How Trump Made This Liberal Comedian Conservative | The Daily Beast Podcast

The post office, the goddamn post office that they want to privatize. That's in the Constitution. They talk about the post office lost such and such billions of dollars last year, to which I always feel like saying, who gives a shit? I'm Joanna Coles, chief content officer of The Daily Beast. This is the Daily Beast podcast, and it's the perfect thing. to listen to this weekend as you prepare your patties, as you get your fireworks ready, as you put the beer in the cooler.

Because it's an interview with the comedian Michael Ian Black. It's a really fun interview based on his column. for us on how he has become, well, how Donald Trump has driven him. to be a conservative, but it's not quite what it sounds. So no further ado. Let's get to it. So Michael Ian Black, a. columnist at The Daily Beast, has written a very funny piece, which I prefer to be called a star columnist at the Daily Beast.

Thank you. Michael. Liam Black, star columnist at The Daily Beast, has written a piece. that has gotten people very excited, very funny. about how Donald Trump has made you a conservative. Sir. Please explain. Well, I found myself at dinner. in Las Vegas with a friend of mine who I don't know very well. We were sort of recent friends, and we'd certainly never had a political. conversation before. So we're having dinner. It turns out he voted for Trump.

And then we had ourselves. a spirited conversation. about that fact, and I found myself. defending the institutions, the storied institutions of this nation. I found myself defending such things as the IRS, and which is not what comedians are supposed to do. That's not what we do. That's not at all what we do.

We're supposed to be iconoclasts. And here I am, standing up for the faceless bureaucrats. in Washington, D.C., administering foreign aid. and all the good things that the American government. has traditionally done up until this moment. And so I find myself sort of acting as a reactionary in a weird way. To my friends who voted for Trump. and I realize, my God, I'm a conservative native now. And it was very, very upsetting for me to make this realization. And also, I'm sure you were a punk rocker when you were much younger.

I was the lead singer of a hardcore punk band in my high school days, and, you know, I was straight edge title. Michael, what was the title of the band? Yes, it was ironically titled The Pleased. And of course, it was called The Police, of course. So funny. Right. And still all these years later, here I am, just standing up for the man. I don't want to stand up for the man. But what choice do I have right now? It's terrible.

So you're standing up for the man. You've figured out that you're a conservative, and Donald Trump. almost led you to leave America, right? And you went off to France. So my wife and I, a couple of years ago spent six months living abroad. We lived in Rome. and we lived in London, and we were like, oh, this is particularly Rome. We like, oh, this is a this is a better way to live. And so this was during.

or maybe right before the election campaign kicked off. When we came back to the states, we thought, well, maybe we should abandon our American lives and go live. in a different, more socialist way because I'm a communist at heart, right? A communist, not a conservative, right? No. And, so we. we decided against Italy because, I don't know.

if you've spent any time in Italy, but as lovely as it is, the the Italian bureaucracy of just getting anything. done, it's very challenging, especially if you don't speak the language. and especially if you don't have connections, if you know what I mean. There's a whole thing in the south of Italy. where you got to hire a dude who sort of just greases the wheels. for everywhere that you go. And I'm like, I just want to deal with that. So my wife speaks French. We're like, well, we can move to France.

It's lovely. There. And we decided we were going to move to France regardless if we won the election. And then when Donald Trump won, we thought, we're so glad we decided to move to France. And then with we in January of this year, we decamped for France, spent. an entire month driving around France, at the end of which. we decided, yeah, we're not moving to France. So you moved back to Savannah, where you live now and where,

frankly, although the only insight I've had into your home. is the lovely picture of what looks like your kitchen behind you. But I can't imagine why you would leave Savannah in that gorgeous kitchen. for anywhere else. Well, so this isn't my kitchen. I rented this kitchen for this podcast, and. I just thought Joanna deserves the best. So let me get a Nancy Meyers style kitchen. Money well spent, Michael. Well spent? No, I got invited to hosts some things at the Nantucket.

Film Festival, so I just moved to Nantucket. So this is. And this is a guest cottage behind me, my own kitchen, my own savannah kitchen. While nice, isn't quite as. But I remember your Savannah kitchen. looking pretty good last time we did a poke does on there. And Savannah is a lovely city. If if you've never been there, you or your listeners, I, it's I love Savannah. I came to the Savannah Book Festival earlier this year, but you were in France. Otherwise I would have taken you out for dinner. Yes.

And it's a great. It's a historic, lovely city. Great, great. Like long weekend city. If you're looking for someplace to go to wander romantic streets. and particularly this time of year, if, if, if you have water. Wait. You're looking to shed. It's it's the ideal location. Are you saying I look as if I have walked away? I was not referring to you specifically. I was just saying, if one wants to sweat a lot, this is the perfect time to come to Savannah. You can do it. Yes, you. Yes, Joanna, you could drop a few pounds. Yes. Okay.

All right. So I'm very happy to come down and try Savannah again. That sounds good. So. So let me take you back to this. This I say you've written about conservatism. and standing up for the things that you believe. and all the things that you railed against as a young man. and thought you would never come to support. Is this, in fact, just the typical journey that Robert Frost talked about, that you have to be radical when you're a youth, because otherwise you won't become a conservative as you get older. Or is this actually, inspired by Donald Trump.

and what's happening with the administration? So I think those are kind of two different questions. The first is, do people naturally become more conservative as they age? And I don't think that's necessarily. the path that I have left. It certainly isn't like, I, I still consider myself, in fact, the older I get, sort of the more liberal. I get and sort of the more socialist I guess I get. And it's because the older I get, the more I appreciate the notion.

of the common good and also the notion of public service. And the. reason that I was sort of, I sort of jokingly refer to myself as a conservative. in the piece that's coming out, is because. the public good in public service. are inherently conservative ideas. in the sense that you're looking to preserve, celebrate and accentuate.

that which we do well as a in our in our commonality. as a, as a citizenry that's really important. In, in the kind of punk rock ethos. that we're sort of jokingly talking about is all about, do it yourself and do it. Do it yourself in the sense that as a community, we can come together. and do things. Now, the community that we have formed as a nation is,

in fact the federal government. And as much as we may rail. against the federal government for the bad things that they do, what we've seen this administration do, which gets to the second part of. your question, is take a sledgehammer to those things. which I find most valuable about our country, tolerance, inclusivity, helping, the less fortunate, standing up for the rights of the oppressed.

Generosity, munificence. Like all of these things to me, embody. what my sort of natural punk rock ethos is. And punk, you know, punk rock obviously isn't the opposite of conservative, but for the for the purposes of this conversation, it will have to do. And it's that idea of, of, being in a mosh pit and somebody falls and you pick them up. That's my entire ethos as a human.

You pick up the person in the mosh pit, but you also have to get into the mosh pit, which means you have to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to, like, use your elbows at times, not to hurt people. But if somebody's teeth get in the way of your elbows, so be it. And if they fall, you pick them up. to somehow. That is now a conservative position helping people. To me, is just what humans are supposed to do. well, and education and science and things.

that we automatically assumed somehow. pushed us forward on the road to progress. post office, the goddamn post office that they want to privatize. That's in the Constitution, in. in what's so maddening about it is they always talk about in the post office. I think it's a sort of good example of this philosophy that they have, which is they talk about the post office lost such and such billions of dollars. last year, to which I always feel like saying, who gives a shit?

Like, what do we care if the post office makes money? That's not their function. The post office need not make money, just like I feel like Amtrak. need not make money. These are services for the public. These are for the public good. If they can recoup some of their money, great. If they can operate sort of, you know, flag, great. But if they lose a few billion dollars, who cares? The Pentagon spends $10 billion on Oakley sunglasses every year. And nobody the Pentagon needs to turn a profit.

You know, it's that kind of thing that. just drives me crazy because it's so it's. so shortsighted and it's so callous for the sake of carelessness. It makes it makes no sense. It makes no financial sense because it's going to end up costing people more. When you privatize all these services, then you then then you would by. just sort of spreading out, the payment among the entire citizenry. It drives me crazy. So talk about the role of the comedian in the age of Donald Trump, which.

sometimes you wake up and you just think. this is unparalleled, unpalatable, whatever the word is. incapable of parody, it's my word for that. It's been the natural inclination for people. I think not in comedy is to go, oh, Donald Trump, so great for comedy. And he's not. It's he's the worst thing for comedy for a few reasons. The first is because he's such a dominant figure in the culture.

that there's an expectation that, of course, you're going to talk about this dude, but there's also the sense of, I don't want to hear anything else about this guy. Like there's there's such a saturation of stupor, saturation. in the culture of this doofus, of this loser. that as a comedian, it's like, you want to talk about anything else, you know, on on the show that I might have I Got News for you,

which you participated. Yeah. The very funny CNN show based on a British show. I'm based on the British show. Well, it. is the British show just with an American accent, basically. And we. Yeah, every week we struggle because this story. that's dominating the news is this dipshit. And it's sort of like it's it would be irresponsible. not to talk about it, but nobody wants to talk about it. It's just it's just annoying. And the other reason is he's not a.

this is going to sound odd, maybe to somebody not in in comedy. He's not a funny person. He himself is not funny. He doesn't say funny things. He has no sense of humor. And I mean that literally. The only time you ever see him making a joke. is when he's being mean to somebody. That is, his idea of humor is just insulting somebody, demeaning, belittling, putting down, coming up with a like. dumb ass nickname to him. That's humor.

But he's never self-deprecating. He's never said anything particularly clever or witty. He doesn't seem to have wit or understand wit, and it seems to offend him. And as a comedian, it's like you can't be meaner than he is pointing out. His stupidity is just sort of trite, like, I don't know. I don't know where you go with this guy. I don't know, I don't want to talk about him. I don't think most comedians want to talk about him. And, you know, the sooner.

we don't have to talk about him anymore, the better it will be for comedy. What about the people around him? Because some of them seem interesting characters. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, seems slightly more palatable. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I feel like you might be able to do a good impression of him. Actually, if you dress, who gets an impression of me, I could. I well, not. I know you're not an impressionist, but I can. I don't drink very much. But but you've got a. kind of 5:00 shadow, and I feel like if you.

Well, I was up at 4:00 this morning to catch my flight, so I didn't stay, but the. I could see maybe from this angle, I look a little more headset, the angle look more hegseth. And then you do Trumpian, and I fly with the right pocket. square on the right stripe. Socks, stars and stripes, socks. You could pull off a headset. I just need to get my chin forward a little and see. a little angrier than I normally am, and use the word obliterate several times. Obliterate? Why? Why do you insult president by not saying the pilots obliterated the target?

He's annoying. What about JD Vance? Or also seems parrot Apple? Yeah, I mean, they're all parody know, but it's like, I mean, I, you know, I'm. sorry for taking it this far, but it's like, do you really want to see a Herman Gehring impersonation? It's like, you know, do you want to see a Pol Pot impersonation? Not particularly. Right. And I'm not saying I'm not saying these guys are history's worst monsters. I am not saying that. But would they like to be history's worst monsters? Yeah, I think they would be.

I think they'd be very content to be lumped in with those people. I just don't know. I don't know if they have the, the Hotspur to go that far. Well, let's say they don't have the hats, but to go that far. Michael in your column is excellent. Recommend it to everybody. Thank you for joining us. And I can't wait for the next season of have I Got News for you, which comes back, on CNN in September, I believe. I hope you'll come back on it and dazzle us with your wit again. Well, I hope I do, too.

And if I do, I want to be on your team. Although last time we had Amber Ruffin on the podcast, she immediately. got fired from the white House Correspondents Dinner. So I hope no such thing befalls you. Well, yeah, but I didn't call them. I didn't call them, the Republicans murderers. I just I just compared them to Pol Pot. And for me. Yeah. Okay. Have fun in Nantucket. And your column is essential reading. We are all conservatives now.

That's why I am a star columnist for The Daily Beast. All right. Thank you very much. That was perfect. Absolutely perfect. So there you have it. A 1990s liberal who was railing against the man. who sang in a punk rock band, now finding himself defending. because of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, all the institutions he once railed against. And now he calls himself quite proudly, a conservative.

Everything you know is upside down. But it's July the 4th weekend, so enjoy your burger, enjoy your beer. Don't forget to subscribe to The Daily Beast podcast. Leave us a comment on YouTube about what you think of Michael's journey. Have you had a similar journey, especially as you reflect on it and what July the 4th means this weekend? Don't forget to share the podcast with your friend. And for second by second updates on the crazy that's going on, you can check it out on the Daily Beast website or our app.

A don't forget to be beast. This podcast was produced by Devin Roger Reno, Anno von Essen, and it was edited by Jesse Millwood.