As the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity initiatives intensify, we’re joined by Heather McGhee, author of "The Sum of Us”. Together, they explore the myths fueling anti-DEI sentiment, examine how the Trump administration weaponizes racial grievance to protect powerful interests, and discuss how a truly inclusive society benefits everyone, not just those historically excluded. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest of this episode?
Hello everybody, welcome to the weekly show program. My name is Jon Stewart. I am coming to you on, well, today is Wednesday, April 16th. You'll probably see this tomorrow, I guess Thursday, April 17th, because crack team, they turn this shit around on the doubles. Believe me, it's no easy task, given the general audio and visual flubs that are my podcasting style.
Very frequently, just to give you people a hint of the behind-the-scenes issues, I have to be told at the beginning of every episode, please try not to keep kicking your desk, because people then begin to think there are mild earthquakes in your region. and it may be slightly disturbing.
Speaking of mild earthquakes, folks, the interesting thing to me, so how fucked up do you have to do something that can turn our attention from a global economic meltdown, self-caused, an economic punching ourselves in the dick of these tariffs? What would you have to do to kind of divert the attention from that? And what you would have to do is hold...
Maybe one of the most chilling Oval Office meetings I can't even begin to describe when the president of El Salvador, Bukele, came and sat with President Trump. There is a gentleman from Maryland that they say is a terrorist and is MS-13. But they've offered no compelling proof of such other than, I guess he has a Chicago Bulls hat. Which, by the way, as a Knicks fan, I am not against that.
Menschen in Gefängniskämpfe zu senden, um Fans der Chicago Bulls zu sein. Verstehe nicht, dass die Polizei das nicht versteht. Ich will nur den Fortschritt für diese Art von Aktionen. Aber das, was ich gefunden habe, war, dass ich denke, dass die Erfreulichkeit, die Freude, die sie so aussehen,
in dem Flöten, was auch immer der Durchgang ist oder was auch immer die Sicherheitsmaßnahmen von einem System sind. Sie sind da, um zu schützen.
um sicherzustellen, dass schlechte Menschen und gute Menschen die selben Arten, das ist die ganze Maßnahme einer funktionierenden Gesellschaft, einer guten Gesellschaft, ist, dass wir sicher genug und stark genug sind, um für unsere größten Verletzten zu bieten, dass sie bieten können, die gleichen Rechte und Anliegen, die jeder hat. Das ist der Punkt.
Und sie zu sehen, dass sie glücklich sind über dieses Individuums Deportation zu einem schrecklichen, legendären Gefängnis in El Salvador, wo seine Familie nicht mehr in Kontakt mit ihm ist, zu sehen, dass er nichts getan hat, außer in der Landwirtschaft, glaube ich,
Illegalerweise, wenn du denkst, dass das die Verletzung für jemanden, der Asyl sucht, wäre, weißt du, ich weiß nicht, was ich dir sagen soll. Und zu sehen, dass der Ghoul von Ghouls, Stephen Miller, einfach so hart darüber spricht. Es ist schockierend. Aber in ihm, die Böden der Resistenz, beginnen zu flüchten. Und wo kommen sie her? Harvard.
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Chapter 2: What is the impact of anti-DEI policies on American universities?
Heather, it's just because that's the one, you know, and I talked to O'Reilly's whole like persona comes out of that. Like I'm from Levittown, hardscrabble people that pull themselves up by the bootstraps and did the values. And you're like, right. And you know, black people weren't allowed to live there, right?
Those GI Bill homes that were built and paid for by the government excluded specifically black people.
Ja, die Sprache und die Tatsachen sagten, dass diese verkauft werden können oder verkauft werden können, nur für Menschen, die von der caucasischen Rasse sind. Keine Okta-Ruhe. Kann ich dir etwas sagen? Und du musst testen.
Du musst den Pinprick machen und du musst sicher sein. Das ist richtig.
Das ist richtig. So that's example. And housing of course is very significant because that's how we build our wealth. That's how we have intergenerational wealth. That's a lot of why today, if you are a black college graduate, you have less wealth on average than a white high school dropout.
Say that again?
If you are a black college graduate, you may have a higher income, you may have a better job, right? You've done all the things, you've gone to college, but you will have less household wealth, like your assets, things to rely on, your home equity, stocks and bonds, etc., than a white high school dropout. And that's entirely history, history showing up in your wallet, right? But, you know, this...
Die Regierung hat die Wörter historisch ausgeschlossen, weil sie für Forschungsgründe zuständig war. Sie canceln die Geschichte, damit wir das nicht wissen, und wir zurückkehren zu einer priviligierten Wirtschaft, damit sie und Menschen wie sie die Einzigen sind, um zu wachsen. Und mein Punkt insgesamt ist, dass das... Not good for anyone. We need diversity in order to thrive.
We need economic, racial, gender diversity as a way to innovate. And we are simply, if everything they're trying to do goes through, and is maintained by the Supreme Court, I think that our country will economically, not just morally, but economically be shoved back a generation or two. We will lose our place at the top of the economic pyramid.
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Chapter 3: How have historic policies contributed to racial wealth gaps?
It's the same thing with the attacks on universities, right? In the marketplace of ideas of rigorous scholarship, what the administration is trying to do with these shakedown executive orders is say you have to hire scholars who are conservative. Not you have to hire people based on their identity, right? But you have to hire scholars who are conservative.
And, you know, I mean, these are institutions where Sure, there may be a plurality of people who have liberal thoughts and ideas.
Right, and not necessarily activists. There's a difference also between ideologue activists and people that just lean left.
Read a lot.
People that listen to the radio. Die Leute, die Geschichte lernen.
Und was sie also sagen, zum Beispiel die Angriffe auf diese Ivy League-Institutionen, die für Geld und für unsere gesamte zivilistische Gesellschaft gegründet werden, Not only to a conservative bent to say, you know, put the thumb on the scale and say, if any department doesn't have enough conservatives from the White House with a stroke of a pen, I have the power to change that.
Or I will remove all of your research grants for pediatric cancer.
I mean, truly. It is so disgusting. It is so nefarious.
Vielen Dank.
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Chapter 4: What is the Trump administration’s approach to controlling institutions?
They're getting their asses kicked by women, as though women have been so advantaged now that boys can't compete on that level. It's too skewed. Es ist so interessant für mich, dass sie sagen, wir müssen den Schaden, der durch Gleichheit gemacht wurde, reparieren.
Ja, das ist richtig.
Ich meine, das ist sozusagen... Das ist, was sie sagen. Richtig. Das ist, was sie sagen. Und so müssen sie... Es ist so eine interessante Sache zu sehen. Aber es kommt auch zu dem Punkt, dass es irgendwie Metriken gibt, die nicht subjektiv sind. that somehow hiring in the good old days was not subjective. No, it's based completely on qualifications, which everyone knows is nonsense.
College applications are subjective. Hiring is subjective. Everything is. Other than things that are literally math. Like if you watch a dude score 35 points a game and get 11 rebounds, that is unassailably objective measures. But as far as
who you're going to hire, of course it is, oh, he was recommended by Johnny and Johnny's a good dude, so I'm going to get him or I talk to him and I feel comfortable with him.
I feel comfortable, right? The like me bias, right? So what is diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, right?
It is, it has been, and ever since, you know, the mid 1960s with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and then the 70s with the feminist movement brought in women and gender into this, an idea that we as a society and workplaces individually, and the research has continuously borne this out, we do better when you really have the best and brightest.
And that means everyone in your society is able to come through the door and participate. It's like if you have a problem, right? You have a problem that you're sitting with and you have only one identity, one group of people with the same general set of background and assumptions and where they come from and the way they see the world. You can only see part of it, right?
There's this whole other part of it that someone who came from a different set of circumstances would be able to see and together understand You solve the hole, right? And that is what has been borne out. Literally more diverse juries remember more facts. More diverse teams come up with breakthroughs in problem solving faster.
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Chapter 5: Why are corporate and legal entities submitting to political pressure?
Of those programs.
So I think too, so one, I want to just like put it in its place, right? We still have polling that shows that diversity and diversity programs are largely popular in the country still, right? But you had social movements, you know, the movement for Black Lives, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, right?
der Bewegung für das Gleichgewicht und die Inklusion in Bezug auf Gender und sexuelle Identität, die in einem sehr kurzen Zeitraum zu, weißt du, vielen beeindruckenden Leuten gefordert hat, dass sie schnell auf diesen Zug kommen mussten. Und ich glaube, du hast Leute gesehen, die nicht echte Glaubwürde in die Idee waren. Ich spreche von C-Suite-Exekutiven, die
who said, oh boy, George Floyd was murdered, the whole world's attention went to it. I gotta put out a statement. I gotta bring that person in the diversity office that I haven't ever wanted to invite to a meeting in and ask them what to do really quickly. And just as quickly, as soon as Trump was elected, they were willing to drop it, right?
So that's why, you know, all the black people I know haven't been to Target, right, since they dropped their DEI, right? You know, and we've got these like economic boycotts of Target that are happening, whereas, you know, Costco and Delta have stood fast with their DEI programs and they're doing better financially, right? So there has been a like, it was a fad of...
in einigen Sektoren unserer Gesellschaft, und sie haben es so schnell gelöscht. Und das ist eine Schande, weil ich denke, dass die Unternehmen, die es als Teil ihres Wachstumsmodells gesehen haben, bevor George Floyd von einem Polizisten getötet wurde und noch nach Donald Trump, der 49 Prozent des populären Votens gewonnen hat,
Those are the companies that are going to continue to thrive in a diverse America.
The ones who weren't being performative. That's right. von diesen Programmen in der Arbeitsgruppe, was sie sagen würden, ist, dass es weiße Menschen dämonisiert. Es macht uns, es macht sie alle schuldig, dass sie nichts damit zu tun hatten. Es gibt Jobs raus.
Wenn ich für einen Job bin und eine Farbperson für einen Job ist, weiß ich, dass ich es nicht bekommen werde, weil das Spielfeld jetzt andersherum getilgt ist. Das ist die vorliegende Wissensarbeit. Right.
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Chapter 6: How does the administration weaponize law and emergency powers?
Because when someone's like told you about, you know, beautiful stories from their childhood, you know, that's a trust.
Let's talk about that because the word privilege, you know, when we talk about in the language of snowflakes and things like that, you know, the triggering, you know, people's lives are hard. White people's lives are hard. And so when they can hear you're privileged, it can trigger a kind of
Warte, und das, wie separierst du diese Idee, dass es nicht darum geht, zu sagen, deine Leben sind großartig und meine schmerzen, weil ich in einer Minoritätsgruppe bin, sondern dass das Leben hart ist und wie in vielen Fällen diese Racialität und Gender und all diese Dividenden da sind, um Menschen nicht zusammenzukommen,
und effektiv gegen die echten Probleme der körperlichen Dominanz oder andere Dinge in diesen Linien drücken. Genau. Wie nimmst du die Macht aus dieser Worte, damit die Leute nicht sofort mit der Anwendung davon getötet werden?
Ja. Also... Ich weiß. Ich möchte sagen, auf der einen Seite haben wir so viele tolle... Du sagst einfach, geh einfach weg.
Das sagst du ihm. Geh weg. Oh, nicht ich. Das ist nicht mein Stil.
Nein, das ist nicht du. Du bist die schönste Person, die ich kenne.
Nein, ich... Hör auf.
Ich...
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