Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Desi Lydic on Comedy, Chaos, and Covering Trump (Again)
Fri, 07 Mar 2025
Jessica is joined by the hilarious and razor-sharp Daily Show host Desi Lydic. Jessica and Desi dive into what it’s like to create The Daily Show in today’s political climate, the challenges (and perks) of stepping into a lead hosting role, and how the show balances humor with the heavy reality of the news. They also break down whether satire is helping or hurting the national discourse, which party is more fun to roast, and how Desi approaches the unique chaos of covering Trump this time around. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts of this episode?
Desi has been a correspondent since 2015 on The Daily Show, and now she's one of the show's main hosts, absolutely killing it, covering everything from Obama's last term to Trump's first and now second presidency, plus all the chaos in between. aging moderates. Oh, it's so good to see you.
I love an excuse to hang out. So even if we're doing it over Zoom, I'll take it. I'll take what I can get.
There are no cocktails. I mean, there could be. It's a morning record, though.
So there are no cocktails that you're aware of, but you don't know what's in my travel mug. Is that how you guys do it at The Daily Show?
This is the only way to get through the day. I feel like probably by the third month of the Trump presidency, I will be there. Maybe live on The Five with a shaker. Of course.
Hey, you got to do what you got to do. You got to keep everything under the desk, pull it out as needed. Yeah, if you can make it three months without resorting to that, I'm impressed.
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Chapter 2: What challenges does The Daily Show face in today's political climate?
It's also my first year not being pregnant in a while. So I'm taking advantage. Oh, God. It's been a while for you. Anyway, women are goddesses, blah, blah, blah. I want to talk to you about everything that's going on. I want to start, though, with doing comedy in times like these. And we've spoken about this a bit. We were both at the RNC, obviously, after the assassination attempt.
You guys ended up canceling your shows. It was not the time to do comedy. Can you talk about what it feels like to be making something like The Daily Show in these times? Is it cathartic? Just exhausting? Yes. Oh. Okay.
To all of it. It's exhausting. It's cathartic. I think it depends on the day. I mean, some days are more exhausting than others. But, you know, I'm someone who likes to be tapped in to what's going on. I completely understand the urge to... pull the plug on news every now and again and take mental health breaks and just sort of disconnect from it all. I get that.
And I think people should absolutely do that when they need to. But I do like to be tapped in. And so for me to be able to process all Everything that's happening in the world, politically and otherwise, with a room full of my funniest friends is... I mean, that is... that's cathartic. For us, we get to kind of find the joy and find the humor in the wild things that are happening.
And sometimes it's really hard to find it. I agree with that, for sure.
Have you... felt like you've changed the show? Well, first of all, what's it like having the hosting role now and this rotation that seems to work incredibly well for all of you and for the show? And how are you taking on politics specifically when you are the lead host for this?
Well, I, you know, I loved The Daily Show all through my 20s and watched John and the other all the correspondence religiously and thought, like, that is what I want to do. I want to be a correspondent on that show. And that's something that I, you know, I auditioned for The Daily Show three different times over the course of many years.
And when I got the job, it was, you know, it's been a dream job. It's continued to be a dream job. I never... set out to host a late night show. I never thought that that would be part of my destiny. So to get the chance to do this, you know, even every few weeks is like, that's beyond anything I could have ever imagined. But it is, it's so much fun. I'm having the time of my life.
It's like, it's flexing a different muscle for sure. The pace of the show moves so much more quickly when you're sitting at the desk. You have to make decisions very quickly about, you know, what you want the show to look like and what your point of view is on a particular story. even if you're just hearing it.
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Chapter 3: How does Desi Lydic approach her role on The Daily Show?
Like, I get to sit there and be myself and think about, like, what do I really think about this and what do I want to say here? And, you know, of course, with the help of several Emmy-nominated writers who make us all look good. No big deal. No big deal. But it was really freeing to get to do that, to kind of shed the armor of the character and be like, all right, this is cool. This is...
This is I'm just going to be me. And this is just kind of share what I think about the news of the day.
I'll do procedural for a second longer because I feel like it's really interesting to understand how this all works. Do you get to play a role in picking who the guests are for it? The stories that you're going to be covering more so when you're a host versus when you're just participating in the show?
Like, is it really like Desi's week and you have hand selected everything that you want to be doing?
Yeah. I mean, we have a full staff of producers who do a lot of heavy lifting. We have excellent producers who help book the guests and do pre-interviews and pitch ideas for guests. And obviously, like, a full staff of writers and a whole studio production team that provides the footage of the top news stories of the day. But we get to curate. Like, we really do... Yeah, absolutely.
Any guest that is booked, there's always a conversation with us, whether we've pitched them or they've the the producers have pitched to us. It's always a it's a conversation. So it's exciting. It's like there's nothing. And that is that's become my favorite part of the show is getting to have people on. who can come on and be experts in their field. Like, I'm not an expert in everything.
I count on people to come on and teach me about what they're working on. There's no one more passionate than having an author on who's just spent, you know, five years writing their passion project. It's fun for us.
I'm sure. Well, you guys always look like you're having a great time. And it feels like the political scene is kind of writing the jokes for itself at this point. Is that how you guys are looking at it? It does feel that way.
It's so funny. It's like... For so many years, it's like, hold on. No, we're supposed to be the clowns. We're the funny ones. And we're trying to find the comedy and heighten from what's actually happening. But there are so many wild comedic characters in the political world right now that it does feel like we'll show a clip and we're no longer the clowns.
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Chapter 4: Is satire helping or hurting the national discourse?
Last week, you covered some very serious topics. What's going on with Doge? What was it called? The destruction of government by Elon. Yes. Congressman Jasmine Crockett, who I feel like has been everywhere speaking her mind, telling Musk to F off. I think I can say fuck off. It is my podcast. Fuck it. Say whatever the fuck you want. Fuck it. Good point. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck Elon.
What do you think that level of rage or that... level of energy is doing to the national discourse? Do you think it's helping or hurting the Democratic Party? This is something, you know, I think about a lot in terms of effective messaging. You know, how is that resonating with people? Yeah.
I don't know how effective it is from a political perspective. I certainly understand it. I get it. Like, I understand the impulse to do that. And, you know... Is it effective? Is it resonating with the party? I don't know. But I think there's room for all of it.
And I think the most important thing right now is that our legislators and people who are in positions of power are speaking up and saying something about And then you have protests and you have activism. And, you know, in times like this, you want people to make their voices heard. And they're going to do that in a million different ways. And I think there's a place for all of it.
I think at the core, the most important thing for the Democrats is to, you know, really take this time and figure out what is the vision? Who is going to lead this party? What do we want? What does that look like? What is the democratic version of, you know, Project 2025? I think there's so much disagreement about
in the party and you know there's a they're kind of like stuck in this cycle of reacting all the time and that's only going to get you so far like you can't be on your on your back foot just reacting it's like there has to be some kind of proactive mission and until the party really figures out what what the vision is what the path forward is then it's going to continue to be rudderless
Yeah, I'm definitely feeling that deeply at this particular moment.
The Trump administration is defying a federal judge who's demanding details about a flight to El Salvador. It carried almost 200 men who the administration says are gang members and who were flown from U.S. soil after the judge said, don't.
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Chapter 5: How does The Daily Show balance humor with serious news?
President Trump and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele posted video of the shackled men being pulled from a plane by guards in riot gear and transported in white buses to prison. The official White House Twitter account also reposted a remix of the video set to Semisonic's closing time. Semisonic responded, the song is about joy and possibilities and hope.
And they have missed the point entirely. Lest we all, let's focus up. The administration acknowledges that many of these men don't have criminal records in the U.S., and some of their family members say they're not in gangs at all. You can get Today Explained every weekday afternoon.
When you're approaching a show and you're thinking about there are going to be jokes that poke fun at Republicans and jokes that poke fun at Democrats, which party do you think is more fun to roast?
That's a great question. It depends on the day. It really depends on the day. I think there are great characters on both sides of the aisle. It depends on what the stories of the day are. Yeah. I think there's definitely a real lack of censorship or restraint in the Republican Party that tends to be funnier when people are just off the rails and saying whatever the hell they want to say.
There definitely seems to be a little more of that energy happening on the Republican on the Republican side. So they tend to give us a little more material. But listen, we're out to poke holes in both sides and call BS wherever it exists.
Yeah. No, it's definitely true. I feel like the Democrats, the funny stuff, the funny stuff about Democrats, you kind of have to peel back a layer or like... Look under the hood a bit for the absurdity of everything, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene is just Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And that's the other thing that we kind of grapple with is, I mean, she's... She's a machine. She's just out there saying wild stuff all the time. And I think that the other the the challenge that we're coming up against is like, you know, sometimes these politicians are out there just saying stuff because they want the press. They want to be covered, you know, and it feels like taking the bait.
So for us to kind of figure out, all right, Marjorie Taylor Greene said this thing about That was very upsetting today. And we want to respond to it. We want to call it out. But then we don't want to feed into it because this is exactly what the reaction that she's trying to get. So like that's I mean, that's another conversation that we're constantly having.
Yeah, they're definitely looking for the amplification. I'll regularly say on air. Well, they won. Right. Because they're going to be on Hannity or whatever tonight to talk about some ridiculous stunt that they did on the floor or what they said in an earlier interview. But, I mean, that's the way that it works.
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