties or these groups or that sen- oh, this, this governor believes that and that one doesn't believe this and this. And you know you see that graph, I'm sure you've seen it-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:49 Mm

Trevor Noah 17:49 ... you know, in all your work, Tressie. If you look at the, it's a beautiful graph I once saw of the overlapping dots of policy that American-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 17:59 Oh, yes

Trevor Noah 17:59 ... lawmakers used to have.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:00 Right.

Trevor Noah 18:00 You've seen it, yeah?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:00 Yes, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:01 And it shows you how a West Virginia Democrat-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:06 Yeah

Trevor Noah 18:06 ... was further from the same issues as a New York Republican.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:13 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 18:13 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:14 They were like, no, no, West Virginia Democrat was actually quite close to a West Virginia Republican.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:17 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:18 And New York Democrat was actually close to a New York Republican. It, it's just you were, you were like, you were inching. But now because politics has all become national-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:25 Yeah

Trevor Noah 18:25 ... I think you're giving two people two choices. And so someone will go, because most people are single issue-ish voters.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:31 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:31 They'll go, to your point, remove them. Who says remove them? Oh, only one party. All right-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:36 Well, I guess I know-

Trevor Noah 18:36 ... well, I guess I know who I'm voting for.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:37 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:37 Who says we're keeping the coal jobs? Only one party? All right, I guess we're, we're ... Do you get what I'm saying?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 18:42 Yeah.

Christiana 18:43 Yes.

Trevor Noah 18:43 [upbeat music] We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music] I would love, just as an experiment, I would love to see what would happen if you said to Americans, in fact, the New York Times did this as a game once that people played.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:04 Oh, your belief, like what you actually cared about?

Trevor Noah 19:06 Let me tell you-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:07 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:07 ... the consternation it created at The Daily Show-

Christiana 19:10 Yeah? Why?

Trevor Noah 19:11 ... was one of my greatest joys.

Christiana 19:12 What happened? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:13 The New York Times came out with a little quiz.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:15 You remember this.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:16 I do.

Trevor Noah 19:17 And the quiz said, "You, we're gonna give you a list of issues-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:21 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:21 ... and how you think they should be solved."

Christiana 19:22 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:23 "At the end of it, we'll tell you who you should vote for."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:27 Let me-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:27 It was extremely popular, but maybe not for all the right [laughs] reasons.

Trevor Noah 19:31 Can, can I tell you the amount of people who had existential crises?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:37 Yes.

Trevor Noah 19:37 People looking at their phones going, "Th- th- that, that con- I, I'm not-

Christiana 19:40 Mm. Mm

Trevor Noah 19:40 ... I'm not a Bernie fan at all. I'm-

Christiana 19:42 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 19:42 ... what do you mean I'm a, I'm a Hillary, I'm a Hillary? I, I would never be a ... I ..."

Christiana 19:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:46 People were shocked to realize that the person they support-

Christiana 19:50 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 19:50 ... doesn't actually support the issues-

Christiana 19:52 The policies

Trevor Noah 19:52 ... or the policies-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:53 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:53 ... that they would support. And that's what I mean by you've given people the option. So I would love to see what would happen if you said to Americans-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:59 Oh-

Christiana 19:59 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 19:59 ... that would be amazing.

Trevor Noah 20:00 I would just love to see what would happen.

Christiana 20:01 Oh. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:02 If you said, if you just said in America, like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 20:03 ... actually, we think America is polarized binary.

Christiana 20:07 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:07 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:08 But I would love to see what would happen if you gave this country a chance to show how complex its tapestry is.

Christiana 20:13 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:14 I would love to see what we would learn about people.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:16 What are the views on immigration? What are the ... Don't buffet politics people.

Christiana 20:20 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:21 Don't be like, "You chose this buffet, you chose that buffet." No, no, no. A la carte, show me your politics.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:25 And all of a sudden we start to get more granular-

Christiana 20:27 That's good, yeah

Trevor Noah 20:27 ... and we start to see things that we've never seen before.

Christiana 20:29 'Cause I think the Dem- the Democrats have now been able to occupy this position of being more progressive on race, and I have not met more racist people-

Trevor Noah 20:39 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:39 [laughs]

Christiana 20:41 ... than the liberal, the liberal White people in New York who won't even send their kids to public school.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Christiana 20:47 Like, just the, and the really subtle psychological warfare. It reminds me of the racism in England.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:52 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 20:52 You know, it's like so deaf.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:54 Oh, it's taken on a lot-

Christiana 20:55 Do you know? Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:55 ... of the contours of English class-based racism.

Christiana 20:58 Yes. Like I was like, oh-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 20:59 And I, and I think for the same reason.

Christiana 21:00 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:00 Class became so important to the Democratic Party because they're trying to serve the interest of a donor class-

Christiana 21:06 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:06 ... who has a lot of money-

Christiana 21:07 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:07 ... while keeping the interests for their identity, we're progressive, we're liberals-

Christiana 21:12 Mm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:12 ... aligned with working class, poor people, minority people, immigrants. So to reconcile those two things-

Christiana 21:18 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:18 ... right? Think about who you have to be to have both of those things exist for you simultaneously. You gotta be delusional in kind of the same way that English people are, who will tell me to my face, "We don't have racism here."

Christiana 21:30 [laughs] Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:30 "We do have class, but we don't have racism."

Christiana 21:33 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:33 As if these are two entirely distinct ... But you do, you have to believe that when you have this like, really structured-

Christiana 21:39 Yeah

Trevor Noah 21:39 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:39 ... uh, class system.

Trevor Noah 21:40 Yeah.

Christiana 21:40 Yeah, a monarchy.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:41 Really formal-

Christiana 21:42 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:42 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:42 That's right. You have this really formal system of immigration, right?

Trevor Noah 21:45 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:46 Uh, and I think the Democrats have oddly kind of a modified-

Christiana 21:50 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:50 ... version of that for much of the same reasons.

Christiana 21:52 Interesting.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:53 Their class politics right now do not align with their race politics.

Christiana 21:58 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 21:59 And so you get a lot of people who make do with that for the same reason everybody went nuts over their results to the quiz. I mean, you think about who the typical New York Times reader is.

Trevor Noah 22:09 Yes.

Christiana 22:09 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:10 Daily Show employee-

Trevor Noah 22:11 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:11 ... perhaps.

Trevor Noah 22:12 Oh. [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:13 And what they realize is that they have accepted a lot of casual racism in policy so that they could keep their class politics, which is, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I absolutely think we should have more immigrants. We're a nation of immigrants."

Trevor Noah 22:26 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:26 "But I do need local control over my schools."

Trevor Noah 22:29 Yes.

Christiana 22:29 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:29 "Because I bought a house in a neighborhood that depends upon-

Christiana 22:33 Yeah

Trevor Noah 22:33 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:33 ... my kids going and being associated-

Trevor Noah 22:35 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:35 ... with the kids who do the da, da, da, da, right?" That's the Democrats' deal. And one of the things that Donald Trump did really well that they still don't have an answer for, is he pointed out the hypocrisy of that.

Trevor Noah 22:46 He's brilliant at that.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:47 In the way that you and I always experienced it, because we were always the Black people vis-a-vis the Democrats, so we knew it was-

Christiana 22:54 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 22:54 ... hypocritical. But for him to point it out and do it so effectively is part of the reason why I think they are spinning out.

Trevor Noah 23:01 Yeah. He's done a great job at that.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:03 Oh, yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:03 That's why he's really good at saying to you ... Remember when he said, was that one of like, "Ask Hillary and her friends about the taxes"?

Christiana 23:09 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:09 Mm.

Trevor Noah 23:09 And where he goes, "Well, they don't, why don't, why haven't they done it? Why haven't?" He's like, "They've had the power. They could have done it."

Christiana 23:15 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 23:15 "They had the presidency, they had the Senate, they had the House. They didn't do it, folks."

Christiana 23:19 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 23:19 "They said it's a problem, but they didn't do it." It's so interesting that you point that out, because it was fascinating to see how OkCupid's founders, we're gonna have him on the podcast, were able to see in the data-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:32 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 23:32 ... that liberal pe- pr- proud liberal people-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:35 Are the most

Trevor Noah 23:37 ... did not act- In according-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:40 That's right

Trevor Noah 23:40 ... to what they said in terms of their views.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:42 We love that data, by the way, as sociologists say, which we, I'm talking about sometimes.

Christiana 23:46 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:46 We love the OkCupid data, because our personal lives are the only place left in this culture where we feel safe being racist, classist, elitist, and ableist.

Christiana 23:54 Wow.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:55 Because we say, "What? It's just our preference. I can't help-

Christiana 23:57 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:57 ... who, you know, gets me going."

Trevor Noah 23:58 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 23:59 That's biology.

Trevor Noah 24:00 This has been my favorite thing is when, when they get asked this. People get asked this in random forums. They'll be like, "Cool." They'll be like, "Cool white people. Cool, cool, cool."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:07 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 24:07 And then someone, because things are so cool, someone will say to them, "Yo, have you ever, have you ever dated a, a Black woman?" And the-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:12 Yeah

Trevor Noah 24:12 ... and the person will be like...

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:13 "Yeah, I just don't think they had any at my school," you know?

Trevor Noah 24:16 I'm trying to- I'm sure.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:17 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:18 And I love how they, they do the thinking thing, like you wouldn't know.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:21 Yes. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:21 People, you don't need to know. If you ask someone, "Have you dated?" So you don't be like, "Have I?"

Christiana 24:25 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:26 Hmm.

Christiana 24:27 Let me think.

Trevor Noah 24:27 Let me think about who. Oh, who?

Christiana 24:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:29 Was she, who was... But I'm like, "People, you know the answer."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:32 Uh-huh.

Trevor Noah 24:33 You know the answer. Do you know what I'm saying?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:35 Yes.

Trevor Noah 24:36 And I think there's like a, there's like a level of honesty that people aren't able to have, but when it's now gonna be in their personal life-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:42 Oh, yes

Trevor Noah 24:44 ... they can't hide the thing anymore.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:45 That's right.

Trevor Noah 24:47 So-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 24:47 That's why people went really, do you guys remember this moment, I think it was around January 6th, where there was, uh, a group of young women, probably just internet-based, but who admitted to using Hinge and the apps-

Christiana 25:01 Mm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:02 ... to sort of, like, catfish Republican men.

Trevor Noah 25:04 No.

Christiana 25:05 No, I didn't hear about that.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:06 Right. So there was this thing, they would go, "Okay, you know, you're never gonna be with somebody hot like me again, uh, unless you change your politics." And so they would, like, pretend to [laughs] be Republicans to out them to find out where they were on January 6th. They'd make the romantic match, right?

Trevor Noah 25:22 Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, help me break this down. So-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:24 Yes

Trevor Noah 25:24 ... so these women went online.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:26 Yes.

Trevor Noah 25:26 Okay. And then they, they-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:28 And I think they're hot. You gotta have that part.

Trevor Noah 25:30 Okay, okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:30 Very, very hot.

Trevor Noah 25:31 So these were hot women who went-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:32 Right

Trevor Noah 25:32 ... online, and they created profiles.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:34 Yes.

Trevor Noah 25:35 And then they linked up with Re- Republican or conservative men.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:39 That is correct, yes. Because they are apparently, according to the data, as you know, they are at a disadvantage on, on, on apps, conservative men. They all complain about it.

Trevor Noah 25:47 Oh.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:47 Nobody wants to date them.

Trevor Noah 25:48 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:49 Then January 6th happens, and I think it started as someone said they recognized a guy they thought they saw on one of the apps once in the videos.

Trevor Noah 25:56 Oh, my goodness.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 25:57 So the women start going on and going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that guy. I've seen that guy." And so they were catfishing them, pretending to be conservative or interested in conservative men.

Trevor Noah 26:06 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:06 And then in the chat would go, "Yeah, so where were you last week?"

Christiana 26:09 That is so interesting.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:11 Yeah. And it, like, outed like three or four people, right? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:15 You know, I always say to my friends, I always say this, I go, to all of us, I go, "Guys, I don't know," like amongst us, I'm like, "I don't know what our downfall will be, but I know it'll be a woman."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:25 That's exactly right. [laughs]

Christiana 26:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:26 I don't care who you are.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:27 That's right.

Trevor Noah 26:28 I don't care who you are. Like, men, yo, our weakness is women, and it just, you don't know when it comes, you don't know how it's gonna happen.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:35 That's right.

Trevor Noah 26:36 You don't-

Christiana 26:36 That's so funny

Trevor Noah 26:36 ... it might be your business, it might be your marriage-

Christiana 26:38 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 26:38 ... it might be your sports career-

Christiana 26:39 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:40 ... it might be your journalism. I don't know what it is gonna be. But the, like, that's why the Bible was so prophetic. See, like, Garden of Eden.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 26:47 They were very clear about that in the Bible.

Trevor Noah 26:48 Yo, Adam was never gonna eat that apple. That man, no, no, no, Adam, you know why? Because-

Christiana 26:51 You see my face, Trevor?

Trevor Noah 26:52 Let me tell you why.

Christiana 26:53 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 26:53 Let me tell you why.

Christiana 26:53 I'm with you.

Trevor Noah 26:53 I'll tell you why. Because Adam, the way the, you know why they wrote the story like that? 'Cause they knew. They're like, Adam was stupid and simple, and he was just like, "Yo, man, I'm not..." And then what, what happened? Eve January 6th-ed him.

Christiana 27:02 [laughs] January 6th-ed him.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:04 She's genuine question based on observational data.

Trevor Noah 27:06 She was like, "Why don't we eat the apple?" And he's like, "What?" And he, because of w- yo, man, it's a prophetic story.

Christiana 27:11 That's, that's an interesting reading.

Trevor Noah 27:12 We are-

Christiana 27:13 I w-

Trevor Noah 27:13 It i- you think a man could have tricked Eve into eating an apple.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:16 This, this, this, this whole episode about-

Christiana 27:16 Do you have questions about-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:16 ... don't miss Biblical interpretation

Christiana 27:17 ... biblical interpretation?

Trevor Noah 27:17 Okay, let me ask you a question.

Christiana 27:18 I don't even wanna go down that.

Trevor Noah 27:19 No, no, no, I wanna ask you a question.

Christiana 27:21 I don't even wanna-

Trevor Noah 27:21 Do you think a man, you think a man would've been able to shift Eve to eat the apple?

Christiana 27:24 I think he-

Trevor Noah 27:26 Answer me

Christiana 27:26 ... got her to eat the apple, and he lied about it, and now we read the book.

Trevor Noah 27:30 Man, I'm not talking about blame. I'm asking you if you think-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:32 I'm with the lying thesis. I like the lying thesis

Trevor Noah 27:34 ... uh, you think-

Christiana 27:35 No, I'm gonna say something sexist about women. Let's not do this.

Trevor Noah 27:37 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:39 [laughs] I understand.

Christiana 27:41 I-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:41 I am admitting to-

Christiana 27:42 Women, women have, women have done something

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:43 ... males' basic nature being lying, though. I'm admitting that

Christiana 27:46 I, I, and I know a lot of women who are all about the male gaze, and if a man told them to eat an apple, and God told them-

Trevor Noah 27:52 Oh, okay

Christiana 27:52 ... not to, they would do it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:54 That's maybe cute.

Christiana 27:55 Yes.

Trevor Noah 27:55 Oh.

Christiana 27:55 But-

Trevor Noah 27:55 But, but there's only one man in the Garden

Tressie McMillan Cottom 27:57 ... I was gonna go with, I th- I would think that Adam was too stupid to think through the logic of, "Hey, apple could be good," right?

Christiana 28:05 Oh.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:05 Like, to get to that conclusion.

Trevor Noah 28:05 That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying.

Christiana 28:07 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:08 Now, I'm not sure that Eve convinced him so much as she was like, "Yo, I'ma try the apple." And he like, "Not without me, you ain't."

Christiana 28:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 28:14 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:15 'Cause I do think there's a basic nature here that we're talking about.

Christiana 28:18 You know what?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:18 And so I think the, "Not without me, you ain't," kinda came up.

Christiana 28:21 I'll agree with that, but I wanted to say something about this app experiment that the women did.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:26 Yeah.

Christiana 28:27 I don't think that would happen in 2025-

Trevor Noah 28:29 Mm

Christiana 28:29 ... because I'm noticing a lot of women getting conservative.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:33 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Christiana 28:33 I'm seeing it all over my TikTok, my Instagram.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:37 Same. I think we're on similar TikTok-

Christiana 28:38 Are we seeing on the same algorithm?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:40 I think so, yeah, yeah

Christiana 28:41 ... like the thing about skinniness, how we should dress-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:45 All of that

Christiana 28:45 ... about being feminine-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:46 Is-

Christiana 28:47 ... being kinda conservative

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:48 ... a return to conservatism. Yeah.

Christiana 28:50 I'm seeing women who were, like, a few years ago I considered pretty progressive-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:53 Mm-hmm

Christiana 28:54 ... becoming more about, like, "Oh, I want only biological women," and certain-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 28:59 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 28:59 What is that about, Tressie?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:01 Oh, I think that's, we talk about ec- economic anxiety. You guys were talking about that, and I agree, I think we totally misdiagnosed, like, that whole economic anxiety argument.

Christiana 29:12 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:12 And the case with women, I think, is a perfect example of how we misdiagnosed it. Yes, people are anxious. That doesn't mean that they should be anxious. What people are responding to is perceived loss-

Trevor Noah 29:25 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:25 ... not real loss.

Christiana 29:27 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:27 That's why you're like, "What do you mean? They're rich. They're not economically anxious." Yeah, they are, it's just not real.

Trevor Noah 29:31 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:31 It's made up.

Christiana 29:32 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:32 It's status anxiety. We're calling it economic anxiety.

Christiana 29:35 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:35 So when you start saying it's status anxiety, though-

Christiana 29:38 Mm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:38 ... that's where I think the gender piece becomes really prevalent because what I am seeing happen, same, women in my life who were all pussy-headed out- About [laughs] Hillary

Christiana 29:48 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 29:49 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:49 Right? I, they were throwing pussy hats at me

Christiana 29:51 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:51 And they were like, "We gotta go." I had on a pants suit, for Hillary, right?

Trevor Noah 29:55 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:55 And today-

Christiana 29:56 I'm with her

Tressie McMillan Cottom 29:57 I'm with her. And today, you know who they are with? A dude in a fleece vest and khakis. It's like they look at, I think, they are looking accurately at a post Roe reality.

Christiana 30:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 30:09 Hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:09 A world where truly the United States government is the most powerful force in the world still, and it has declared war on women.

Christiana 30:18 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:18 Go back home. We want you out of work. We want you out of schools. Too much, too far, too fast. And I think you look at that and you go, "I'm hitching myself-

Christiana 30:29 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:29 ... to the thing that provides some cover," right? And I think that performing conservatism, even if it's just in how you look-

Christiana 30:39 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:39 Everybody's getting the haircuts now. I said the-

Christiana 30:41 Or the natural hair movement is-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:42 The shift from the liberal haircut, by the way, to the conservative haircut-

Trevor Noah 30:45 What is a conservative haircut?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:46 Somebody gotta do-

Trevor Noah 30:46 What's a liberal haircut?

Christiana 30:47 Oh.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:47 You know it when you see it.

Christiana 30:48 You, you know it when you see it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:49 [laughs]

Christiana 30:50 Trevor, honestly, you will. Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:51 Oh, man.

Christiana 30:52 You will know when you see... Also, with Black women, the natural hair movement, I think, is pretty much, like, done.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:57 Folks are going back to the blowouts-

Christiana 30:59 Relaxers

Tressie McMillan Cottom 30:59 ... and the relaxers.

Christiana 31:00 Right.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:00 That's why they were mad when the science came out and said relaxers might be causing cancer.

Christiana 31:04 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:04 Because the transition had started, and I think it's the same reason, uh, the same thing for Black women, by the way

Christiana 31:10 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:10 We have been at the forefront of, like, economic progress for women.

Christiana 31:14 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:14 That sort of generational forefront, right? Black women, women writ large outpacing men in education, going to college. We, we're almost at parity in the most male fields, law and medicine, right? This was like-

Christiana 31:27 Is that for, for Black women?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:29 All women

Christiana 31:29 All women, okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:30 Yeah.

Christiana 31:30 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:30 Black women had already exceeded Black, uh, men. But white women were now coming for it. I mean, we were almost at parity. And now you see this, like, hostile sort of response to women. Uh, and I think you start going, "If nothing else, let me look the part."

Christiana 31:47 Mm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:47 And again, I'm not sure any of that's conscious. I think as you look around, and the aesthetics, for example, of the Trump administration are really clear.

Christiana 31:55 Yeah, blonde.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:56 Blonde.

Christiana 31:56 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:57 As blonde as you can get it.

Christiana 31:58 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 31:58 And I think that you take that as a cue for this is what we do now if you want a little bit of safety.

Christiana 32:05 Um, okay, so this is what I think about. I don't think men are safe.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:08 No.

Christiana 32:08 Like, the, the way I was ra- maybe, and maybe it's just, like, the way I was raised-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:12 Mm

Christiana 32:12 ... was where, like, have your own money.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:14 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 32:14 Like-

Trevor Noah 32:15 Wait, you mean, help me cl- you mean, like, men are dangerous, or you mean men are not safe in this system?

Christiana 32:18 I mean, men are dangerous, but that's just as it is.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:20 But they're not a safe backup plan.

Christiana 32:21 Let's not say backup.

Trevor Noah 32:21 Oh, you mean they're not-

Christiana 32:22 A man is not a financial plan

Trevor Noah 32:23 Okay, go, go, go. Okay, go on.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:24 Yeah, yeah. My mother was like my grandmother the same.

Christiana 32:25 Yeah, my mom was always like, "We spent too much on your education for you to become a stay-at-home mother."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:29 [laughs]

Christiana 32:29 And then my dad's like, "Don't, it's her choice." [laughs] But there's a, this argument.

Trevor Noah 32:32 Okay.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:32 Yeah.

Christiana 32:32 My mom's like, "We invested in these girls."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:34 That's right.

Christiana 32:35 And part of that is a fear of what a man will do to you-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:37 That's right

Christiana 32:37 ... if he dies-

Trevor Noah 32:39 Yes, yes

Christiana 32:39 ... or if he leaves you.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:40 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 32:40 So you always need to have your own means. And my mom's like, "Even if you're just selling cakes, and you're at home with your kids."

Trevor Noah 32:45 Mm-hmm, just have a life of your own.

Christiana 32:46 "Have your little pocket money."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:47 That's right.

Trevor Noah 32:47 Yeah.

Christiana 32:48 But now I'm seeing a lot of women, and I'm, my circle is a lot of women of color-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:52 Mm-hmm

Christiana 32:52 ... who are like, "I wanna be a s- stay-at-home girlfriend, stay-at-home wife. I want a soft life."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 32:57 Can I just say, about stay-at-home girlfriend-

Christiana 32:58 "I don't wanna, I don't..."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:00 The oxymoron of that-

Trevor Noah 33:01 [laughs]

Christiana 33:02 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:03 ... pushes my buttons in a particular-

Trevor Noah 33:05 Oh, you are

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:06 ... kind of way.

Christiana 33:06 Tell me more.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:07 What is a girlfriend? A stay-at-home wife is only allowed to be a stay-at-home wife with the benefits of it, however marginal those benefits are, because the state says he owes you the money.

Christiana 33:16 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:17 If you a girlfriend-

Trevor Noah 33:19 Oh, okay, I see

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:19 ... who is gonna make the sucker give you the money?

Trevor Noah 33:21 [laughs]

Christiana 33:21 But that's what I'm saying, that people are like, "I'll even settle to play house." [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:25 [laughs] I see these young girl- and I feel like I'm turning into a auntie, but I see these young girls-

Trevor Noah 33:31 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:31 ... and I'm like, "Who raised you? Who raised you?"

Trevor Noah 33:34 Oh, man, I love, I never thought I would see the day when Tressie McMillan Cottom would be sitting in front of me saying, "Get the bag, ladies."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:44 Get the bag.

Christiana 33:45 Get the bag. It's like marry him. Marry him at least.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:46 Yes. Do you know what people's-

Trevor Noah 33:47 Get the bag

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:48 ... grandmas did for you to be able to get the bag?

Trevor Noah 33:50 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 33:52 You know what she put up with for the bag to be procurable?

Christiana 33:56 But it's become meme. There's a meme now like, "Oh, I wish we could go back and tell those women wives-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:00 Go back

Christiana 34:01 ... um, women and say like, 'What were you thinking? Why would you fight for us to have the right to work? I hate work.'"

Trevor Noah 34:06 But I'll, I'll-

Christiana 34:07 Right?

Trevor Noah 34:07 I see this in a different way as well. In South Africa, for instance.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:10 There are a lot of people now in South Africa who go, "Uh, maybe apartheid wasn't that bad, because at least then-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:15 Oh, yeah, right

Trevor Noah 34:15 ... there was no unemployment. In apartheid-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:18 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 34:18 ... the electricity was fine." And, and then I'll say this, s- I wouldn't say it to women because I, I wasn't a woman, and I wasn't even around then.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:24 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 34:24 But still, I go, "Y- yeah, but remember, it is easy to think that the things worked well when the system was only designed to benefit a few, 'cause then it was working well for a few."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:35 Mm-hmm. That's right.

Trevor Noah 34:36 So in South Africa,

Trevor Noah 34:37 yeah, we had electricity, because we only had to give it to 5% of the population.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:40 That's right. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:41 Yes, the schools were good for 5% of the population.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 34:44 Yes, there was no unemployment, because people were essentially slaves.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 34:48 So yeah, if you wanna go, you're forgetting that things worked, but you're not including who they worked for.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:54 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 34:54 And how bad it was for everyone else.

Trevor Noah 34:56 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 34:56 That's exactly right.

Christiana 34:57 I am curious about, like, and I think about this about myself and, like, m- younger women that I'm around. Why hasn't there been more resistance?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:06 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 35:06 Why isn't... Like, people are surprised when they look at the, the votes, how many women voted for Trump in spite of the Roe v. Wade thing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:14 Yeah.

Christiana 35:14 Or just the indifference.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:15 Yeah.

Christiana 35:16 You're not seeing women marching in the streets-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:18 Mm

Christiana 35:18 ... about many of the things happening. It feels like we've just been like, "I can't do it." What, what's that about?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:23 Yeah. I think the reality of progress, and it is a, you know, it's counterintuitive, but we see this with any kind of f- form of progress. So the example I like to use is, like, the classic immigrant story in this country is the parents who immigrate to this country-

Trevor Noah 35:41 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:41 ... will always be foreign to their children who benefited from it, right? They will a- never truly understand each other, right? There are millions of books written about that very story. That's just the immigrant story. Why? Because what it took to be desperate enough to leave your home country-

Trevor Noah 35:56 Oh, wow, yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 35:57 ... to go to the United States of America means you will never be able to fully appreciate or understand- The benefits of it, so you do it for your children, who will understand the benefits of it, but will never understand-

Trevor Noah 36:09 Hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:09 ... what it took to be desperate enough to migrate. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 36:13 Yeah.

Christiana 36:14 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:14 The, the conundrum of social progress is what you have is a generation of women who benefited from feminism, but never experienced what made feminism necessary.

Trevor Noah 36:23 Hmm.

Christiana 36:23 Hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:24 Right? We think, and that's not to say that it is not true that, but we think the sorta like interpersonal bias and violence we experience at work or school or whatever is as bad as it can be, when really, as bad as it can be is being fundamentally, according to the state, an appendage of your husband. That is-

Christiana 36:46 Not having a bank account. [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:47 That's right. That's actually as bad as it can be.

Christiana 36:49 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:49 But for you, that's like this vague notion.

Christiana 36:52 Yeah, it's very abstract.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 36:53 Right? It's very abstract, right? And I think, uh, knowing and understanding what made you possible might be fundamentally impossible.

Christiana 37:02 So, and not to, I don't wanna throw elder women under the bus, 'cause I think we do that too much.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:06 Yeah.

Christiana 37:06 Did they not articulate-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:08 Nope

Christiana 37:08 ... enough to us-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:09 Who wants to remember-

Christiana 37:10 The, what the stakes-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:10 ... what brought you here?

Trevor Noah 37:11 Yeah.

Christiana 37:11 Well, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:11 Like, I, like the amnesia, again, another part of the immigrant story [laughs] is-

Trevor Noah 37:15 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:15 ... how many children of immigrants have said, "My parents never talked about this."

Trevor Noah 37:19 No.

Christiana 37:20 Hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:20 "They wouldn't even use our native language."

Christiana 37:22 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:22 "I don't know any of the stories that brought me here."

Christiana 37:24 Yeah. Food, I didn't like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:26 No

Christiana 37:26 ... it's just like-

Trevor Noah 37:26 Yeah

Christiana 37:26 ... put it away.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:27 We do the same thing.

Christiana 37:28 Yeah. Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:28 They survived it. I'm, I've been working on this memoir for a couple years now, and I promise if my publisher's listening, I am almost finished.

Christiana 37:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 37:35 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 37:35 I swear to you. I know it sounds like I'm doing a show, and like, we're so close. And one of the things that comes up, like, and again, nothing unique about this, but like, I don't know anything as it turned out about my grandmother, who I thought I had known my whole life. Like, the things we don't talk about are huge. The things we don't talk about is probably more than the things we do talk about. And so there's a, like, there's this current, you know, there's this ongoing generational amnesia.

Christiana 38:02 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 38:02 When you have suffered in any kind of way, like, I just don't think people wanna sit around the dinner table and talk about the beating that finally broke them, or the [laughs] the, you know, the sexual violence that finally pushed them to leave-

Trevor Noah 38:16 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 38:16 ... a husband, right? People just don't wanna talk about that. And so it becomes real easy for you not to inherit the violent part of the story.

Christiana 38:23 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 38:23 And all you inherit is, "Yeah, but she ain't have to go out to no job." Like, yeah, she would've loved to have gone out to a job.

Christiana 38:30 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 38:31 She was begging to go out [laughs] to a job. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 38:34 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. [upbeat music] You know, when you talk about that, I can't help but think about how it applies to many of the moments of progress that countries have made-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 38:54 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 38:54 ... and society has made, because everything you just said now could completely be applicable to vaccines, let's say.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:02 Oh.

Christiana 39:02 Oh, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:02 Absolutely.

Christiana 39:03 Oh, yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

Trevor Noah 39:05 Because everyone who is alive now with no polio, no measles-

Christiana 39:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 39:09 ... no anything, you cannot appreciate a vaccine-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:11 Nope

Trevor Noah 39:12 ... because you do not live in a world where you are seeing the effects of not having the vaccine.

Christiana 39:16 Well, it's so funny, 'cause on both my maternal and paternal line, I think particular about my paternal line, my grandmother had a set of kids before my dad and his two brothers.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:25 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 39:25 And they kind of always existed in the family imagination. And then when I grew up, I realized that they were pretty old, uh, when they died. They were like three and seven.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:34 Hmm.

Christiana 39:34 They died in infanthood and early childhood, and-

Trevor Noah 39:37 Oh

Christiana 39:37 ... from like prev- things that-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:38 Preventable

Christiana 39:39 ... a kid never dies from now

Trevor Noah 39:40 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:41 Yeah.

Christiana 39:41 And when I think of especially my paternal grandmother, she never got over that grief.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:46 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 39:47 And so I think we, we, we live in the shadow of a lot of grief in my family, like the grief of Biafra-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 39:51 Right

Christiana 39:51 ... and the grief of that particular event, those partic- particular events. And so I said, I said, "Look, when I hear about anti-vax stuff, I get personally triggered because being the child of two Nigerian immigrants-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:04 Mm-hmm

Christiana 40:04 ... I'm actually not that far away from a world where there are women-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:08 Yes

Christiana 40:08 ... who would, w- you, your child gets an MRR vaccine, you say, "Thank you, Jesus."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:12 That's right. [laughs]

Christiana 40:12 'Cause you know what it means.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:13 That's right. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:13 Yeah.

Christiana 40:13 Do you know what I mean? So that thing about the distance and vaccines, I think there's some populations who, like, are a bit closer, but for your average person in the West, they don't know somebody that's died-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:22 No

Christiana 40:22 ... of measles or even meningitis.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:24 Yeah.

Christiana 40:24 Like, some people take the meningitis vaccine for granted now, but I remember when it was a death sentence.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:29 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:29 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:30 You know?

Trevor Noah 40:30 But I think about this in, in all aspects of life. Um, the FAA is a great example.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:35 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:36 Because America has had such an impeccable track record flying-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:40 Yep

Trevor Noah 40:41 ... people now take for granted the apparatus that has gone into making sure-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:46 Yeah.

Christiana 40:46 Yes

Trevor Noah 40:46 ... that America has such an impeccable record-

Christiana 40:48 Yeah

Trevor Noah 40:48 ... while flying.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:49 People, you don't understand how many fl- planes are flying around all the time, landing, taking off. It, I mean, these are, like, decisions-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 40:57 Oh, the science of it is amazing-

Trevor Noah 40:59 It, it, and, and-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:00 ... and complicated. Yeah

Trevor Noah 41:00 ... then people go, "We need to gut the FAA. We, we need to"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:03 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:03 And you, and you go, "No." You say that because you don't understand that you're experiencing its benefits.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:10 That's right.

Trevor Noah 41:10 You know?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:10 Mm.

Trevor Noah 41:10 If you've only been in the time of something existing-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:13 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 41:13 ... it is hard for you to imagine a time before it existed and how much better life has gotten.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:18 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 41:18 And so then you don't think that it's meaningful anymore.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:20 Yeah.

Christiana 41:20 That's right.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:21 Yeah.

Christiana 41:21 We talk about, like, the, the shadow state, which I find, I've, I have found that the way the GOP, you know, headed by Trump, but not just Trump in this instance, talk about, you know, the deep state, you know, oh, the scary deep state, deep state coming for you. Uh, and you know, the sociologists have this thing like the shadow state, which is our government functions so well for such a complex, large population, and most of that is invisible to the average American.

Trevor Noah 41:50 Yes.

Christiana 41:50 Poor people see it 'cause they gotta go to court.

Trevor Noah 41:52 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:52 Yeah.

Christiana 41:52 Okay?

Trevor Noah 41:53 Yes.

Christiana 41:53 But everybody else, water just shows up.

Trevor Noah 41:56 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 41:57 Trash just rolls out.

Trevor Noah 41:58 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 41:59 Yeah.

Christiana 41:59 Like, so what we are talking about here is, like, a sort of, like, politics, a disease of, like, um, privilege

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:08 Right? That the state works so well.

Trevor Noah 42:10 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:10 It's been so stable, which in the, like, global scheme of things really is phenomenal.

Trevor Noah 42:16 Yep.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:16 And it works so well for a diverse, far-flung population that a huge cross-section of people who don't have a ton in common any other way can be convinced that the state is unnecessary.

Trevor Noah 42:31 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:31 Yeah. And that, in fact, the only way this is working is that there's a secret deep state, right?

Trevor Noah 42:36 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:36 But no, what they mean by the deep state is the functioning government. Your checks arrive on time, right? And so what they think the government is is that customer service number they call, where admittedly you might get a sister who don't wanna talk to you that day. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 42:50 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:50 Admittedly. But what they do not see is, like, that you are just, like, a, a small handful of-

Trevor Noah 42:58 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 42:58 ... exceptions that didn't fit into the bureaucratic majority that time. Yeah. Your stuff got lost, but the vast majority of peoples' did not. Most people's stuff at the DMV actually goes smoothly-

Trevor Noah 43:08 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:09 ... believe it or not.

Trevor Noah 43:09 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:09 We love to hate on the DMV. I wrote a piece defending the DMV once, and the number of people who wrote me letters to tell me their personal stories of- Sorry, I was one of them ... DM- Later I figured. I thought one sounded like you. [laughs] They were like, "You said the DMV," and I was like, "No, I'm saying if you have a problem at the DMV, you're like .01%."

Trevor Noah 43:28 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:29 But you take for granted that the whole population is there-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:31 Yes

Trevor Noah 43:31 ... so the .01% is huge.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:33 Exactly. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:34 That's what people don't get. They don't get this about airports.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:37 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:37 They don't get this about the government. They don't get this about medicine.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:40 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 43:40 They don't get this about everything, is it's almost impossible to understand-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:45 Yeah

Trevor Noah 43:45 ... what you have if you weren't around for when you didn't have it.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:48 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 43:49 And so, like, I'll try and say this to my younger siblings with, like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:52 Mm

Trevor Noah 43:52 ... phones and technology-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 43:53 Oh, yeah

Trevor Noah 43:53 ... and all that stuff. I remember saying to my brother once, I said, "You know what's crazy, is in your life you've never waited."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:00 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 44:00 And he said, "What do you mean?"

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 44:01 I said, "Your generation does not know the concept of waiting for something."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:04 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 44:05 And he's like, "What do you mean?" He said, "I wait all the time." I said, "No, you don't wait."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:08 No.

Trevor Noah 44:08 I said, "I used to stand in a line-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:10 Yes

Trevor Noah 44:11 ... at any number of places."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:13 Why does this sound, sound like 100 years ago? [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 44:15 It really does.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:16 But you're right.

Trevor Noah 44:16 And I said, "I used to stand in line at a post office-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:18 That's right

Trevor Noah 44:19 ... and all I could do, my only entertainment, was to look at the back of the head of the person in front of me."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:24 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 44:24 That was it. There, there was no, uh, what's happening in the news. There was no music. There was no video game. There was no sending messages. No, I stood there-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:33 Yep

Trevor Noah 44:33 ... and I looked at the back of their head for anything from 10 to 15 minutes-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:38 Yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 44:38 ... and that was it. I would sit and wait for a bus to show up. I didn't know where it was. I didn't know when it was.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:44 Yes. Yeah. You didn't know it was coming. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 44:45 I just stood there, and I would judge generally by how many people were with me-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:49 Yeah

Trevor Noah 44:49 ... whether or not I had made the right choice in timing.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:51 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 44:52 If there was no one, I'd be like, "Maybe I'm ahead of them, or maybe they've left me."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:54 Well, I just missed the bus. Missed the bus. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 44:55 Yeah. And if there's a bunch, okay, now we're not the problem.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:58 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 44:58 The bus is the problem.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 44:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 44:59 But I was trying to explain this to him, and I said to him, and he, by the way, he wasn't even being a brat, we were just discussing it-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:03 Right

Trevor Noah 45:03 ... as, like, a fun thing. And I was like, "Man, it's amazing how you can't, you can't even appreciate-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:09 Yep

Trevor Noah 45:09 ... that you don't wait, because you've always never waited."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:13 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 45:14 You know? You know why things are not happening or happening. You know where your friend is. Or do you remember just waiting for your friend somewhere?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:20 This was the thing I was thinking about. I, and I know this is a generational thing, and again, I really don't wanna turn into an auntie, but, you know, Destiny. [laughs] I, when I say to somebody, you know, it used to be a thing that I'm gonna meet you somewhere at 2:00. I would just see you at 2:00.

Trevor Noah 45:35 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:36 Yeah. Now, you have to share your location.

Trevor Noah 45:38 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:39 They wanna know when you've left the house. They wanna know when I've gotten in the car. They wanna know how far away I am, where I'm gonna park. Like, there's all of this constant interaction, mostly because the idea, to your point, of waiting is, like, counterintuitive to everything.

Trevor Noah 45:54 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:54 Mm-hmm. I'm like, "I'm just gonna see you at 2:00." [laughs] Like, "I'll get there how I get there."

Trevor Noah 45:58 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 45:58 "We'll see each other at 2:00, and it'll be fine." But I have found that the level of anxiety that younger people have about not knowing your precise-

Trevor Noah 46:09 Yeah

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:09 ... movement-

Trevor Noah 46:10 Have you left yet?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:10 ... and location. Yeah. I can't ima- and again, don't wanna be one of these people, but I cannot imagine that our brains have developed fast enough for that-

Trevor Noah 46:18 No

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:18 ... to be okay- No ... with us.

Trevor Noah 46:19 No.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:20 Yeah, it's just not, an 11-year-old asked me [laughs] recently, uh, what age was I when I got my first phone, my smartphone. And I said, "What do you mean, honey? How young w- The smartphone wasn't invented [laughs] until I was, like, 25. [laughs] What are you saying?" She was like, "I bet you got yours when you were 13."

Trevor Noah 46:40 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:40 And I was like, "At 13, I think we had just gotten call waiting."

Trevor Noah 46:44 That's hilarious.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:45 Yes. "And we ran it into the ground."

Trevor Noah 46:47 That is hilarious.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:48 Right? And they, yet she can't fathom the idea.

Trevor Noah 46:50 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:51 Yeah. Because that was her point, by the way. She was like, "I don't have anything to do when we're in the car, because I don't have a smartphone."

Trevor Noah 46:55 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 46:55 I was like, "You look out the window." [laughs] Like, I looked out the window for 20 years. Yeah. [laughs] Uh, but the concept, and I just don't think the brains are prepared. And I do think that a lot of what we see at sort of a societal scale is that chronic anxiety.

Trevor Noah 47:10 Yes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:12 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:12 Everything should happen. I should be able to predict everything. You know, the total fear of any risk. Missing the bus, no big deal.

Trevor Noah 47:20 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:21 You missed it, you waited for the next one.

Trevor Noah 47:23 Mm-hmm.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:23 Now it would be considered, like, some major-

Trevor Noah 47:25 I've seen people risk limbs being chopped off, amputated by the train-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 47:29 ... because they don't wanna miss it. As if another one-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:32 Isn't coming

Trevor Noah 47:33 ... will not be coming in five minutes.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:34 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:35 And the time they're saving is so that they can get home and scroll on TikTok.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:38 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 47:39 It's not like when they get, when they get home, they've got five more minutes to solve, you know, like, some crazy equation that'll solve the universe.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:45 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:45 No. They're rushing five mi- just five minutes faster-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 47:48 Mm-hmm Oh, God

Trevor Noah 47:48 ... to get somewhere where they're going to then waste that time doing a thing. And the reason I say waste is because it's not, like, what they want to be doing. But as, as we wrap, Tressie, I wanna know from you if, like, as a sociologist, as someone who's looked at societies and nations and the way things work, do you think that means the unfortunate ultimate conclusion is for, let's say, America and many parts of the world as we see now- Is the unfortunate conclusion that people will only appreciate it when it now breaks down-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:16 Mm

Trevor Noah 48:16 ... for their generation.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:18 Yes.

Trevor Noah 48:18 So will Americans only appreciate democracy-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:20 Yeah

Trevor Noah 48:20 ... when Trump has completely obliterated it? Will people only appreciate f-free speech when it's been ripped away?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:27 Mm-mm.

Trevor Noah 48:27 Will women appreciate the advances that were made by other women when they no longer have it?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:32 I am so sorry to say this. Like, I am so sorry you asked me this question because I have an answer. I've thought about it so much-

Trevor Noah 48:38 Hm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 48:38 ... and it is not a good or fun answer, but yes. I'm not, I don't wanna be dystopian. I actually don't think it'll be like, you know, I don't think it'll be the type of revolution that maybe [laughs] some of us imagine and hope for, and I don't think it is, like, a complete, you know, reversal of rights. But I do think it will take the firsthand experience of the loss of a functioning bureaucratic state-

Trevor Noah 49:04 Hm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:05 ... of, uh, the type of security. I don't think we understand how much, like, emotional security we get from knowing the government works-

Trevor Noah 49:14 Hm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:14 ... from not having to worry about whether water's coming, for not having to worry about whether when you call 911-

Christiana 49:20 Oh

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:20 ... is somebody coming.

Christiana 49:22 And, and can I say something?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:22 Yeah.

Christiana 49:23 I've, I've, for some reason, every American city I've lived in, I've been there at a crucial catastrophic event.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:31 Uh-oh.

Christiana 49:31 So I was in New York during COVID. I was in Austin, Texas, when the first snowstorm happened that collapsed-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:37 Yeah

Christiana 49:37 ... the grid.

Trevor Noah 49:37 Oh, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:38 Right.

Christiana 49:38 So we had no power.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:40 Yeah.

Christiana 49:40 And had this one-year-old child, and it was freezing, and-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:44 Mm-hmm

Christiana 49:44 ... no help came.

Trevor Noah 49:46 Wow.

Christiana 49:46 Right? People even died in that.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:47 Mm.

Christiana 49:47 You know, there was people that used their fireplace-

Trevor Noah 49:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Christiana 49:50 ... and it wasn't, which like... And then I've also was in LA during the fires.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:54 Oh, we should maybe-

Christiana 49:54 At least a year [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:55 ... quarantine you.

Trevor Noah 49:56 [laughs]

Christiana 49:56 Oh, I'm the problem.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:57 That's my takeaway here.

Christiana 49:57 I'm the problem.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:58 Is-

Christiana 49:58 No, no, I'm the problem.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 49:59 Oh. [laughs]

Christiana 50:00 It's, it's me.

Christiana 50:01 But, like, LA during the fires-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:02 Yeah

Christiana 50:02 ... and it's like you're using this app actually which is telling you where all the fires are and how contained they are-

Trevor Noah 50:08 Yeah

Christiana 50:09 ... et cetera, et cetera. And that's when you kind of realize that you're like, "Oh, this is teetering on the edge," especially in Texas-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:16 Yes

Christiana 50:16 ... when it was like, oh, this is a grid that's not connected to-

Trevor Noah 50:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Christiana 50:19 ... any other grid.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:19 Yeah.

Christiana 50:19 This is a state with no income tax-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:22 Mm-hmm

Christiana 50:22 ... only has property taxes. So it's not like there's, like, voluminous income-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:25 Yeah

Christiana 50:25 ... to, like, help people.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:27 It was a Republican utopia.

Christiana 50:29 Yeah, and you're like, I think that's already what happened in North Carolina. This stuff is already happening.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:33 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 50:33 We're having these events that are showing you if America gets into, like, a real disaster-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:38 That's right

Christiana 50:39 ... it's gonna fall apart very quickly. And, like, the LA fires was the moment I was like, oh, there wasn't enough water?

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:45 Mm-hmm.

Christiana 50:46 But this guy could get a private fire service to protect his malls?

Trevor Noah 50:50 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:50 That's right.

Christiana 50:50 [laughs]

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:51 That's right.

Christiana 50:51 Like-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:51 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Christiana 50:51 ... but his home, but I was like, "Oh."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 50:53 And people can see it firsthand. The American sickness though is that they would look at that story and go, "The solution isn't more taxes. The sol- solution for me is I need to become that rich guy."

Trevor Noah 51:02 Yeah.

Christiana 51:02 Yeah. I wanna be rich. Me too.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 51:03 That's the American disease.

Christiana 51:04 Yeah, yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 51:05 That we look at that, and what we diagnose, again, back to, like, the wrong [laughs] diagnosis, it was like, oh, if I want the state to work for me, I just better become rich. Now, everybody cannot, of course, be rich, which is why we created governments. But [laughs] what we don't understand, I think Texas is a great example of this, Texas is, like, again, one of these, you know, utopian political realities for people who believe in, like, the core tenets of the GOP's political platform, but it only works because everybody around them is not a Republican [laughs] utopia.

Trevor Noah 51:38 Wow.

Christiana 51:38 Yeah.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 51:38 You need the government to be somewhere, and so you can only be a state like Florida, you can only be a state like Texas that says, "We don't use the federal government. See us? You know, big F you to, to, uh, the federal government," well, yeah, you know that because all of the rest of us, however-

Trevor Noah 51:52 Yes

Tressie McMillan Cottom 51:52 ... fund it-

Christiana 51:53 Mm-hmm

Tressie McMillan Cottom 51:53 ... and keep it going, and you draw from it, and you still need it, [laughs] right? People learned that during COVID. We saw it firsthand. The thing about this country is our need for ongoing amnesia about how vulnerable we are keeps us from doing the right diagnosis. Yeah, you look at that and go, "The rich guy was able to get private firefighters," uh, and you go, "Okay."

Christiana 52:19 And I guarantee he's gonna be mayor. I think he's gonna run again-

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:22 Yeah

Christiana 52:22 ... for mayor, and people are like, "Oh, he needs to be our mayor," 'cause look-

Trevor Noah 52:26 Oh, yeah, yeah, no. Yeah

Christiana 52:26 ... he kept his malls.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:27 He solved the problem.

Christiana 52:28 Like, that, that part

Trevor Noah 52:29 Yeah

Christiana 52:29 ... of the state still exists.

Trevor Noah 52:29 He's gonna say to you-

Christiana 52:30 So it's like rich-

Trevor Noah 52:30 "You see I was able to do this?"

Christiana 52:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 52:31 "I'll do this for all of you."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:32 Yeah.

Christiana 52:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 52:32 And that's how Trump won, by the way.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:34 That is exactly right.

Trevor Noah 52:35 Trump won by saying, "Look at what I've done with my life."

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:38 Yep.

Trevor Noah 52:38 "I will do this for your life," and then we go back there.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:42 Yep.

Trevor Noah 52:42 Well, all right.

Tressie McMillan Cottom 52:43 Thanks, y'all.

Trevor Noah 52:44 That really was great. That's, um, that gave me a lot to think about. Thank you. [upbeat music]