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0:28

Hello, hello, hello. I

0:30

am Jose Andres. Maybe

0:32

you know me from my restaurants or

0:34

maybe from Wall Central Kitchen,

0:37

the organization I founded to feed

0:39

people after disasters.

0:41

Well, it's time for you to know my

0:44

podcast, Longer Tables.

0:47

Each episode, I get to know fascinating

0:50

people in the most intimate

0:52

way, through food. Stacey

0:55

Abrams, Jojo Ma, Jane

0:58

Goodall, Padma Lakshmi. I

1:01

will answer questions from listeners

1:03

too. Join me in building

1:06

longer tables, not higher

1:08

walls, whatever you get your

1:10

podcasts.

1:15

Lemonata.

1:27

This

1:38

is In The Bubble with Andy Slavitt. Welcome

1:41

to our show today. Don't

1:43

forget to email me, andyatlemonatamedia.com.

1:47

We're planning our fall shows. We'd love to hear from

1:50

you what you want us to cover,

1:52

thoughts on prior shows. We

1:54

got a good one for you today.

1:56

Sam B is a very

1:58

unique voice. in a,

2:00

I think, elite group of unique and important voices

2:07

that have emerged over the last 20 years

2:10

or so. You know, I came

2:13

of age in the sort of David

2:16

Letterman years and,

2:18

you know, I became kind of

2:21

an operating adult in

2:24

the Jon Stewart years. And

2:27

for a group of people, you know, the Jon

2:30

Stewart's, Stephen Colbert,

2:32

Jimmy Kimmel's, those are not

2:35

just the sources of late night

2:37

comedy, as we've always had, but

2:40

they're sort of an outlet for news and

2:43

opinion and

2:46

how we're feeling and with some

2:49

sort of bent

2:51

that makes people feel comfortable.

2:55

And, you know, among those voices, Sam

2:58

B is a unique one in

3:01

that, believe it or not, in the stay in

3:03

age of 2023, she's

3:05

the only female voice in that

3:08

group, the only

3:09

woman who was really allowed

3:11

to have her own late night show. And

3:14

of course she was the first woman on

3:16

The Daily Show and the

3:18

only female correspondent on The Daily Show for

3:21

a long, long time before then. And

3:24

she developed into somebody that a

3:26

lot of people love, people find very,

3:28

very funny.

3:30

And I think she bore up

3:32

under that spotlight

3:35

incredibly well.

3:36

And as we'll talk about a little bit today, what

3:39

it meant to her and how it

3:41

changed her or didn't change her. So

3:44

it's a great show today, it's a fun show. It's

3:47

a perfect show for us to

3:49

kind of reflect on the

3:51

coming campaign season, which Sam

3:54

and I do

3:55

together.

3:56

We'll talk a little bit though about her and how she picks her issues

3:58

and how she got where.

3:59

She got, it was one of those episodes I decided

4:02

to go into with very few notes. I

4:04

just had like seven or eight words on a page. I

4:07

can show you this page. I had words like Mike

4:09

Pence,

4:10

RFK Jr., book

4:12

burnings in Florida, stuff

4:15

like that.

4:16

And that's kinda how we ran the conversation.

4:18

I think it's pretty much how you would wanna

4:21

run a conversation with Sam B. If she

4:23

were coming over to your house for dinner, you'd

4:25

probably go, you know

4:26

what, I'm not gonna plan this too much. And I

4:29

think that works. Well, you'll tell me if it does. And

4:32

you know, she comes by politics honestly. I mean,

4:34

these are issues she deeply cares about. You

4:36

can tell. So we have a lot of fun. And

4:38

if you liked the episode,

4:40

two things to tell you. One is, I'll tell you something

4:42

at the end of this episode, which will

4:45

give you a chance to hear even more,

4:47

but also you can go back in the archives and you can hear

4:49

Tina Fey from very early on,

4:51

like one of the first seven or eight episodes.

4:54

And you can hear Kumail Nanjiani and you

4:56

can hear some of the other funny people that

4:58

have greased the bubble.

5:00

But now, let's

5:02

get into it with Sam B.

5:14

Welcome to the bubble. Thank you so much.

5:16

I'm happy to be inside the bubble

5:19

for once. The B in the bubble, yeah.

5:21

That's it. You know, people give their

5:23

descriptions of themselves as kids.

5:27

And I think the description you've given yourself

5:29

as a kid that I've heard you talk about is

5:32

like one of the most revealing that

5:35

I've ever seen. It's this image of you, image

5:37

of you in third grade, teaching

5:41

kids at the playground about

5:43

women's bodily autonomy and

5:47

sex education. 100%, 100%.

5:50

How much does that like totally help us understand

5:52

who you are as a kid? Like you can picture

5:55

that girl.

5:55

I feel like there's actually two

5:57

things about my childhood that tell you every...

6:00

you need to know about who I am as an adult. One of

6:02

those is that story, because

6:04

I was over-informed as a child

6:06

about our bodies. Like, definitely

6:09

my family could have pulled back a

6:11

little bit. Uh-huh. It

6:14

was pretty gritty. And the second

6:16

thing is that I used to do

6:18

fake news recordings. Like, I would do

6:20

fake newscasts when I

6:22

was... I had, like, a little tape recorder and a microphone,

6:25

and I would sit in my home recording

6:27

people's conversations and report the

6:30

news about what was going on in

6:32

my family and the outside world, and I made it up,

6:34

and I called it news for goofs. And

6:36

then one day I got a job on The Daily Show, and I was

6:38

like, wow, that's full. That's extremely

6:41

full circle. So both of those things.

6:43

It's almost too crazy, especially because

6:45

there wasn't a daily show back

6:47

then when we were kids.

6:50

All I had was Kermit the Frog doing

6:52

a newscast on the Muppets, and that's

6:55

all I needed. That's

6:56

funny. You were not shy. You were not

6:58

shy. Oh, no.

7:01

What? No, extremely shy. I'm still extremely...

7:03

I'm very shy. Are you shy? Very, very shy.

7:05

Yeah, I'm very, very shy. Like, it's

7:08

hard for me to project. Well,

7:10

I think as most people,

7:12

a lot of performers are very shy, kind of

7:14

like introspective and shy, and we

7:17

all get stomach cramps when we have to go on stage or,

7:19

like, interact.

7:21

But you needed the girls in your school to

7:23

understand body autonomy.

7:25

I mean, like... 100%. It was very important that, you

7:27

know, you get that message across. Yes,

7:31

it was. Did you have any thoughts at the time on the makeup

7:34

of the Supreme Court in the U.S.? I can't say

7:36

that I did. Because I grew up in Canada, so

7:38

I didn't know that you had a Supreme Court, and I didn't know

7:40

what the makeup of that... Well, that would have been really precocious. That would have been

7:42

incredible. That would have been really precocious. I definitely knew, you

7:44

know, a lot of the players on

7:47

the political scene in the

7:49

U.S. at an early age because I

7:51

had... My grandmother and my mother fought

7:53

about politics constantly, so I definitely

7:56

knew who Ronald Reagan was and

7:58

definitely watched the Iran...

7:59

on counter hearings with my grandmother.

8:02

Oh wow. And then mainly because she thought Oliver

8:04

North was so handsome. So

8:06

like, you know. Now

8:09

I know where she's coming from. Exactly. But

8:11

sadly, I bet, you know, girls today could name the

8:14

Supreme Court justices, many of them. I'm

8:16

sure. After the last ruling.

8:18

That's gotta be, I mean, just thinking

8:21

about for a young girl to

8:24

see the Dobbs ruling and

8:27

let alone what's going on in some of the states, there's

8:29

gotta be

8:30

a horrible blow

8:32

to what people tell them about their, I mean, talk about

8:35

bodily autonomy. It's such a

8:37

part of the conversation for them

8:39

in an organic way. Like, unfortunately,

8:42

it's an organic part of their base

8:45

of knowledge. And because

8:47

they

8:48

don't take anything for granted.

8:50

So even, so I have three

8:52

children, I have three teenagers, two

8:55

daughters in that mix. And one is considerably

8:58

younger than the other. One's almost 18, one's 13. And

9:01

definitely when she was,

9:04

you know, 10 or 11, she

9:06

was talking about reproductive

9:08

justice because that's what they talked about at school. That's

9:11

what they talked about with each other. There were people

9:13

who they would argue about it in class,

9:16

like in a light way, it wasn't,

9:18

like it wasn't probably a gripping

9:21

conversation and people weren't fighting about it, but they

9:23

were, it was like, it's in their world.

9:26

In a way that's,

9:28

you know, unusually seems,

9:31

seems young to me, but of course they have

9:33

to be aware.

9:34

Yeah, I mean, look, if someone told me

9:36

that I had to be slightly

9:38

nauseous for like a couple of months and that that

9:40

was the Supreme Court decision, I would be

9:43

like, I'd be like, oh my God, I

9:45

can't, you can't tell me that.

9:47

I should know about this. And you know, now

9:49

I'm making, we're making college choices for my older

9:51

daughter. And she's like, well, nowhere in these

9:54

states, you know, she's really, and

9:56

that's not coming. It's not like I'm not

9:59

pushing.

9:59

I'm not pushing my own beliefs

10:02

on her. She's coming to them on her own, and then

10:05

once she tells me, then I push her relentlessly.

10:08

Right. Well, it's, yeah,

10:10

but it's got, I mean, she's gotta have sympathy

10:12

for girls who live in those states who are.

10:15

Definitely. It's hard to believe you can

10:17

make choices of your own when you're not an adult anyway,

10:20

and then to be in a situation where

10:22

you've got people lined up against you. I mean,

10:24

I heard the routine that you did about

10:27

when Texas first did its

10:29

law. This was, I think, prior to Dobbs, or

10:32

the sort of vigilante abortion

10:35

law, and this whole

10:37

notion of making you feel like everyone's

10:39

against you, and that you don't live

10:41

as part of a community, and the

10:44

people around you not only do not respect your

10:46

rights, but are there to actually see

10:48

if you're doing something to violate their belief system.

10:51

Oh, yeah. It's incredibly scary.

10:52

It's incredibly scary. You

10:54

know, and you think about, we

10:57

were on a car trip yesterday, and it came up,

10:59

and then I was talking about religious freedom,

11:01

and how there's really only one religion

11:03

in this country that is prioritized above all else,

11:06

and so religious freedom, as you wanna

11:08

imagine it, isn't really, it just

11:11

isn't really a possibility here in a lot

11:13

of ways. It's

11:17

all super interesting stuff, and

11:19

it's hard for

11:21

my daughters to go, look

11:23

at all these people telling me what

11:28

to do with my personal

11:30

body. Look at all these people who have an opinion

11:33

about my, like,

11:36

what is contained within my skin. It's

11:41

crazy to them. They can't understand

11:43

it. Yeah, it is, it is,

11:46

and I

11:49

don't think that

11:51

guys always look at it quite

11:53

the same way, because it's just not as personal.

11:56

I mean, despite, I

11:58

think, effort, and I think that's obviously...

11:59

part of the problem. Not that men are the only

12:02

people that are on the other side of this issue. There's

12:05

people who

12:07

don't have respect for women's bodily

12:09

autonomy of all stripes. But

12:13

it certainly feels like if people really thought

12:15

about what you just said,

12:17

which is that someone's telling me literally

12:19

how my body is supposed to work, that

12:22

they'd go, wait, we got to stop that.

12:23

Yeah, I don't think I would try to tell anybody what to do

12:25

with their own

12:27

human flesh. Right. Like I can't imagine

12:31

what I would have to say about anybody else's

12:34

body choices, you

12:36

know. I'm curious about your

12:38

own evolution on matters like

12:40

this, because you obviously,

12:43

as someone who does

12:45

like you were suggesting as a little girl, who basically

12:48

interprets the news for people you

12:53

have to be paying attention to the news. And

12:55

I wonder, because you started out,

12:58

and we all remember watching you on The

13:00

Daily Show, and you're incredibly

13:03

funny. But

13:04

it also became, we started to understand

13:06

after a while that you were the only woman on

13:09

the show for quite a long time. And then on

13:11

Full Frontal, you were the first and

13:13

only woman with your own

13:15

show. Did that feel

13:17

like it added a level of responsibility

13:21

to you to be more than funny, but to have

13:23

to be that voice? Was it

13:25

a bit of a burden?

13:27

Well, no. I mean, no. Like,

13:29

I don't know. Not

13:31

really, because when you're

13:33

making a show, you are

13:36

so in it. I mean, you know, when you're doing

13:38

the job of making a show, there's so

13:40

many other things to think about. Then let

13:43

me now represent

13:46

all women and carry

13:48

the torch for womanhood. Like, you're

13:50

actually like, what the advertiser said, what

13:53

about this incredible joke? Okay, what are

13:55

we going to do? Like, you're just like rewriting stuff,

13:57

you're filming things. It's, it's just

13:59

like, there's so much. much coming at you that

14:01

you don't really have time to think, oh,

14:03

are we making history?

14:07

The answer is yes, we did. Like the show made

14:09

history and continues

14:12

to kind of like be at the forefront of that. Will

14:15

anyone remember that in the future? Probably not.

14:17

I will. I'll tell everybody at the nursing home

14:20

and they'll go,

14:20

shut up. That's

14:23

why. Well, that's

14:25

nice. Aren't you lovely, dear? So,

14:30

you know what? It's like it hits you

14:32

kind of after the fact or it hits

14:35

you in the middle of the night and you go, I should

14:37

really tell my kids that this is like a kind of a

14:39

big deal and every once in a while I go, you know,

14:41

that was kind of a big deal and they

14:43

go, sure, can you get me, can

14:45

you make me some eggs?

14:47

So you talked

14:50

about the issues that matter to you, that were important to you.

14:52

That's it. And you thought were funny, not, you didn't feel

14:54

an obligation to go, oh my god, I gotta hit this one

14:56

because... No.

14:57

There were definitely times, well, like there

14:59

were times when you could see something coming on the calendar

15:01

and you would know, like for example, the last show

15:04

that we filmed, we filmed it the day

15:06

before Dobbs was overturned and we knew that

15:08

that was coming. You know, there are certain certain things you

15:10

can put. It's like Supreme Court decisions

15:12

that you think are coming down the pike

15:15

pretty soon. So... Well,

15:16

it was nice to see you got it leaked in

15:18

advance, too. Yeah, that was good. Thank you.

15:21

You're welcome for that. Well done.

15:23

Thanks.

15:25

So there were things where I was like, okay, we

15:27

definitely,

15:28

we need to make a statement about this. Like

15:30

we need to put this on our

15:32

radar. So, but that was more for us.

15:35

Like those are the things that were important to us. So

15:37

being kind of

15:39

at the vanguard of those kinds of

15:41

conversations comedically was natural

15:44

to all of us. So it was an, I would

15:46

say that it was actually a pretty organic process.

15:48

There weren't, except when

15:51

COVID came, that kind of

15:52

blew it all out of the water and then it was just

15:54

like wall to wall. COVID, of course.

15:56

I mean, of course. Let's

15:59

take a quick break. and I want

16:01

to come back, I want to talk about some

16:04

other choices like the Republican presidential candidates,

16:07

get your thoughts on that field. We'll be

16:10

right back.

16:10

Okay, so I didn't always know where

16:12

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16:15

furniture. Then as you all probably picked up on

16:17

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I found an article. You know how much

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the people at article are

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18:16

So now we've got, I just, I mean, just to stick on choice

18:18

for a second, which, which is, we've talked about

18:21

is the title of your show as well. So

18:23

now you've got Mike Pence running for president, which

18:26

seems, I don't know, improbable.

18:29

Like what? Highly improbable. What's,

18:31

what's, what's his natural constituency?

18:33

Like the, the Trump people think he's a traitor.

18:36

The non-Trump people think he's, well,

18:38

they think he is who he is. And, and then

18:40

I guess, I guess maybe there's like a handful of church

18:42

going people in Iowa that are like no

18:44

abortion after like four

18:45

days. You're my guy. You're

18:49

my, you're my guy. Like it's hard

18:51

to imagine waking up in the morning and going, Mike

18:54

Pence is the man for the job. Let's

18:57

go for it. We can do this folks.

19:00

There's gotta be a lot of like two o'clock

19:02

in the morning, come to Jesus moments where

19:04

you're like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm just putting

19:07

my, I'm putting

19:09

all my eggs in this very janky

19:11

basket. What's he, what is his poll? What

19:13

are his numbers? They're so, I

19:15

think he, I think he qualified for the debate. Did he?

19:17

Which, which I think, yeah, which I, which I think

19:19

just barely happened. And I think you need 2%

19:23

plus a lot of fundraising. God.

19:26

I mean 2% of that group, I mean, it's kind

19:28

of, it's kind of interesting.

19:30

I'm just there. I just want

19:32

to see his stern facial expressions

19:35

and watch him clench just

19:38

in a complete state of full bodily clench

19:40

during whatever the debate is, whatever

19:43

that

19:43

show turns out to be. Oh boy.

19:46

Oh boy. Yeah. Cause then then you've

19:49

got DeSantis who

19:51

I think it's, it's book

19:53

burning. It's, it's, it's, um, he's

19:55

an alien. He's an alien creature in

19:58

a human, in a human skin suit. He's

20:00

not really not familiar

20:03

with the contours of normal

20:05

human conversation

20:06

or much of anything.

20:10

Yeah. And like, I mean, are

20:12

you surprised, I guess, look, we're

20:14

Gen Xers, right?

20:16

It's like if you'd have told me when we were kids

20:18

growing up that we were going

20:20

to have a prominent candidate for

20:22

president in the year 2024

20:25

who wanted to teach that basically

20:28

that slavery was pretty much good for African

20:31

Americans, that we shouldn't really

20:33

get down on former slaveholders, that

20:35

that's really the biggest problem. Yeah.

20:38

Like- You're all just one big family, just

20:40

one big family out there. Yeah. Yeah.

20:44

Oh boy. Even in Canada, if you had told

20:46

me that, I would have thought that

20:48

you were in a fugue state.

20:51

There's no way that I would have believed that. There's no way that

20:53

I would have thought that I'd be talking about

20:56

book bands, like

20:59

of relatively innocuous books,

21:03

Judy Blume books, like I don't know.

21:06

Yeah, those have got to be banned. Get

21:09

those off the shelves for

21:11

one thing. You don't really want to teach people about

21:13

menstrual cramps. I mean, that's not-

21:16

I want to go back to the times when we all

21:18

thought it was just Satan

21:20

inside our bodies. I want to go back

21:22

to the times. I want to go back to being- I'd

21:25

like all of our daughters to be like Carrie

21:27

when she gets her period in the shower

21:29

and thinks she's dying.

21:30

Oh my God. That would be much better.

21:33

Yeah. Well, let people guess. Let people

21:35

take a wild guess. What's going on with you? We

21:37

don't know. We don't know. We don't know. Just

21:40

shut up about it. We're not allowed to tell you. Yeah.

21:43

Yeah. Sorry. So,

21:45

okay, my producer just put up the average of the

21:47

national polls for Republican candidates according

21:49

to 538 as of Monday.

21:52

Donald Trump is favored by 52.7%. Okay.

21:57

Yep. Ron DeSantis by 14%. Ramaswamy,

22:01

I can't remember his first name, but he's the

22:04

guy, he lives in New York, you probably know him well. I weird,

22:06

close friends. 7.2, great. 7.2%, Mike

22:09

Pence, 6%. This

22:11

is according to 538.

22:13

Wow, can we just go back

22:15

to the time, and we

22:18

did so many jokes about this, how he proposed

22:20

to her and he put the ring in a lacquered,

22:23

in a shellacked loaf of bread

22:25

and presented it to her to know these

22:27

things. I didn't know this. I

22:30

wish that I could remember the details

22:33

of this story, but essentially I think that

22:35

he placed the engagement ring

22:37

in a shellacked bread loaf and gave

22:40

it to her, and that's what we're

22:42

dealing

22:42

with. Wow. That's all I'm saying. Just

22:45

not a lot of... I mean, that's an interesting

22:47

set of characters, Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy,

22:50

and Pence. That's a really kind,

22:52

that's a very kind phrasing. It

22:54

is. An interesting cast of characters, indeed.

22:58

Honestly, I'm gonna go on a limb here and

23:01

say that we deserve better from that party.

23:03

I'm gonna join you out on that limb, and I'm

23:05

gonna say we

23:07

deserve so much

23:09

better. What have we done to deserve

23:12

this? This wretched

23:15

cast of broken

23:17

toys. Come on. Oh my goodness.

23:20

On the other hand, we have

23:22

RFK Jr. There

23:25

isn't, you know what? It's so interesting.

23:28

Not too much gets me as hot under

23:30

the collar as RFK Jr., actually.

23:33

He is the one, he's

23:35

the one reason I wish that I

23:37

had a show. When my show ended, I was

23:40

like, all right, that's fine. I

23:42

can deal with it. The only thing that

23:44

makes me wish that I currently had a television

23:46

show is RFK Jr. and

23:48

his very bad ideas. Oh

23:52

my goodness. I just

23:54

read an article just before I started

23:56

talking to you about how he,

23:58

at some event, was. like

24:00

we should have, yes, women should be free to

24:02

choose their, they should

24:04

be free to make reproductive choices until the third

24:06

month of pregnancy. And everyone was like, what, what

24:09

did he just say?

24:11

Oh my goodness. And then he was like, I did it. I

24:13

didn't say that. I was, there were a lot of people

24:15

around. I was, got confused for a sec. I just

24:18

say stuff. I'm like, oh, that's a great quality

24:20

to have as a

24:22

future president. This is great. Thank

24:24

you. Yeah. I mean, there's some,

24:26

there's some theory here like that, that like

24:29

anybody's good name, um, you

24:31

know, eventually leave it out there long enough. You

24:33

know, it's going to get ruined. I mean, you

24:36

know, if I'm thinking like poor JFK,

24:38

poor RFK, poor Ted

24:40

Kennedy, I mean, like these weren't perfect people, but

24:43

I mean, these are, these are patriots. And

24:46

I

24:47

happen to know some of his, some of our FK juniors,

24:49

cousins, um, who are all like,

24:52

you know, Joe Kennedy. I mean, these are sort of like

24:54

very decent, decent

24:56

people, you know, and then you've got this,

25:00

who knows who knows what, but what

25:02

worries me is that if this is the lot we get in 2024, like

25:07

I hope this is a low point.

25:09

I don't think it is. I'm

25:12

going to go out on a limb and say that it isn't a low

25:14

point, but I definitely, um, I'm

25:16

very approaching the upcoming

25:19

election season with tremendous trepidation

25:22

as I'm sure that you can imagine just listening

25:24

to him talk makes me crazy. Yes.

25:27

Doesn't answer questions. His cockamamie

25:29

theories about this, you know, vaccines

25:32

and all of that combined with

25:35

an inability to articulate any

25:37

kind of like coherent

25:38

presidential positions. And I've

25:41

read an interview with him and he was like, you know

25:43

what? I think a lot about this issue, but

25:45

I'm not going to talk about it until I become president

25:48

and then I'll let you know what I think. I was like, Oh,

25:50

this is familiar. Right. And you know, the thing

25:52

that Trump did for us, unfortunate he robbed us

25:54

of our ability to say, Oh, well that guy will never be president.

25:57

He definitely robbed us of that. He robbed

25:59

us of our ability. to say, oh, he'll never be, that

26:01

guy will never be president again. He robbed

26:04

us of a lot. And he

26:06

revealed a lot, revealed a lot of important

26:08

truths, such as the entire country is

26:10

built on a series of handshake agreements about

26:14

cordiality and ethics.

26:16

Okay,

26:18

that was good knowledge. I don't think we've done much to

26:20

like correct that since. Yeah,

26:23

no, it's a little bit scary. It's a little bit scary

26:25

to just think about the

26:28

fact that we have, like, well, it's

26:30

like, if he broke laws, that would be, you

26:32

know, no, now that we know he's broken laws and he's like,

26:35

that's not doing anything for his popular freedom,

26:37

for his popular, it's got this sort of, this

26:39

sort of martyrdom campaign is a

26:42

very strange look here in the US.

26:45

It's so, so strange. It is

26:47

so, so strange. I mean,

26:49

the fact that, and we just couldn't like, I

26:52

guess the founding fathers couldn't really anticipate

26:55

a Donald Trump, right? Or many other

26:57

things or machine

26:59

guns. Truly. Right, right,

27:02

right. We had muskets, you know, of course we're gonna have

27:04

a second amendment because we could do these muskets. No,

27:06

but yeah, right. There was some corner case

27:08

where the founding fathers are sitting in the corner, but

27:10

what if we get a president who's okay, work

27:12

with me, he's a real estate developer. Okay. And

27:15

he doesn't pay it, right? Okay. And then he becomes president.

27:17

Yeah.

27:17

He has a line of stakes and they're not

27:19

very good. And he tries to start his own college,

27:22

but it's a scam. They're like, that's a lot

27:24

of foresight, but that'll never happen, Ben. You're

27:27

like, they're like, man, what are you talking about? You're

27:29

ridiculous. Crazy. Very

27:32

crazy. Well,

27:34

let's take one last break. I want to come back.

27:36

I want to start by talking about one of your interviews that

27:38

I listened to recently that I found really

27:41

touching. And let's talk about

27:43

some of the positive things happening in the world. We'll be

27:45

right back with Sam Bee.

27:49

Yeah.

27:57

It's no secret that comedian Sam Bee is pro-choice.

28:00

Yes, that choice, but also not just

28:02

that choice. Sam is pro-choices.

28:05

Those crazy, life-altering decisions that shift

28:07

our life path and bring us to where we are today.

28:10

Her next choice? Starting her new podcast

28:12

with Lemonata Media called Choice Words, where

28:14

she interviews celebrities, politicians, and people she

28:16

admires about the biggest decisions

28:19

they made in their lives.

28:20

She'll get into the gratitude or regret that

28:22

accompanies each of their decisions and look

28:24

at how that one moment impacted their life

28:26

today.

28:27

Choice Words is out now wherever you get your

28:29

podcasts.

28:32

Hi, I'm Elise Myers.

28:34

I'm a content creator and comedian. You might

28:36

know me from TikTok. Why am I in your

28:38

ears right now? Well, that's a great question.

28:40

I would love to tell you. I

28:42

have a new podcast called Funny because it's true. On

28:45

my show, I'll be interviewing comedians, pop

28:47

culture icons, and also just people I find

28:49

really funny. We'll be talking about the awkward

28:52

moments that keep you awake at night. Because

28:54

if you don't laugh, you cry, right? Okay,

28:57

Funny because it's true. Out now wherever you get your

28:59

podcasts.

29:13

You had Rob

29:15

Delaney on your show. I did. He

29:18

was a really funny guy. He's so funny.

29:21

I'm such a fan. Yeah, yeah. He

29:23

was a super Twitter

29:25

guy. It was a really, I don't

29:28

know if people recall the story, but

29:31

maybe you want to tell the story of what happened with he

29:33

and his family. But it's

29:35

becoming a pretty incredible advocate since then.

29:38

Yes, well, he had a young son. He

29:40

had a toddler essentially who developed

29:44

brain cancer and eventually

29:47

died after a long process of surgeries

29:50

and treatments. And he unfortunately

29:52

died.

29:53

And obviously

29:55

it was a complete

29:58

devastation and he was so funny.

29:59

so open about it. He was

30:02

very... I mean, he's a comedy guy.

30:04

He's a joke guy. He's a writer. He's a performer.

30:06

And he was very

30:09

bare naked about it in a way that

30:12

I think was so interesting

30:15

and like tender and I feel...

30:17

And

30:18

he wrote a book. Anyway, he wrote a book about the entire

30:21

experience that is really, truly a beautiful

30:24

love letter to his son that died to

30:26

his family, but is

30:29

so...

30:30

It's so raw and

30:32

so openhearted about the entirety

30:35

of the experience that

30:37

I really loved. I

30:40

really loved reading the book because it was...

30:42

I mean, it's just

30:44

a great raw work of art

30:48

and it's very beautiful at the same time. And

30:51

now he is such an advocate for... He lives in... I mean,

30:53

he currently lives in the UK where

30:55

he experiences the benefits of

30:58

like healthcare. The national

31:01

health system. The national health system. And

31:03

so he's such an

31:06

advocate for that, for universal

31:08

healthcare. I myself, I grew up in Canada,

31:10

so I'm a beneficiary of that growing

31:12

up. And now

31:14

I live in the United States and so just

31:16

like everybody else, always kind of going, when does

31:18

my insurance run out? When am I on my own?

31:23

Because I'm on double strike

31:25

now. Like both of my unions are striking. Nobody

31:28

is working. It's easy to imagine

31:30

that most or all of us will

31:33

be without healthcare in

31:34

the

31:36

foreseeable future. And it's

31:38

terrifying. The system here is so broken

31:41

and it's so... And people know

31:43

that it's broken, but if you've lived

31:46

within a system that is not as broken,

31:48

it's like extra broken for you because you can

31:50

see what it's like when you don't have to think about

31:52

healthcare every moment

31:55

of your day where you can actually take

31:57

a day off and go, oh, this will be nice to spend

31:59

today.

31:59

time with my family because I'm not

32:03

like scrambling. I

32:05

first met him when Donald

32:08

Trump and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell

32:10

were trying to repeal Obamacare. Right,

32:12

oh God, yes. And remember

32:15

that. Because

32:17

even then we had too many people with insurance. Too

32:20

many. Too many, too many

32:22

people with insurance. In fact, we

32:25

just heard today, Sam, that Texas has already

32:27

kicked 500,000 people off

32:29

of Medicaid since the pandemic.

32:32

Because I think there is this perspective

32:35

that's really singular to the US.

32:38

Which is that if you do a set of things,

32:41

have a certain kind of job or a certain

32:43

age, you can get access to some healthcare.

32:47

But we have to decide as a society

32:49

whether or not you're worthy

32:51

of having done those things. Very much

32:53

so, yes. And of course, if you're incredibly

32:55

wealthy, you get everything you want. Which

32:58

is why people here don't like, the

33:00

people who don't like the system in the UK and Canada, it's

33:03

because they don't get enough advantage in

33:05

that system. The thing that

33:08

you point out,

33:10

and he points out so well, are

33:12

the fact that you've gotta worry

33:14

about someone in your family getting sick, and whether you're

33:16

gonna be able to pay for it,

33:18

is this sort of existential angst

33:21

on top of everything else.

33:23

I talk about it, and I have said this

33:25

before, but I really believe this, that

33:27

it is like, and believe me, I love

33:29

living in the United States, I'm a citizen of this country,

33:32

like I love it, I truly do. But

33:35

there is an invisible backpack

33:37

that most people wear, that is

33:39

this kind of just existential,

33:41

just kind of like this looming threat, I

33:44

guess, that it could all fall apart. You

33:46

definitely, if one person in your family

33:50

develops some intractable disease,

33:53

you could just lose everything. Your house, your

33:56

livelihood, because there's no one

33:58

to care for your family member. Like

34:00

it can be taken away from you. And

34:02

that is sort of what I, when I try

34:04

to explain what it's like here to my

34:07

friends and family back in Canada, I'm like, well, the

34:09

biggest difference that I see is that

34:12

in the United States, you could feel like you

34:14

could just kind of lose everything at all times.

34:17

Like with any new president,

34:19

you could just kind of like lose everything. Everything

34:22

changes every four years and

34:24

everything can change in your life because

34:26

there really isn't a social safety net.

34:29

Just kind of providing the

34:31

basics so that it's

34:34

not that it's... It's like we want you insecure

34:36

by design. Insecure by design, always

34:39

on your guard, always a little

34:41

bit afraid of something, always

34:44

a little bit hesitant to go to the doctor.

34:46

So I was on a panel

34:48

in Aspen with a guy who's

34:51

the head of the American Cancer Society and

34:54

someone asked him a

34:56

question and he said, you know what the number one

34:58

call we get to the American Cancer Society is? The

35:01

number one phone call we get to our hotline? I

35:03

can't afford to have cancer. A

35:06

newly diagnosed person, that's the number

35:08

one thing on their mind. And in

35:10

fact, the data says that within

35:13

two years of developing cancer, 40% of

35:15

Americans have spent through their life

35:17

savings. Oh,

35:18

this is so easy to believe.

35:21

It's so easy to believe. And then, and even

35:24

if you do have coverage and like the extra

35:26

layer of on this sandwich is

35:29

that even if you do have coverage, you'll spend

35:31

so much time as

35:33

a person who's trying to recover from

35:35

a terrible illness, you'll

35:39

actually spend so much time probably

35:41

arguing with your insurance provider about

35:43

what's covered and what's not covered. And you'll get crazy

35:46

bills that you didn't anticipate

35:48

because that's how it works. And you'll

35:50

get turned down for coverage that you deserve.

35:55

And it's within your plan and you will

35:57

just be in a fight all the time and

35:59

dealing with may.

35:59

You'll be afraid to check your

36:02

mail and that is so

36:04

unfair right it is so unfair

36:07

To people

36:08

right you know like it just made me think

36:10

of something you know how they're like hey if you

36:12

have if you're going Through chemotherapy

36:15

will give you some

36:17

Massage therapy will give you some things so you

36:19

don't have to be so stressed out. Yeah, I got

36:21

it Why don't instead of that why don't you just

36:23

not send me all these crazy bills? Just and then

36:26

I'll be less stressed out. Yeah,

36:27

just don't send me the bills like the

36:29

fact the acupuncture acupuncture You

36:31

know what not getting of six

36:34

crazy bills in my mail is worth 80 acupuncture

36:38

sessions can we just Skip

36:40

the part can we just like on a very

36:43

basic level can we skip the part where

36:45

you say that I don't have coverage When you

36:47

fucking know that I do

36:49

right can we skip that part? So

36:52

I don't have a heart attack in addition to everything

36:54

else Right right Oh

36:56

really a collection agent. Thank you. Yeah exactly

37:00

Mmm well

37:01

we some kind of negative today. That's

37:03

my fault. I think that's my fault No, it's not

37:06

you're generally very positive person so I'm

37:08

like

37:09

We went there. I don't know

37:12

This no no no I had Say

37:15

a positive thing I had the most delicious tomato

37:17

sandwich today tomato sandwich the sun is shining

37:20

It just it's so killer Delicious

37:23

one maybe maybe we finished with a few positive things

37:26

That's that's the way that's the way we finished

37:30

Women's soccer team

37:31

Us women's soccer team got paid got paid

37:34

the same as the men's soccer team for the first time in the history

37:36

of any sport very good Yeah, gotta be

37:38

gotta be feeling good about that

37:39

positive about that. Mm-hmm. Yep. What

37:41

else okay? Did that did that equal to Brontos Santas

37:44

not yet? Not quite not

37:46

quite, but that was good. That was positive change

37:48

That's good. That's good change. That was positive change.

37:50

Yes. Yes, tell us about

37:53

your your upcoming shows You've got you

37:55

got more dates out there.

37:56

I got more dates up there because I

37:58

enjoy doing the live show So I'm going,

38:01

for those who don't know, I'm on tour, so

38:03

I'm doing this show called Your Favorite Woman,

38:05

and it's like super fun.

38:06

By the way, my wife's favorite woman, for sure. Oh,

38:09

that's so, she's gotta come to the show. I'm gonna

38:11

get you, I'm gonna get her all set up.

38:15

Oh,

38:15

it's our anniversary coming up, that's a good idea.

38:17

This is nice, wait, how many years? It

38:20

will be 27 this year. We're

38:22

in a similar situation. I think you've

38:24

been married a little longer. A little

38:27

bit, okay, we got married in 96. Oh

38:29

yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, we got married in 2001. So,

38:31

pretty close. Pretty close.

38:34

But it's a super-rollicking,

38:37

like one-woman show, it's multi-media,

38:40

like talk about all kinds of women

38:42

stuff, and I love doing

38:44

it. It is by far

38:46

the most fun 70 minutes that

38:49

I spend as a performer. I just

38:52

absolutely adore doing it, and I think I'm coming to

38:54

Los Angeles, so. In

38:56

October, middle of October. I'm

38:59

just saying, just saying. I think

39:01

we'll have to try to find a way to get ourselves there. Well,

39:04

we have a link in the show notes to all

39:06

your upcoming dates that you just announced.

39:09

And

39:10

finally, tell us about this whole podcast

39:12

medium thing, like what do you make of it?

39:14

I love

39:16

the podcast medium, because I

39:18

just come from a world, like when we were in comedy,

39:21

you end up doing these long, in

39:24

my comedy work, I would always do these

39:26

long

39:27

interviews with people, and then they have

39:29

to be chopped down to five minutes

39:32

of your best moments, or

39:34

like the moments that are the most on

39:36

point for the storytelling that you're doing,

39:38

and you end up with so much great conversation

39:41

on the cutting room floor. So I love, I actually love

39:45

listening to podcasts, and I love doing one,

39:47

because I'm curious. I'm just so curious about

39:49

people, as you are, curious about the world,

39:52

and it's

39:53

actually a great medium for me. I'm

39:55

a real radio kid, like I grew

39:58

up in the public radio.

39:59

I'm sure you can imagine from what I've told you

40:02

about my family. We were a public radio family.

40:04

And so that was just on Yes

40:07

all the time receiving news through

40:09

osmosis and nothing has changed and

40:11

now my kids are suffering that

40:13

same fate

40:15

Well, you're also married to a very funny person Yes,

40:18

so your kids must your kids must have like all kinds of

40:20

dad jokes and mom jokes flying at them

40:22

Oh, yeah, there are children are Savage

40:26

there's so much funnier than we are and so

40:29

we're in great great danger

40:31

Terrible that is funny.

40:33

Well, your your your podcast is

40:35

interesting in that it focuses on Really

40:39

fulcrum points in people's lives. Mm-hmm,

40:41

and it does this thing where in

40:44

a very

40:45

Gentle way it gets at the question of kind

40:47

of how people identify themselves

40:50

and and who they are but

40:52

in a really kind of

40:54

Gentle thoughtful funny way.

40:56

Oh, thank you so much for saying that

40:58

that's kind of I mean

41:00

I

41:01

Think it surprises people Probably

41:05

surprises a fair amount of people that I

41:07

just do have a natural kind of gentle

41:10

curiosity about a lot of people and so I

41:13

Love it's a great jumping-off point to

41:15

ask people about the choices that they've made in their lives

41:18

that have been impactful And it really is just

41:20

kind of that launch into a deeper conversation

41:22

about what it is that they're doing and where they're

41:25

at And I love it. I

41:27

just love doing it. I feel like I would do it Whether

41:30

or not anyone listened to

41:31

it So the fact that anyone's listening to it is

41:33

just sort of like a little extra It's

41:36

like a little cherry on top for

41:38

me.

41:38

That's nice. Yeah, I always feel like

41:40

okay this show No one's listening to while I'm doing it. I'm like

41:42

nobody's nobody's right All right, you have to kind

41:44

of keep it small just keep it like very

41:46

small and you go. Oh someone listen to that Wow,

41:50

I'm like okay, but this one they forgot to listen to

41:52

right Subscription

41:55

they pretty much it's in their feed they like it. It's

41:58

okay people like you. That's what they do That's

42:00

what they do. Well, so great of you

42:02

to be in the bubble doing the Gen

42:05

X stuff with me. I love it. And

42:08

catching up on where we are in

42:10

the world. And I think we landed with

42:13

some real positivity shows for sure. Are

42:16

some super positive stuff. Thank

42:18

you. Thank

42:19

you, Sam. My pleasure.

42:33

Thank you, Sam.

42:35

That was really appreciated. And

42:37

actually, Sam stayed around afterwards

42:41

and we talked and we played a little game called

42:44

Two Truths and a Lie. I don't know if you've ever played this game

42:46

before,

42:48

but Sam and I were just hanging out and talking

42:50

and I said, hey, you want to do two truths

42:52

and a lie? We did Two Truths and a Lie and

42:55

it was really fun. And we're

42:57

throwing it up as some what we call premium

42:59

content. Premium content

43:02

is for those of you who go, what?

43:04

In the bubble's over already and I

43:06

can't hear more? How do I

43:08

hear more? Well, you can become

43:11

a premium member by subscribing. I

43:13

almost

43:14

said prescribing, but subscribing

43:16

to Lemonade Premium

43:18

today. And if you do that,

43:20

then you can access all this sort

43:22

of additional bonus content on my show

43:25

as well as from the other podcasts

43:28

across Lemonade Media Network, of which there

43:30

are many, many, many good

43:32

ones. And as a subscriber, you

43:34

can listen to

43:37

conversations that we

43:39

have in a kind of offline fashion like the Two Truths and

43:41

a Lie one.

43:43

And you could continue to uncover new ways

43:46

that as Lemonade likes to say, make life

43:48

suck less so you can check out a free

43:51

trial if you want of Lemonade Premium,

43:54

the free trial at the Apple podcast

43:56

app, click on our podcast logo,

43:59

hit the subscribe button you'll

44:01

be into the two truths and a lie thing with with

44:04

us as soon as you want and rest assured

44:06

it won't stop

44:08

with the Sam's two truths and a lie we'll

44:10

put content up you know several

44:13

times a month every other week

44:16

and Kyle and I are working on

44:18

some really cool content for that stuff

44:21

we really have our guests let her hair

44:23

let their hairs down we

44:25

take what we have coming up

44:27

we're gonna take a look into

44:29

the

44:30

latest and greatest

44:32

of the Trump cases next

44:35

week that's on Wednesday

44:37

we're back to our Wednesday programs

44:39

Dan Buettner the following

44:41

week will be on Dan Buettner

44:44

is the pioneer around blue zones

44:47

how we all live longer and healthier

44:49

happier lives by the environments we live in

44:51

and

44:52

then a final health show

44:54

of the summer I think we will have

44:57

fulfilled our commitment to you to deliver

44:59

a lot of shows on health content and what's going on in

45:01

the healthcare

45:03

world we have Congresswoman Susan Del Bene

45:05

along with Mara McDermott talking

45:08

about some pretty transformational

45:10

moves in the healthcare system that could

45:13

get it working a lot differently than it is today

45:16

so those are three of our upcoming shows have

45:19

a great week I

45:22

expect to be talking to you next Wednesday

45:29

thank you for listening in the bubble if

45:32

you like what you heard rate and review

45:34

and most importantly tell a friend

45:36

about the show tell anyone about the show or production

45:39

of lemonade media Kyle Shealy

45:41

is the senior producer of our show he's the main guy

45:44

and he rocks it with me every week the mix

45:47

is by Noah Smith he's a wizard

45:49

he does all the technical stuff and he's a cool guy

45:51

Steve Nelson is the vice president of

45:53

weekly content he's well above average

45:56

and of course the ultimate big bosses

45:59

are Jessica Cordova Kramer and

46:01

Stephanie Wittleswax. They are wonderful,

46:04

inspiring, and they put the sugar in the

46:06

lemonade. The executive produced the

46:08

show along with me. Our theme was

46:10

composed by Dan Mallod and Oliver Hill and

46:13

additional music is by Ivan Kariev.

46:15

You can find out more about our show on social

46:17

media at LemonadaMedia where

46:20

you can also get a transcript of the show and

46:23

buy some In The Bubble gear. Email

46:25

me directly at andy at LemonadaMedia.com.

46:28

You can find my Twitter

46:29

feed at a Slavitt

46:32

and you can download In The Bubble wherever you get your

46:34

podcasts or listen to ad free

46:37

on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. Thank

46:39

you for listening.

46:46

Does

46:48

keeping up with the news cycle feel like a daunting

46:50

task? Join me, V Spear,

46:52

on V Interesting from Lemonada

46:54

Media with fascinating guests like

46:57

Mercury Stardust, Taylor Lorenz,

46:59

and Hank Green. We'll break down what

47:01

you need to know to be the most interesting person

47:04

in any room. We'll find the

47:06

stories that give us a reason for optimism

47:08

among all the doom-scrolling headlines.

47:11

I want us to be smart together. V Interesting

47:14

has new episodes out every Friday on

47:16

Amazon Music, Apple,

47:18

Spotify, or wherever you get

47:20

your podcasts.

47:23

Hey, it's Gloria Rivera, host of No

47:25

One Is Coming to Save Us. We've spent the first

47:27

two seasons of my podcast examining what's

47:29

wrong with child care in America. Now

47:31

it's time to talk about solutions. So

47:34

this year, I'm taking the show on the road. Join

47:36

me starting June 22nd in partnership

47:38

with Neighborhood Villages as we set out to

47:40

meet the people in your community who are making

47:43

changes big and small and making America

47:45

a better place for every family. Subscribe

47:48

today wherever you get your podcasts.