The Other Side of the Bitcoin: Crypto & Corruption w/Ben McKenzie | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

JON STEWART: What exactly is crypto, is Bitcoin? What are we dealing with? BEN MCKENZIE: So it just started off. as an idea that was dropped on a cryptography mailing. list in 2008, 2009, a paper that basically said, wouldn't. it be cool if you could send money. directly, person to person, and avoid the banks? Which sounds like a pretty good idea. This is October 2008, so it's the height. of the subprime crisis. And the idea didn't really take off initially because there--. OK, but why does it have value? What can I actually do with this thing?

And the first use case was crime. It was the Silk Road. [LAUGHTER]. JON STEWART: The first use case, by the way, Ben, is always crime. BEN MCKENZIE: I mean, you know. JON STEWART: As the commissioner of Gotham, you should know. You know this. BEN MCKENZIE: I know this. It's Gotham, baby. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Hey, everybody, welcome. to The Weekly Show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart. It is April 14. Ah, Tax Day Eve.

I think this is coming out tomorrow. What a lovely time we're having. I feel energized, ladies and gentlemen. I feel as though, like spring, there's. a little crack of sunshine in the shit show. that we have been living through this past year. and change. Hungary has offered us a respite. They have shown, oh, you don't-- there. is an opportunity for voters to have the last say.

And it filled me with the hope. And I urge you to take sustenance and resolve. from their joy and jubilation in kicking. out a corrupt kleptocracy. I think that's why I have the energy. It could also be because President Trump did heal me. as Jesus Trump just recently. If you don't know, go to the picture. But clearly, he's given me a little bit.

of-- it's a little vitamin B12 shot in the ass, really. There's nothing like a glowing orb being. placed on your forehead--. that, combined with the election with Orban. But we're going to move past all that now. We're actually going to get into a subject--. I don't know an awful lot about it, but I find it fascinating. And that is the world of digital currencies, and coins, and crypto, and all those different things. And our guide through this maze is an unlikely one.

He's an actor. He's a guy you recognize. But he has written a legitimate, like, non-actor book-- like, an economist book. And so let's just get to him now. Ben McKenzie is going to guide us through the labyrinth. [MUSIC PLAYING]. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted today. to be able to bring on a gentleman. who has put in the work.

He didn't have to put in the work, but he put in the work. And, Ben McKenzie, welcome to The Weekly Show. Ben is the author of The New York Times best selling. book Easy Money on economics, and directed and produced. the feature film Everyone Is Lying. To You For Money, which, quite frankly, is probably the case. But it takes a deep dive into the world. of cryptocurrency and fraud. Ben. BEN MCKENZIE: Jon. JON STEWART: There we go. BEN MCKENZIE: Hey. JON STEWART: Now--. BEN MCKENZIE: Sorry. Yeah.

JON STEWART: We've calibrated, and at just the right level. What sparked your interest in this world of crypto? Were you burned in a crypto--. did you think you were going to the moon. and not get to the moon? How did this come about? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, I'm just stranded. here on Earth, one, now. I'm trying to get over there. Well, in a way, I was burned, but it. was through a buddy of mine. A buddy of mine named Dave. JON STEWART: The infamous Dave.

BEN MCKENZIE: The infamous Dave. I was in my mid 20s. We had gone to college together. I had made a little money in my first TV series. And he came to me in the mid-aughts, I guess, late aughts, and was like, you gotta buy stock in this company. And the company had supposedly produced synthetic blood. They were going to make a fortune. Yeah, it's so embarrassing. JON STEWART: Wait, does this turn out to be Theranos? BEN MCKENZIE: It's not Theranos, but it felt like somebody had already come. up with the idea of this scam.

They hadn't quite scaled it yet. JON STEWART: I see. BEN MCKENZIE: Anyway, put money into it, both of us. Both promptly lost it. And so my lesson, my takeaway is. don't take financial advice from Dave. So in 2020, throes of the pandemic, he comes to me--. you know, crypto's everywhere. The celebrities are selling it. And he's like, dude, you gotta buy Bitcoin. And I'm like, no, Dave, I'm not going to buy Bitcoin. By the way, what is it? And he can't explain it to me. You know, he doesn't know. I'm like, is it money? It's money. It's currency. It's money, right? I'm pretty sure that's what the word currency means.

So what do you do, you buy stuff with it? No. You put money into it, and then hopefully it goes up, and you sell it. I'm like, so it's an investment? And he's like, no. Yeah. I mean, sort of. Anyway. It was very unsatisfying with Dave. And so I felt like I needed to do--. JON STEWART: Do a little research. BEN MCKENZIE: Do my own research, as the crypto folks say. JON STEWART: Oh, DYOR, for God's sakes. BEN MCKENZIE: DYOR. JON STEWART: So, in your research, and this will be-- maybe we start at the beginning here. So explain to me, because I'm fascinated.

by this as well, because I think it exposes. a lot of the underpinnings of what. you would consider the traditional economy as well. So what exactly is crypto, is Bitcoin? What are we dealing with? BEN MCKENZIE: So it just started off. as an idea that was dropped on a cryptography mailing. list in 2008, 2009, a paper that basically said, wouldn't. it be cool if you could send money. directly, person to person, and avoid the banks? Which sounds like a pretty good idea.

This is October 2008, so it's the height. of the subprime crisis. And the idea didn't really take off initially because, OK, but why does it have value? What can I actually do with this thing? And the first use case was crime. It was the Silk Road. [LAUGHTER]. JON STEWART: The first use case, by the way, Ben, is always crime. BEN MCKENZIE: I mean, you know. JON STEWART: Yeah. As the commissioner of Gotham, you should know. BEN MCKENZIE: I know this. I know this. It's Gotham, baby.

JON STEWART: That's right. BEN MCKENZIE: Look, in its limited defense, the use case was mainly buying drugs online. And I am not an anti-drug guy. I mean, some of the drugs were a little more. severe than marijuana, my personal favorite. But, yeah, it was drugs. It was buying drugs. Although, honestly, on the Silk Road, you could also order assassination attempts. That guy Ross Ulbricht went to jail because he was, like--. JON STEWART: Holy shit. BEN MCKENZIE: --trying to. JON STEWART: Yeah, you never see. that category on Craigslist. BEN MCKENZIE: I know, right?

JON STEWART: Health, beauty-- you. never see the assassination. BEN MCKENZIE: So, you know, it gave Bitcoin--. because what Bitcoin is, and all cryptocurrencies, they're basically just a record of transactions on a ledger. called a blockchain. And the neat thing about them is that your identity. is obscured. It's a pseudonymous-- not anonymous, but you can't tell what accounts, what wallets are. interacting with each other. So you can hide where you're sending something of value.

Now, who would that appeal to? Criminals. JON STEWART: All right, so I want to back this up because I. do think people get really lost in this-- in that it's sort. of hard to understand, is this meant to run parallel. to our traditional financial system, which you imagine is, if you break it down, there's banks. And the banks hold your money, which we've all decided.

has value. And they distribute it, they loan it. They do all the different transactions. that banks would do. And you can invest that money into things. that you might think have value, that are tied to things, whether they're commodities, or securities, or all. the various things that you can do. that are tied to some intrinsic value. that we have in the world. Is crypto meant to be kind of a parallel system that's.

going to improve on that? Is the purpose of it, whatever they thought the downsides. of that were, which I assume would. be, like, volatility, or exploitation, or those kinds of things--. is that what it's meant to achieve? BEN MCKENZIE: I think the advocates would argue that. Yeah, absolutely. The skeptics would say, well, the reason that you-- look, as soon as you say you're anti-crypto, one of the first attacks you get is you're pro-bank.

You're just in favor of the banks. JON STEWART: We'll get into the attacks, because I imagine coming out against crypto. is like saying BTS sucks. Like, I imagine you get wailed on online. BEN MCKENZIE: It's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. I've developed a sense of humor about it all. But, yeah, obviously-- well, if it's not obvious, I'm on this podcast. And I don't like the banks. Just like you, just like everyone. in the world who isn't a banker, including, perhaps, the bankers' wives. No, just kidding.

I don't think banks are great. And we can talk about whether the banks should exist. or whether we should just have accounts of the government, which may be a way of--. the reason that crypto gets so far in its argument. is it's really simple. It's don't you think the regulated system sucks? And everyone raises their hands. And then they say crypto fixes this. Now, with the banks, when you're sending money. around the banking system, what you're really doing. is avoiding the rules and regulations of that system,

because the banks are obviously licensed by the government. And, in exchange for the ability. to create money in the form of loans, they have to abide by all these rules. Do they do it well? No. Do they fuck up all the time? Yes. But that is the system that we've created. And they are at least, in some ways, they have to be responsive to the democracy. we've established. Because if they aren't, if they mess up too badly, we pull their license. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: Crypto says, well,

we don't need any of that. We can just go all the way around it. and create this thing that's acting like $1, but it's not backed by the full faith and credit. of the United States. It's a private dollar. It's $1 that exists outside of the public issuing of money. So, to me, that's a counterfeit dollar. You're saying it's $1, but it's not $1. The only thing you can really use that for. is to get around the regulated system. You could use that for good. But you're really using it for crime-- money. laundering, tax evasion, sanction evasion,

child sexual abuse material. Ships are going through the Strait of Hormuz. right now paying in cryptocurrency. because the Iranians don't want to use the banks. They've been shut out of the banking system. JON STEWART: So cryptocurrency is a way. to get around the legal barriers. if you wanted to do something. Now, I guess the flip side of that might be it. might also be a way to get around, the Iranians are getting it from ships for crypto.

I imagine the Iranian people--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. JON STEWART: --might be able to use it to get. around a repressive regime. If we wanted to make the counter, is that something that would be useful? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, look, money's a tool, right? So you can use it for good or for ill. I heard a story from a reporter about a woman in Afghanistan. who, because she's a woman, she can't. be banked under the Taliban. And so she's running a business,

and she's paying her employees running. her business in cryptocurrency-- in Bitcoin. or other cryptocurrency. JON STEWART: Now, are we being too universalist. by saying "crypto?". Because, look, in this world--. and I am not in any way familiar with it, so I'm going to throw out some things. And then we can break down-- like, I know Bitcoin. I know stablecoin. Then there's meme coin. Then there's whatever-- Dogecoin, which may be a meme coin.

Like, what are the different products that. exist in the crypto universe? And what would be the difference. between those products? BEN MCKENZIE: I would really just separate them into two. categories, broadly speaking, which is the speculative. cryptocurrencies, which is Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the 20,000 other or more--. 20,000 a couple years ago, it's probably more now--. cryptocurrencies that the price goes up and down. You can bet on them. JON STEWART: Would that be like Melania coin and Trump--.

BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: OK. So that's just a version of--. BEN MCKENZIE: I think so. I mean, the Bitcoin advocates will argue the tech. is slightly different. We can get into that in a separate-- like, there's a different consensus algorithm that runs Bitcoin. It gets a little bit technical. JON STEWART: Oh, my god. BEN MCKENZIE: It's all stupid. It's all stupid. But here's the thing. At the end of the day, you're betting or putting money. into it hoping to make money off of it. through no work of your own, that's. an investment of some kind. JON STEWART: Which, by the way-- yeah, I mean, generally,

that's how the stock market--. but that's tied to something. BEN MCKENZIE: Exactly. It's not tied to anything in the real world. That's what's so interesting. It's just lines of code stored on ledgers called blockchains. So there's no tie to any real world asset. So what are you investing in? I would argue you're really investing. in the story of it and the belief. that other people give it value. Therefore, it has value. It gets pretty esoteric. I mean, look, money is all made up, right? I mean, we made up the US dollar as well. JON STEWART: Sure. BEN MCKENZIE: It's just the distinction is really.

fundamental to me and to many other actual economists--. and I'm sort of an armchair economist, but real economists--. JON STEWART: You have an economics degree. Let's not soft sell. And it ain't nothing. BEN MCKENZIE: Undergraduate. JON STEWART: UVA, baby. Wahoo wah. There's no shame in that. BEN MCKENZIE: I was so close to going to William and Mary. Really. It was between William and Mary-- it was. JON STEWART: Boy, did you make the right choice. BEN MCKENZIE: I don't know. JON STEWART: We used to say William. and Mary was UVA without fun. BEN MCKENZIE: What? Really?

JON STEWART: William and Mary is so not fun. At least when I was there. There were two bars in the entire fucking town. Ben--. BEN MCKENZIE: Oh, I did make the right choice. JON STEWART: I bet you've been to Williamsburg. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: It's a lovely place to spend a weekend. BEN MCKENZIE: It's real small. JON STEWART: Four years gets old. BEN MCKENZIE: I mean, Charlottesville. felt small to me after about two or three. I was like-- JON STEWART: All right. BEN MCKENZIE: --I need to get out of here. So, yeah, maybe I did-- only two bars? Yeah, shit. I didn't know that. They don't lead with that when they're giving the tour. JON STEWART: And one of them was a deli. So it wasn't even--. I mean, the whole thing was bananas. BEN MCKENZIE: Bananas.

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BEN MCKENZIE: One fundamental critique of crypto. is the proponents will say, we want a free money. from the dead hand of state. We want a money that exists outside. of these terrible governments. OK. JON STEWART: You want to decentralize it, to give the people-- to democratize it. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Yeah. But then the natural follow-up to that is, OK, if the money doesn't come from the governments, where does it come from? And they don't like to talk about this. But the answer, when it comes to cryptocurrency, is corporations. It's World Liberty Financial, in the case of Donald.

Trump and all his coins. It's also Bitcoin. The Bitcoin that is mined now, these new coins that. are created, they're mined by multi-billion dollar. corporations, many of which are publicly traded. So you're talking about corporate money. JON STEWART: Now, let's--. and this is going to be remedial. But we're going to step back, because this. is where I feel like Bitcoin differs a bit from meme coin. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. JON STEWART: In that, and you mentioned it, it's mining. So my understanding of Bitcoin is it's a finite system,

closed system. And the blockchain technology, whoever. gets the correct next answer in the blockchain gets a coin. Is that--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: It's, in some ways, a game? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. It's a game. It's a game. It's a gambling exercise. They're running simple mathematical calculations. over and over and over again. JON STEWART: And early on, I imagine, you could gain them a little more easily than now,

because now the chains are longer? BEN MCKENZIE: Yes, the chains get longer. The competition gets more fierce. The price continues to rise on average over time. JON STEWART: And it takes a lot of electricity and computing. power now to get that. So those Bitcoin farms are corporatized? They're now owned by larger-- like, you can't be just, like, a Bitcoin dude in your attic grinding Bitcoin. the same way you could maybe early on.

BEN MCKENZIE: Exactly. You're never going to make any money doing it that way. I went to the biggest Bitcoin mine. in the country, which is outside of my hometown. of Austin, Texas. JON STEWART: OK. BEN MCKENZIE: And it's a former Alcoa aluminum smelting plant. JON STEWART: And they literally call them Bitcoin mines? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, they call it a mine. JON STEWART: But it's just, in essence--. BEN MCKENZIE: Just computers. One of the things that's so interesting to me about Bitcoin. and crypto, it's so suspicious, is. that they're putting these words on there to give. it a sense of tangibility. It's a coin. Well, no, it's lines of code.

It's not a coin. It's a mine, as though you're mining physical objects. from-- no, you're not. There's nothing there. So I think the terminology is really interesting. But, yeah, it's just warehouse after warehouse. I mean, these warehouses were football fields long. and maybe 50 feet in the air. And it's just computers. JON STEWART: Holy shit. BEN MCKENZIE: It's crazy, man. It's crazy. And you sit in the middle of it. They have one-- I guess the new technology. uses some sort of cooling thing, so it's not loud.

But the old technology was they just stacked. them in these warehouses. And they had, like--. the roof was open. And it's March in Texas, so it's sort of in the 70s. It's not that hot. But inside that room, it's got to be 90. And the guy's telling me it gets up to 110 in the summer. And all you hear is this whirring noise. of the computers running. And it's just a billion digital locusts. JON STEWART: Oh, Jesus. [BEN MIMICKING LOCUSTS]. BEN MCKENZIE: And it's creepy. It's so creepy.

JON STEWART: And how much-- in a room like that, like, what are they--. what does that generate for them over a period of time? Like, if you own one of these warehouse server things, and I imagine the investment is enormous--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: --what is that generating for you? BEN MCKENZIE: You hope to get Bitcoin. And if you run enough machines, you know, you're going to get a certain amount of Bitcoin. The economics were working when the price was going up. Right now, they are not a great place.

because the price has, obviously, gone. down since the Trump fervor has sort of waned here. JON STEWART: So if you were an early adopter, you're still probably, I don't know what it was--. BEN MCKENZIE: You're way up if you got it way early. Yeah. And so I want to actually address. that argument specifically. JON STEWART: Yeah. BEN MCKENZIE: So the strongest argument, one of the strongest. arguments that crypto has psychologically, is to say, you criticize it, and they go, well, yeah, but I bet you wish you bought it early. And I'm saying, I know, but you're.

saying if I bought in early to this thing I'm describing. as a Ponzi scheme and a multi-level marketing scheme, you're saying I would have made money. That's not really a critique of my criticism, because that's an aspect of-- that's actually the central. feature of a Ponzi scheme or a multi-level. marketing scheme is-- JON STEWART: Right. If you had gotten in early. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, exactly. The problem is that most people don't get in early. and so most people lose. JON STEWART: Let me tell you about Amway. Now, if you get in early, you can be a diamond distributor. BEN MCKENZIE: Right.

And with Amway, at least there's a product. Those products may not be great, but, like, there are--. and, interestingly enough, multi-level marketing schemes. are not illegal. You can actually have legal multilevel marketing schemes. Ponzi schemes is a different story. And I would describe crypto as sort of a blend of the two. But the way MLMs work is your--. JON STEWART: MLM? BEN MCKENZIE: Multi-level marketing. scheme is it's like a pyramid. It's a pyramid scheme, right? So there's the top, the people that started it, whoever came up with the idea-- maybe. it's Satoshi, in this case. JON STEWART: Satoshi is the person who.

did that white paper that you're talking. about from however many--. 18 years ago. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: But no one knows if that's. an individual, or a collective, or anything, really. BEN MCKENZIE: Exactly. And there's been some recent New. York Times reporting on that. We can talk about that if you like. But that guy, the guy that's supposedly Satoshi, fun fact, he hates me. I've never met him, never interviewed him. He has called me on Twitter--. JON STEWART: Is that based on The OC? Or is that based on--.

BEN MCKENZIE: I think he was a Seth fan. That's my understanding. No, he does not like--. [LAUGHTER]. He does not like what I'm saying about crypto. And not to make it about me, but we're here. And I think it's funny. I think it's really funny. He has referred to me as a crisis actor. Now, I am an actor. JON STEWART: That is true. BEN MCKENZIE: It is a crisis. He's so close. He's so close to getting it. JON STEWART: He's so close to putting it together. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Anyway, that guy's quite a piece of work. So if Satoshi was at the top of the pyramid,

then the people who bought it next would be right below him, and you would go downward. And so a lot of crypto is really just convincing people. to buy the thing that you've already bought, the thing you already own. Like, hey, buy some Bitcoin because I. bought Bitcoin 10 years ago. And I bought it at a penny, and I want to sell it. to you at $60,000 or whatever. JON STEWART: It's weird. It strikes me as it's this-- it's almost like a Potemkin. financial village. It has all the tent posts of our financial system.

But if you look behind it, it's slightly two dimensional. That's why I thought, when we talked. about it as two separate things, it's sort of an asset. And it's also a system. I have to say, the system part of it. seems like it might have some real value. Blockchain seems like it has encryption value. It seems like it has a democratized person. to person value. I could see where, in the world, that might make sense.

BEN MCKENZIE: Well, let me just push back a little bit on--. JON STEWART: Yeah, yeah. BEN MCKENZIE: Because the tech argument has thrown out a lot. If you talk to cryptographers, some. of the people that hate crypto the most are cryptographers. I mean, the ones that aren't in the crypto industry--. JON STEWART: Right, right. BEN MCKENZIE: --because cryptography. has moved on from blockchain. David Chaum, the guy who was sort of credited with laying. the intellectual foundation for this, in many ways, he referred to Bitcoin, to me, or blockchain, as primitive.

It doesn't work very well. To give you an example of how well it does not work, Bitcoin can only process five to seven transactions a second. Visa can do 24,000. JON STEWART: A second? BEN MCKENZIE: A second. Five to seven transactions a second. You can see that just will never work as a global payments. method because it's too slow. Even Sam Bankman-Fried, when I interviewed him, admitted that to me. And we'll talk about that. JON STEWART: I just want to say,

and we'll come back to it, that Sam Bankman-Fried interview, fucking bananas. BEN MCKENZIE: Crazy, right? JON STEWART: And, by the way, Ben. interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried-- and this is in his movie--. before Sam Bankman-Fried is caught or even, I think, suspected. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: But it is so clearly. one of those, like, weird Mike Wallace shows up. at your storefront and is like, sir, would you like. to answer a few questions?

And the dude is sweating from the minute you sit down. BEN MCKENZIE: Well, it is because I. had the mug that I bought on Etsy that. said "fraud investigator.". And so I was doing a little psyops on him. JON STEWART: It was. BEN MCKENZIE: I was messing with him a little bit. JON STEWART: Yeah. But you knew-- and, by the way, Sam Bankman-Fried, he ran the exchanges by which these things are--. and we'll get into all that in a little bit. But now, we're back to talking about these peer. to peer ways of doing transactions,

whether it's cross-border, or within borders, or person. to person. It's much slower using blockchain, but is there an advantage that there are no fees charged, there's no interest charged? If you wanted to throw them a bone, would that be what you'd throw them? BEN MCKENZIE: Sort of. So, first of all, Bitcoin is the real slow blockchain. There are faster blockchains. But the disadvantage is, A, they don't have.

the limited supply of Bitcoin. So, like, you can just print endless coins. It seems, you know, hard to have real supply and demand. intersections there or real value. if it's just sort of endless--. JON STEWART: Yeah. If you could just keep printing currency, as we've learned. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. I mean, there are some deep ironies. JON STEWART: Not the greatest idea. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Well, look, I mean-- yeah, we can talk about money supply, I guess. But the idea that there's no fees is an appealing story.

But I'll just give you one example of how. it didn't work in real life. And that's El Salvador. JON STEWART: This is Bukele? BEN MCKENZIE: This is Bukele. Yeah. So Bukele gets elected. He comes up with what I now think is really a marketing. plan to sell Westerners on coming. to El Salvador for tourism, but really. sell the country on using cryptocurrency.

to send money back home. A quarter of the El Salvadoran economy is remittances. It's the two to three people of Salvadoran descent that. live in the United States, primarily, sending money home. to their friends and families. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: So it's really the foundation of the economy. And if you're sending it via MoneyGram or Western Union, you're paying a fee. And that fee could be significant. So Bukele's pitch, which sounded good, was, we'll build a government system on top of Bitcoin.

Everyone will get, like, $30 of Bitcoin--. a kind of a giveaway--. and then you can use this system. to send money back and forth. And you'll avoid the fees. The government will take a tiny fee, but much smaller than Western Union or MoneyGram. JON STEWART: So it'll be like when those exchanges came up. in the stock market-- where it used to be you would pay. a commission to a broker and each transaction. would have a certain fee. And then, all of these sort of democratized methods for buying. stocks popped up that said, there.

will be no transaction fees. We won't take a commission. That's, in essence, what they're recreating. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. I would say with the--. JON STEWART: Trying to. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to. And so what happened? With much fanfare, the system was launched. The price of Bitcoin collapsed immediately-- like, went down. 20% in an hour or something. All the exchanges shut down. That's very weird. Why did the price of crypto crash suddenly? JON STEWART: Yeah, why? BEN MCKENZIE: Well, if you were front. running, if you had a bunch of crypto.

and you had a big publicity event that you knew. a lot of people would be buying into thinking. it's going to go up, that's the best time to sell. That's my own personal theory. I can't say that I have--. JON STEWART: A little nation-state pump and dump. BEN MCKENZIE: Hey, man. That's exactly right. JON STEWART: Hey, everybody. I don't know if you're aware of this in any way, but everything you do is being tracked by the government. and other agents. I'm just kidding.

I'm just messing with you. Not really. Thousands of companies collecting personal data. on you, trading it. You have no idea it's even happening. You have the right to tell these companies to stop and. to delete your information. But, obviously, to go through that. and to manage that maze on your own. is near impossible-- take years, by the time you figured it out, they'd be way ahead of. you anyway. And that's where this company Incogni comes in. Incogni has custom removals features.

in their unlimited plan. You can point to any website, any website where. your personal information is visible, and one of their privacy agents will. take care of the rest for you. It's an unbelievable service. You spend months or even years repairing. the damage that is done from stolen personal data. Like, I know I'm not supposed to curse. in the ad reads, but fuck these companies, respectfully.

Go to Incogni.com/Stewart. Use code "Stewart" for 60% off. Incogni helps wipe yourself from the internet. They can't harm you if they can't find you. Click the link in the description. to claim your 60% off and get your personal data. off the market. Incogni.com/Stewart. [MUSIC PLAYING]. Can you make the argument that this is all--. it's a solution in search of a problem in that it's not.

solving, necessarily, the underlying issues of whatever. our financial system is now in the way. that, like, FDIC tried to address. bank runs or those kinds of things. and did it really effectively. Are they trying to--. are they purporting that this solves a problem. that, A, doesn't really exist, and, B, that it isn't solving?

BEN MCKENZIE: It's definitely that it isn't solving. I mean, I would-- in their limited defense, I would say if crypto, if we're to take anything. from this crypto story, one of the things we need to take. is how bad is our regulated system that people are doing. this, that regular people are gambling with, sometimes, their life savings. JON STEWART: Right. Well, they're doing that on our regulated system as well. That's what the AMC hold was. That's what a lot of this shit is true. BEN MCKENZIE: True. And there's always going to be gambling. But crypto is so unregulated or loosely regulated,

and it's being forced down our throats in terms of the--. I mean, if you watch sports now, it's sports gambling are the ads. And it used to be crypto, but it's still Crypto.com Arena. And it's all that kind of stuff. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: They're really trying. to get young guys to buy this stuff, because that's their client base. JON STEWART: So separating this out--. so there's two elements to it. One is the methodology of sending things. It's the pipelines of sending money,

transactions across borders, those kinds of things. The second thing is the coin themselves, which are these assets--. are they just like Beanie Babies for bros? Like, is it literally just this item, and they've convinced. people that it's a thing? And so now they jump in in the hopes. that it does take off and hold its value, but that's really kind of it? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. It's Beanie Babies for bros or Mary Kay for men. It's--.

[LAUGHTER]. It's a multi-level marketing scheme. And it really appeals to men, in particular. And I think that's worth exploring. at least a couple of points. The first is young guys like to gamble. JON STEWART: Now, I haven't seen that in today's society. [LAUGHTER]. BEN MCKENZIE: I mean, I remember. vaguely, sort of loosely--. JON STEWART: By the way, I had bet the under on when you. were going to bring that up. And I'm just going to check the time, half hour in. That's a push. BEN MCKENZIE: Did you hit your parlay?

JON STEWART: The under, yeah, that's a push. But I already won on my OC reference, so I'm still up. BEN MCKENZIE: You had a Polymarket bet on this, right? JON STEWART: That's right. That's right. So is the idea--. not to keep that gambling analogy alive--. but is the value of this in the people. that are creating these schemes the rake? Is it what the house gets? Are they the house? BEN MCKENZIE: They're definitely the house. But you're playing in an unregulated, unlicensed casino. So you could also win, and then go.

to the teller to cash your chips, and the teller window is closed. In the book, Jacob Silverman, who wrote the book with me, we look at two guys who are trading on the biggest crypto. exchange at the time, and still now, called Binance, this global crypto exchange. There's a guy in Australia, and there's a guy in Toronto. And on this one particular day, I believe it's 2022, one of them is long.

One of them is betting the price of crypto. is going to go up. And one has gone short and is betting it's going to crash. Well, the price starts crashing. And the guy who's long is trying to get. out, because he's trying--. he sees the value of his holdings dropping like crazy, and he's just trying to get out. The guy who's short is just trying to cash out. to get some of his winnings. JON STEWART: Sure. BEN MCKENZIE: Well, they're going to the website, and they're clicking the button, and it's not working. The exchange shut down, which is really interesting. JON STEWART: You're talking about Binance, which is the biggest one? BEN MCKENZIE: The biggest one, and it's completely shut down. This has happened many, many times over the course.

of crypto's history. The price goes down, and the exchanges shut down. And it takes a while--. I forget how long it takes, but I think it's hours, and it comes back up, and they're both liquidated. The guy who is long is just immediately liquidated. JON STEWART: Wow. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Actually, I guess the guy who was short wasn't liquidated, but he'd seen the value of his crypto--. when the exchange went online again, the price went back up.

So the guy that was short also lost. The guy who was long lost, and the guy who was short lost. And I think that's just such a vivid illustration. of the fraudulence that we're talking about here. JON STEWART: And it reminds you of when, like, the Robinhood. app would, in the midst of people holding on to AMC. or whatever, like, would suddenly make it so that nobody. could buy and sell anymore. And you do think, oh, they're in league with someone. But, Ben, in your mind, as you're.

describing this technology, which is unwieldy and doesn't. necessarily fix a problem-- maybe it helps people. in a repressive regime escape. Or maybe it helps people hold assets if their country is. unstable or volatile financially, if they have hyperinflation or whatever that is. So maybe there are certain uses at certain times. that can be done. Why are people like BlackRock, and Morgan, and these, like,

behemoths, then, validating this? BEN MCKENZIE: Because it's Wall Street. And they're not taking a directional bet on it. They're just facilitating the trade. JON STEWART: Oh, they're saying, let us be the house. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: We're going to catch the rake. Let us be the house. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. I mean, to give you an example--. so let's say you buy Bitcoin through an ETF, these exchange traded funds, where, basically, it's. sort of like a mutual fund. Like, you put money in and you're.

going to get a fractional part of a Bitcoin. JON STEWART: So those have already been put into ETFs? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: OK. BEN MCKENZIE: And it's, like, a $100 billion. market or something already, which is terrifying, if you think of it as, like-- JON STEWART: Wow. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. It's insane. So if you buy it through BlackRock, let's say--. you buy your Bitcoin through a BlackRock ETF, all BlackRock is doing is taking your money, going to Coinbase, these crypto exchange, and saying, hey, here's the money. And you hold a piece of Bitcoin. BlackRock never even touches the Bitcoin.

It's just facilitating the trade. So Wall Street is happy to do this and take a tiny, you know, fee for their service. JON STEWART: Well, doesn't that blow. up the whole decentralization of this whole thing anyway? If the whole idea of it is peer to peer. or you don't have to worry about the governments. of the world, to have fucking BlackRock involved, I mean--. BEN MCKENZIE: The democratized, decentralized future of money. brought to you by BlackRock? JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: What are we talking about? This is nonsense. It's total nonsense.

No. I mean, so many of these arguments that they make. are so flimsy. And they contradict themselves so often. I mean, the ultimate irony that the democratized, decentralized. future of money needs the President of the United States. to be its pitch guy-- like, it needed-- it. was down and out after 2022. These guys were going to jail. The price was down. JON STEWART: What happened in 2022 that caused--. because, listen, Bitcoin--.

if you were one of those guys that, you know--. and the early adopters are like I've got. 1,000 Bitcoin in a wallet and it's worth $40,000. But then Bitcoin goes up over, I don't know, $100,000, $110,000, you know, whatever it got up to, and suddenly, these guys are billionaires. And then it plunges again. What plunged it? Was it Sam Bankman-Fried? Was it the collapse of one of those--. BEN MCKENZIE: Exchanges. JON STEWART: Yeah.

Or the exchanges. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Hard to say. Any collapse, it's hard to know, you know, what the first butterfly to flap its. wings was. JON STEWART: Especially in something that you don't think. is really tied to any kind of intrinsic value. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. But, basically, an enormous amount. of speculation and leverage had built up inside of crypto. To give you an example, Binance was allowing 125 to 1. leverage for a retail trader. Like, a regular guy could borrow $125 against every $1.

that he put in. JON STEWART: Wow. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Which sounds fun if it's going up. But if it's going down--. JON STEWART: But also, put that in-- like, I. think the 2008 financial crisis was caused by like banks. going 30 to 1 on leverage. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: So think about that--. and the collateralized obligations that. came in after Dodd-Frank brought even that down by, like, half. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. And we're talking about many multiples of that. So it pumps it up-- the leverage helps the pump up.

But when it starts to correct and go down, it speeds that up process up too, as people are constantly trying to sell. these worthless currencies--. I'm using air quotes, "worthless currencies"--. and there's not enough buyers to actually buy them. So this happens a lot. And that's why you saw an enormous number of crypto. companies go bankrupt in 2022. But what happened in 2024 is Trump's embrace of it. said to people, well, look, good chance.

he's going to be president. He came out publicly in the summer. of '24, probably 50/50 shot. And if he is president, he can do a lot to pump this thing up. And people will see that, so I need to buy now. So the price started to go up, went. up more, and more, and more. And by the time he's in office, it's $120,000 a coin. It's the highest it's ever been. JON STEWART: And that's across only Bitcoin. That's not including, I don't know if it's Ethereum. or whatever else. That's literally-- Bitcoin is $125.

And do the other coins follow Bitcoin? Like, if Bitcoin goes up do the other coins. and other exchanges also go up? Or they're not necessarily tied to each other? BEN MCKENZIE: Not necessarily. But there is a broad--. JON STEWART: Halo effect. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes, yes, I would say, which. is interesting to look at if you're trying to understand. how the market works. But, really, I've come to think of these cryptos as the story.

that you're going to get rich. For the retail public, this is the story you're going. to get rich on this stuff. JON STEWART: Sure. BEN MCKENZIE: So in economics, that's. kind of called-- that's called Greater Fool theory. JON STEWART: You never want to be a part of Greater Fool. theory when it comes to money. BEN MCKENZIE: Well, it's when the price. of a speculative asset rises so much that it's. really unlinked from any value it. could have in the real world. It's not based on its value. It's based on the value you expect other people to give it.

So you're constantly trying to sell or buy the thing thinking. you could sell it for more to a greater fool than you, which is. a fun game until you end up on the top. and you're the biggest idiot left holding the bag. It's a fundamentally unsustainable dynamic, but they can last for a long time. And there's also these things--. I'm a big behavioral economist guy. That's really my bag. And Robert Shiller, famous behavioral economist,

talks about naturally occurring Ponzi schemes. JON STEWART: Does that involve tulips, by any chance? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, exactly. Same dynamic. Some product, something gets a value. The price is starting to go up. People see the price going up, which. draws them in, which sends the price further. and draws more people in. And these things can last for a very, very long time. But if they are actually Ponzi schemes, if there isn't actually a product underneath--.

I mean, at least with tulips, there was a flower. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: With this, you're talking. about lines of computer code. Eventually, they--. JON STEWART: But that's what I mean by, like, this whole system appears to be a funhouse mirror of our actual. financial system, which includes all of these kinds. of downsides-- some speculative assets that seem to rise. in value in ways that don't connect, big actors that come in and make transaction action fees--.

payment for order flow, all these different ways. that our system is skimmed, and tries to avoid regulation, and creates the lack of trust in the system that you're. talking about that allows this parallel system. to flourish because people are so. frustrated, especially on the retail side,

by our actual system. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. That's right. And so I think crypto should force us back to fix. the problems in the system. If we're going to learn anything from this, it's not that crypto is the way, right? It's worse than our regulated system, which is saying a lot. But it is saying we need to fix these underlying--. I mean, the fact that so many, particularly young guys, believe that they really can't get ahead, that, like, the deck. is stacked against them--. I'm not trying to give too much credence to it,

but I do think it's a real feeling. that these guys are having. Like, how am I going to afford a house? How am I going--. JON STEWART: And those exploitative aspects. of our actual market are real. BEN MCKENZIE: Very much so. JON STEWART: We're not all operating. on the same information. There are guys that purchase real estate so they can put. microwave towers next to it so that they. can make transaction money. It's not the crypto whale that creates. volatility selling back and forth to anonymous, you. know, IP.

Talk about that, because that, to me, is such an interesting phenomenon. in this online world, which is phantom transaction. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Yeah. Fake trading or wash trading, I guess. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: Because the pseudonymity of the blockchain. obscures who's trading what, you can basically take $1.00. in one hand, and flip it to the other, and back and forth, and back and forth, and bid up--. JON STEWART: That's a Beavis and Butthead episode. BEN MCKENZIE: Oh. JON STEWART: Beavis and Butthead had 20 chocolate bars.

And Beavis had $1, so he gave Butthead the dollar. Butthead gave him a chocolate bar. And then with the $1, he bought the other one. And by the end of it, all the chocolate is gone. And they still just have $1. BEN MCKENZIE: Mike Judge. JON STEWART: Mike Judge. The best. BEN MCKENZIE: Genius. There's also a very funny Always Sunny in Philadelphia. episode about the guys create a currency, but it's like a Ponzi scheme. They can't figure it out. Anyway, so you can basically make it look like there's. a real market for a coin, and you're.

bidding the price of the coin up, but all you're trying to do. is lure in people that are actually. putting money into this thing. Because if you're just trading it back and forth, you're paying, like, the tiny fee. that it costs to do the trade. And, quite frankly, there's a lot of evidence. that the exchanges at least have. been in on this action, right? JON STEWART: Oh, really? Even the bigger exchanges. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. In the past. I don't want to say anyone specifically, but, like, I mean, to give you an example of how weird.

it is with Sam--. Sam Bankman-Fried's company, he had an exchange, FTX, which everyone knew about. But he also had a trading firm called Alameda Research. And they were in the same building on the same floor. right next to each other in the Bahamas. And his ex-girlfriend was running--. I'm using air quotes for that--. was the CEO of the trading firm. And Sam was running the exchange. I mean, in a regulated market, I mean, you can't get away with that.

That is such a blatant conflict of interest. JON STEWART: But it's not so far off from Citadel. It's not so far off from a guy running all of the orders, having, I don't know, 40% of all the flow orders, on Wall Street and having his own fund. Like, that does occur even on--. I guess that's my point is it may be a Potemkin village, but it's mirroring very real conflict.

of interest and other things, even. within our regulated system. BEN MCKENZIE: It's sort of a bizarro version of it, right? It just sort of takes that even further in terms. of the information asymmetries, in terms. of the manipulability-- that's not a word. The ability to manipulate the market. JON STEWART: Is there anything worth saving on this? Do you securitize it? What do you do--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: So--. BEN MCKENZIE: I think you do two things. I mean, if I were king of the world for a day,

I would say securitize all the speculative ones. The reason that the crypto industry doesn't-- they. sort of were randomly categorized. as commodities in, like, 2015. It's a very strange, fluky thing where. they were selling futures. And, because they hadn't been classified as a security, the CFTC, the Commodity Futures Training Commission, could claim that they were commodities.

JON STEWART: Like oil. Like oil and soybeans. BEN MCKENZIE: Exactly. And currencies. Currencies are classified as commodities. JON STEWART: OK. BEN MCKENZIE: So that's their argument. And the crypto market was so small at that time. that I don't think a lot of people were paying attention. But if you look at them, as we've discussed, they really operate like securities. And the crypto industry is so terrified. of having their products classified as securities. because securities law is predicated on disclosure. You need to know who you're giving your money to.

and what they're doing with the money. And crypto doesn't want that, right? JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: So there's a bill that is threatening. to pass Congress that would put cryptos under the supervision. of the CFTC. And that's the same thing Sam Bankman-Fried. wanted when he was spending time on Capitol. Hill in 2021 and 2022. JON STEWART: Now, why did he want that bill? BEN MCKENZIE: Gee, I don't know. So the reason you want the CFTC in charge. is not just because of the disclosure of securities.

But also, the CFTC is the smaller, weaker regulatory agency. JON STEWART: Rather than the SEC. BEN MCKENZIE: The SEC is stronger by comparison. And, by the way, just to point out something that's really. glaringly-- it's such a huge problem in our system--. we're the only country in the world that separates. our securities regulation from our commodities regulation. and puts them in rival agencies competing over jurisdiction--. JON STEWART: Wow. BEN MCKENZIE: --with rival committees in the House. JON STEWART: You'd almost think it would weaken both. [LAUGHTER].

BEN MCKENZIE: You might. I mean, it just creates all these perverse incentives, because the committees that oversee. these agencies in the House and the Senate, people. want positions on the committees. so that they can get the donations from the industries. that they're supposedly regulating. JON STEWART: And these crypto guys have not been shy--. I mean, there's that infamous dinner at Mar-a-Lago. where the buy-in was an insane amount of money. to get to sit in a room with Donald Trump. and let him talk about how we're not. going to regulate you at all. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah.

If you bought, the top, whatever it was, 10, 25 holders of his coin got access to the president. I mean, what are we talking about? [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: You know what I hate, ladies and gentlemen, almost more than anything? It's slow growing trees. Come on, tree. I don't have all day. I don't have all epoch, era, age.

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FastGrowingTrees.com, code TWS. Now's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use TWS to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions apply. Here's what's so fascinating about this, because if you look. at it under the absurdity microscope-- so the President. of the United States, Donald Trump, comes in. and legitimizes this cryptocurrency world,

gives it access to the most powerful office, maybe, in the entire world. But the example of his own entry into that business. is a meme coin where almost everyone got fucked. Like, 90% of the people that bought into that coin. got fucked. And Trump walked away with millions. and millions of dollars. How is that not example number one of everything.

that would be wrong? And why wouldn't the industry speak out about that? BEN MCKENZIE: Because they need him. JON STEWART: He left every retail person holding the bag. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. But the guys who put a lot of money in, sure, they quote unquote "lost the money," but they. got access to the president. So they got something for their investment, right? JON STEWART: Or were they the early--. were they front running, and they actually. ended up making money? BEN MCKENZIE: I'm sure some of them were.

But the insiders always benefit in crypto. That's really the repetitive theme is--. JON STEWART: Although, listen, that's the whole--. BEN MCKENZIE: That's true as our regulatory system. It's just more pronounced, I would say--. taken to another level in crypto. The irony to me that we have a convicted fraudster president, right, a guy who's convicted of 34 counts--. or his organizations that he ran, his company, 34 counts, by a jury--. is now hawking the fraudulent coin. And the people who believe in decentralization.

and democratization really, really. need to stay on his good side. It's really delicious, I have to say, on a dark, dark level. It's funny. JON STEWART: Now, do you see this, then, as-- so I don't know where Bitcoin is--. what is it, around $40,000? BEN MCKENZIE: $70,000. JON STEWART: Oh, it's $70? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, it's in the $70s. I don't know. JON STEWART: OK. So if you were in early, it's wildly valued. Those people still make--. what, then, would cause this to go up.

again other than some sort of, I don't know-- is it. that the supply would run out? Like, why would it elevate anymore? BEN MCKENZIE: It'd be hard to--. there's so many reasons. It's hard to say. I think what has happened-- while we're focusing. on the price of Bitcoin, that's kind. of, like, the bright shiny objects.

that sort of distracts us. What's happening on the other side. is these stablecoins are growing like crazy. There's hundreds of billions of dollars. JON STEWART: Now, when you say "stablecoins," what. is the meaning of stablecoin? BEN MCKENZIE: It's supposedly a stable cryptocurrency. whose value is pegged 1 to 1 with a real currency. like the US dollar. JON STEWART: OK. So it's not a meme coin. These aren't the ones where like, Elon Musk throws. a picture of a dog on a coin, the thing rockets up,

and then whoever is one of the whales. or whoever the people that are front. running make a shit ton of money and everybody else. gets fucked. This is actually pegged-- so this is an attempt. to peg it to a real currency to, I guess, get the advantages of low fees and transactions. and the ability to move between borders. Is that their fix? BEN MCKENZIE: Without going through a bank. Yeah.

JON STEWART: So stablecoin is an attempt. to fix some of the more egregious problems. within crypto world. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. If you're a criminal and you've gotten something of value, you're trying to send it somewhere else. to launder your money or, I don't know, engage in some transaction with another criminal. on the other side of the world, you'd rather not. have the volatility of Bitcoin and other. cryptocurrencies, right?

Because you could be on the losing end of that. You'd rather have something that's. stable that you can send--. JON STEWART: So unless that currency has high volatility, it's not going to be like, we're at $120. Now, we're at $90. Now, we're at-- you're not going to have that rocket ship. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. You'd rather use something that's quote unquote "stable.". And so these stablecoins have grown enormously. And to give you an example of how intricate this system is, it's things like Russian oligarchs selling. sanctioned oil to the Chinese in the form of crypto to buy.

drones to send to Ukraine. JON STEWART: Wow. BEN MCKENZIE: That is wild. JON STEWART: That's the silkiest road of all. [LAUGHTER]. BEN MCKENZIE: It is--. I mean, you're talking about, last year, a crypto organization estimated-- crypto company--. estimated that $154 billion of illicit activity. was financed via cryptocurrency.

$154 billion last year. And that was a crypto company that made the estimate. JON STEWART: Here's what's fucking crazy about that. So Donald Trump is literally shilling. for the product that allows our enemies to avoid our sanctions. Is that what this ultimately--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. JON STEWART: Wild. BEN MCKENZIE: It's wild. And to give you an example of how deep the corruption goes, the biggest stablecoin company, by far, is this company Tether. And Tether, their broker is Cantor Fitzgerald.

And Howard Lutnick was the Commerce--. JON STEWART: What? BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. That's how-- I mean, guys, we're talking about--. JON STEWART: Through Tether--. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. JON STEWART: And, like, who knows what's actually going on? Because you said it's pseudonymous. But is it possible that, through tether, Russian. oligarchs are moving oil to--. let's make it worse-- moving Iranian oil. to China in exchange for drones and weapons? BEN MCKENZIE: Well, it's not possible.

It happened. It does happen. I mean, you can read stories about this. JON STEWART: And Howard Lutnick profits from that. BEN MCKENZIE: Or his kids, technically, because he's technically not the-- but, I mean, come on. What are we talking about? Yeah. JON STEWART: Holy fuck. BEN MCKENZIE: Oh, yeah. And then, I mean, can we talk about Jeffrey. Epstein for a second? JON STEWART: Not that I'm aware of. I don't think you're allowed to. Yeah, was he an early crypto dude? Is that what that was? BEN MCKENZIE: Yes, yes. JON STEWART: So his sex trafficking was. enabled by that same system.

BEN MCKENZIE: One can assume. I mean, we don't have evidence of it. because, again, pseudonymity of the ledger and who knows. JON STEWART: And redactions. BEN MCKENZIE: And redactions. But here's what we know. We know in the emails that Epstein was funding something. called Bitcoin Core Development, which. is the group of programmers, software. engineers, who maintain Bitcoin's operating system. Yes, there are people behind this supposedly completely. computerized future. So he was funding that through the MIT Media Lab.

You remember the MIT Media Lab? There was a blow-up some years ago, a big article in the New Yorker. It's like this offshoot of MIT this guy Joi Ito was running, and they had relationships with a lot of very wealthy people, including Bill Gates, and funding various projects. So Epstein was basically funding keeping the Bitcoin. system alive in 2015 at a point when. it was kind of languishing. Silk Road had been shut down. There was a lot of fighting. And why would Jeffrey Epstein like crypto?

Well, if your main businesses are blackmail. and money laundering--. JON STEWART: We have buried the lead here, Ben. We have spent a good amount of time parsing. what all this stuff means. And now, we're in the good stuff, which is, and how is it deployed to undermine our society? And, like, this feels--. I don't want to say-- like, this feels. Watergatey times a million. BEN MCKENZIE: There's many directions to go.

And there's too much corruption. It's like, I feel like Charlie Day in Always. Sunny in Philadelphia. I got the pins on the board. JON STEWART: Right, right, right. BEN MCKENZIE: I got--. JON STEWART: A Beautiful Mind. You're A Beautiful Minded. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. To give you another example, that guy who's supposedly. Satoshi, the guy that hates me, the guy Adam Back, who called me a crisis actor, his company, Blockstream, received an investment from Jeffrey Epstein. We also learned that in the files. JON STEWART: What? BEN MCKENZIE: There's an email from his co, whoever started.

the company with Adam, and Joi Ito confirming Epstein's. investment in their company. Back says, no, that didn't happen. But there's an email that people can read for themselves. and judge whether--. JON STEWART: But here's the other fucking crazy thing--. Lutnick lived right next door to the guy. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes. And visited him on the island. There's pictures. They tried to hide that. There's a picture of them on the island together. JON STEWART: But this is where-- boy, I hate-- like, OK, that guy is now the poster child of this corrupt.

Silk-Road-in-real-life system of depravity, and degradation, and exploitation, and all those different things, but you're also talking about people at the highest levels. of our government right now enabling a system that. fuels the very types of weapons that. are killing our own soldiers.

BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. JON STEWART: Like, that's unforgivable. BEN MCKENZIE: It is. I was so angry when he unsanctioned that Russian oil. When he decided, oh, shit, I fucked up. I went into Iran without a plan. And who could have predicted the price of oil. would go up when you start a war. around the Strait of Hormuz? And then he has to--. he has to-- he doesn't have to, he does-- unsanction the oil.

And the Russians at the same time. were reported-- there's been a lot of reporting on this--. were providing intelligence to the Iranians. to kill our guys over there, right? They were trying to help the guys we're fighting against, and we're rewarding them by sanctioning their oil. JON STEWART: This is fucking madness. And the selling point-- the whole selling point. of this thing is it will allow poor people. to avoid those financial fees of international transactions.

It will allow dissidents to still be able to live and pay. for certain things, even though their governments. are repressive. But what it really is is oligarchs, and arms dealers, and corporate titans controlling. a black market of war and degradation around the globe.

That's really what it's been most utilized for. BEN MCKENZIE: That's the majority. Yes. And overwhelming majority. Of course, you're never going to get. a statistical breakdown because, again, pseudonymity of the ledger. It's purposefully trying to be obtuse. JON STEWART: So, on Tether, could you go on Tether. and track whether there are transactions. between illicit oil shipments and weapons? BEN MCKENZIE: If they gave you access to their blockchain.

JON STEWART: And they don't have to do that. BEN MCKENZIE: Well, I don't know. We went to a lawyer. They have, on occasion, when forced to by law enforcement--. when, like, threatened with, well, if you don't do this, we're going to go after you, they. have given over certain limited clients of theirs. Their rationale for this is, look, we don't--. regular money can be used for all sorts of bad things. We're just issuing the coin. People can buy and sell it.

We don't control what they do with it kind of a thing. It's preposterous, because article after article. after article goes specifically to this company, Tether, and specifically to all of the different ways. in which it can be used to finance criminal activity. We're talking about global criminal cartels--. you know, South American drug cartels, but also Chinese triads, but also ISIS, but also North Korean hackers.

JON STEWART: So in the way that the US dollar has been utilized. as a weapon, the weaponization of, because we are the global currency--. the way that we weaponize that is through sanctions. on petrodollars, or the oil system, or any of those other things. And the way they get around it is. the exchange that is owned by our Secretary. of the Treasury's company. That is what we are--.

BEN MCKENZIE: The stablecoin company. Yeah. Yeah. They have an exchange too. But, yes, the stablecoin company. is represented-- their financial interest. is represented by our Commerce Secretary. JON STEWART: I don't know how that's not--. well, I don't know why we're talking about--. I don't know how that's two idiots in a podcast talking. about that and that is not a global corruption. scandal and crisis. BEN MCKENZIE: It is so--.

I've been doing this for four or five years, and you have your high moments and your low moments. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: The reason that Lutnick came on Trump's radar. is, all of a sudden, he was raising money for him. in his campaign, right? He was the co-chair. And there's all these stories from the summer and fall. of 2024 about these incredibly lavish fundraisers. where Lutnick would host him and they would. raise $1 million a head or whatever. to go into their Super PACs. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.

that some of that money is--. well, that the money is given with the expectation. that there will be something in return. And what's been given in return under the Trump administration. for crypto is they disbanded the cryptocurrency crime task. force that the DOJ had set up. They've ripped apart the SEC. Hundreds have left the SEC. They've gotten this bad bill through Congress called.

the GENIUS Act that allows corporations. to issue their own money in the form of stablecoins. That's what the GENIUS Act does. JON STEWART: Wait, what? BEN MCKENZIE: Literal corporate money. Yes. JON STEWART: So corporations, not only are they people, not only is there speech protected now by the First. Amendment and their money is considered speech, they are also their own nation-states. with their own currencies. BEN MCKENZIE: Yes, yes. And I want to say, 100 Democrats voted for--.

voted for-- this legislation, including Hakeem Jeffries. and my congressman, Dan Goldman, which is why I'm supporting Brad Lander for Congress. But I am outraged that the Democrats, because they're so fearful of the crypto lobby, which has so much money-- and they do have an enormous. amount of money to spend--. JON STEWART: Clearly. BEN MCKENZIE: Clearly. JON STEWART: I don't want to say. where they got it from, but--. BEN MCKENZIE: Exactly. Exactly. In 2024, to give you a sense of how big this is, it was $240-something million, and it was 40-something percent.

of all corporate donations in the cycle. came from crypto-- from the crypto. industry and the companies--. the players inside, the individuals, and the companies. 40% of all the money. That's, like, more than the defense. industry and the pharmaceutical industry combined. It's crazy. JON STEWART: And how is this not the. bubble of all bubbles, then? BEN MCKENZIE: It might be. I mean, I describe it in the movie as the largest. Ponzi scheme in history. I didn't know it was going to come back and reinflate.

But sometimes that does happen. JON STEWART: But has it, in some ways, been reinflated. even-- so now the question is, has it been reinflated by what. you call the fool theory? Or has it been re-inflated by international money laundering? BEN MCKENZIE: Both. Both. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. I mean, the scary part to me is that crypto. is notoriously volatile. It seems as though we are getting. close to being in a recession, if not there already.

We are certainly slowing down a lot economically. And this war is such a disaster already. that it seems like inflation isn't going away anytime soon. If the economy goes down, then traditionally, historically, if there's a correction, the most speculative things. fall the fastest. And if you think crypto is only speculation,

as I do, on the retail side, what happens when these ETF. holders try to sell--. you could sell $1 billion worth of these ETFs, but let's say you tried to sell $10 billion in a day, and there aren't enough buyers on the other side, and the whole thing collapses, just like it did in 2022--. but instead, it's now tied into our regulated system? Now, all of these Wall Street firms are in on it. Now, they're getting banking licenses. JON STEWART: So now, it's a subprime contagion. BEN MCKENZIE: They recreated-- the thing that.

was created in opposition to subprime. has effectively recreated subprime. JON STEWART: Ahh. BEN MCKENZIE: And there's not even homes involved. There's not even, like--. JON STEWART: So would crypto be a hedge? Like, if the actual financial system falls, does crypto function similarly to, like, gold and silver? Does it, then, hold value as a hedge against societal collapse. because somehow it's an intrinsic value. item that isn't tied to any of this other shit?

BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. I mean, that's been the pitch. JON STEWART: Right. BEN MCKENZIE: And if you go deep--. like, the hardcore crypto people, a very small group. of people, but the hardcore ones are. anarcho capitalist guys who are like, we kind of want the system to fall apart, and then we'll be saved by our Bitcoin. That's pretty crazy. That's really pretty crazy. But historically, what's happened when inflation goes up. is that crypto goes down. That's what happens in 2022 in the film. is inflation had started to--.

so crypto really took off during the pandemic. because there were all these stimulus checks. People were sitting at home. Guys, they needed something to gamble on. JON STEWART: Looking to go to the moon. Right. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Yeah. So that happened. But, of course, then the result of the easy money. was inflation. And when that became unavoidable, the Fed--. or undeniable-- the Fed had to raise interest rates. And right around when the Fed raised interest rates in March. of 2022, crypto was just nosediving-- just.

dropped by half or something in the span of six months. So I hope it doesn't happen again. But if history is any guide, it will. JON STEWART: Well, the reason why it might not. is because if you think about it in that way, crypto is, in some ways, an ETF of black market goods. It's an ETF of the illicit markets. It's an ETF of gun running, and drug running, and sex. trafficking, and all the ways that international cartels will.

avoid the regulated system. Does it ever have to reconvert? If you're moving crypto--. is it a barter system and crypto is the linchpin of it? It's not like they have to take that, then, and then reconvert it into-- and I don't know if maybe. they do this with stablecoin--. reconvert it into actual currency. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Most of the time, they do. And they do that through things like over-the-counter desks.

where people are actually getting. dollars or whatever physical currency in the form of bills. So a lot of the transactions that actually occur in crypto. don't happen on the ledger. You can have off-ledger transactions, which further obscures the identity of who's transacting. You can give somebody--. I can give you $50, and you could. give me your crypto coins. And so that would be--. JON STEWART: Their version of dark pools. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Exactly. And so most of the time, you do need.

to get into a real currency on the other side, but not necessarily. There is this sort of digital--. what's the system in Southeast Asia? It is a way of sending something. If, basically, the criminals have a reasonable assurance. that they can transact with each other. and get something that they want in exchange for something. that they're selling via this crypto stuff, then maybe they don't have to cash in, right? If the Russians sell the oil and get the drones, then maybe.

they never have to really cash out. JON STEWART: Do you have a sense. at all of how much of this has been adopted by rogue states. and how much of it is used to evade. whatever we would call the international rules. based order? How much of this system of payment. is being utilized for those actions?

BEN MCKENZIE: To give you one example, North Korea has teams of hackers that hack in and steal. people's cryptocurrency. Half of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. has been funded via crypto. JON STEWART: Are you fucking kidding me right now? BEN MCKENZIE: Wall Street Journal. Wall Street Journal. Look it up. JON STEWART: Why is it--. I don't understand this. Why-- this is blowing my mind. BEN MCKENZIE: Dude, it's so wild. It's so crazy. I mean, you get so depressed because you're like,

can we-- it feels like nothing's. going to happen until Trump's out of office, right? JON STEWART: But you just said 100 Democrats were. like, hey, man, it's cool. Did they not know? Have there been government hearings on the actual usage. of this stuff? BEN MCKENZIE: Well, there was one that I testified to. And then the crypto lobby spent $40 million. defeating Sherrod Brown, the chairman of the committee.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, they spent $40 million--. JON STEWART: In that race. BEN MCKENZIE: --in that race alone. JON STEWART: That's one Senate race in Ohio. BEN MCKENZIE: In Ohio. $40 million in Ohio. goes pretty far. And they elected a literal car salesman instead, Bernie. Moreno, who's pro-crypto. Shocker. JON STEWART: What? BEN MCKENZIE: No. Yeah. So I don't think that--. I mean, look, I would love to talk to an elected. representative on camera who voted for it who's a Democrat.

and have him explain his deep understanding. of blockchain technology. But I'm going to just take a wager, a guess-- a wager, actually, might be the nice, appropriate. way of phrasing this--. they're afraid of them. They're afraid of them. JON STEWART: But even that-- the fact that they don't. separate out-- let's say, if there is value in these coins. and they don't want to ultimately undermine whatever. it may become or kinds of thing, the idea that they wouldn't step in to prevent bad actors.

from using this very same thing to undermine. the security of the United States. is a mind blowing proposition. BEN MCKENZIE: You talk a lot on the podcast about how. the Democrats have really--. the Democrats in power, the elites. in power in the Democratic Party, have made this decision, or a series of decisions, starting from a while ago, and chosen capital over labor.

JON STEWART: Man, are you-- yep. BEN MCKENZIE: And crypto is just, like, such a vivid illustration of that, right? This is a thing that's a net negative for people in general. Most people who invest in crypto are going to lose. JON STEWART: Well, it's unrelated to labor in any way. unless, of course, you work in a crypto mine. But it's unrelated to labor in any way. It's the purest form. It's like the Tron of capital. BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. Yeah. And they're choosing that side.

I hear that there's this Clarity. Bill, which is trying to work its way through Congress. I hear that Chuck Schumer is pressuring the--. there's a caucus that's sort of trying. to figure out the Democrats' position on this. And he's trying to pressure them to agree to whatever deal. the banks are coming up with with the crypto companies. to get this legislation through. JON STEWART: How do these banks not-- how did they--. do they plead ignorance to what this is being utilized for?

Like, the way you laid it out of Russia, and oil, and weapons, and drones-- like, are they. going to pretend that that's not the manner in which. this is being utilized? BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah. I mean, as long as they can make money on it, I feel like. Yeah. Right now, what's funny is that the-- so one. of the things the crypto companies want, the crypto exchange Coinbase, in particular, is it wants to be able to offer interest.

to people that put money in the form of a stablecoin. on their exchange. They want to be able to offer them interest, which sounds. an awful lot like a loan, like something that a bank would do. And the banks don't want them to be. able to do this because that's cutting. in on their core business. So there's a fight between the banks and the crypto companies. And when the banks are the good guys, when the banks are. the ones that are holding the line and saying, well, we should have some rules, guys. There should be a KYC and AML-- and you're like,

oh, we're so fucked. JON STEWART: Wow. This is bananas, Ben. It's really-- I can see--. is this a full time gig now? Are you going back to acting? Or is this your white whale? Are you the Ahab going after this? BEN MCKENZIE: I don't know. I'm so ready to go back to showbiz now. This has been so-- JON STEWART: Oh, beautiful. BEN MCKENZIE: I miss people. I miss interacting with people on a set.

[LAUGHTER]. Really. JON STEWART: I'm with you, man. BEN MCKENZIE: Writing books is lonely. Making documentary films is wonderful. when you're shooting them, but so much of it. is the post-process. And it's virtual. And you're lonely. And so, yeah, I'm working on trying to get back into TV. I want to create a show and do that. I think crypto will be a part of my life, most likely, moving forward. And that's OK. I hope to continue to be an advocate, and to talk about these things, and, quite frankly, shame--.

I can't control the Republican Party. It sounds like no one can other than Trump, if that's what we mean by control, I don't know, whatever that is, the free-for-all that's over there. But with the Democrats, I can at least. speak up and speak out about--. JON STEWART: And there's a possibility for influence. Are there other--. I have found that celebrity gives you the opportunity. to shine a light. But you also need allies.

You need people who are the people. in the trenches doing the day-to-day grunt. work of advocacy. Do you have allies within that world. that, together, you can form a really formidable kind. of battalion to go after this? BEN MCKENZIE: I'm trying. I'm working on it. I know there are a lot of organizations. I've done some videos with More Perfect Union, the group started by Faiz Shakir and a few others.

Americans for Financial Reform is. a great organization that is really. trying to protect consumers. One of the things that Trump has done, his administration has done, is just rip apart the CFPB--. just destroyed it, sending those DOGE idiots. And they fired--. JON STEWART: Well, I mean, they just defanged, and defunded, and pulled people. And that's their-- consumer protection is no longer--.

BEN MCKENZIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's not freedom, Jon. You know? JON STEWART: That's a good point. BEN MCKENZIE: You need freedom. JON STEWART: Freedom to exploit. BEN MCKENZIE: Freedom to be screwed. Yeah, so I'm working with organizations like that. I would love to continue to work with others. But I do think it's going to take. a grassroots effort in order to hold these people--. JON STEWART: No question. And the idea that you could put that kind of shaming campaign. but have real stamina behind it so that they understand it.

will be exposed, and you won't be going away. I wish you well. It's a hell of a story. For those of you out there who would like to learn more. about it, follow EveryoneIsLyingFilm. on Instagram, or go to EveryoneIsLying.com. for updates on where it is, or where the film is, or any of those other things. Ben, jeez, man, hell of a job. Hell of a deep dive. He's the author of the New York Times. best selling book Easy Money. You got to get it. It's a fascinating read. And Everyone Is Lying To You For Money,

which is the documentary about this industry. Ben McKenzie--. BEN MCKENZIE: Jon Stewart. JON STEWART: And say hello to your lovely wife. BEN MCKENZIE: I will. JON STEWART: And I look forward to seeing you. also playing some kind of cop. BEN MCKENZIE: Indeed. JON STEWART: All right. BEN MCKENZIE: Inshallah. Thank you. JON STEWART: All right. Good stuff. Good talking to you. BEN MCKENZIE: Good talking to you, too. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Guys what the fuck?

GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. JON STEWART: What was so crazy--. so I know we had to spend a lot of time just being like, and what is it again? Bitcoin? And then what's a stablecoin? Like, there was a lot of remedial, like, what are the terms? How does this work? What do they say that it is? And then it was just, like-- he was just, like, setting me up. He was just walking me down the street. like, oh, let me walk you down the street. You know what it felt like? The end of Planet of the Apes, where, like, we're having a nice time. Doctor Zaius is doing these things--.

and then all of a sudden, I turn around and go, is that the fucking Statue of Liberty? LAUREN WALKER: It was Earth the whole time. JON STEWART: Wait, what? Where are we? LAUREN WALKER: Yeah, you can really. tell he's been sitting with all of this, digging. through the Epstein files, looking for clues. He's dedicated. JON STEWART: I told him, I said, you're not an actor who wrote a book. It's like you're an economist who happened to be in The OC. [LAUGHTER]. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: By the way--. JON STEWART: Oh, OC? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know anything about it. I was trying to tell Tracy, I was like, I think.

he was on, like, Laguna Beach. And she's like, I think that's a documentary. I'm like, oh, all right. Well, he's on one of those. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Close. LAUREN WALKER: Next week, we'll have Laguna Beach. JON STEWART: Did you know anything about these--. like, when he said Cantor Fitzgerald. has the leading interest in Tether, I was like, wait. Because if that's being used to undermine our sanctions? LAUREN WALKER: I mean, it's even closer than that. I read something this morning in the Washington Post, and I don't want to get it wrong, but it said Trump and his family.

made more in four months, the first four. months of his second presidency, off of his meme coin than four years. running his Washington, DC hotel. during his first presidency. JON STEWART: Whoa. LAUREN WALKER: Like, that just shows--. GILLIAN SPEAR: But, yeah, I mean, it's incredibly entangled with our financial system. at this point and just runs through-- this decentralized. form of currency just runs through all of our very central. banks and is honestly, like, tied up.

too, with our very real money. JON STEWART: But I remember-- do you. guys remember when we discovered, like, HSBC had money laundered for certain cartels? GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah, like in Iran and--. yeah. JON STEWART: Right. And the SEC and the DOJ never catch up with anything. And they're just like, oh, I'm sorry, did we make $10 billion. over that? Here's $2 billion. We're cool, right? GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. So cool. JON STEWART: This is so much worse. If the titans and pillars of our financial industry.

are the very conduits to this black market. economy that allows the United States'. enemies to evade any of our sanctions, what are we doing? GILLIAN SPEAR: I mean, we ourselves. are evading our sanctions. We're buying oil from Iran. Like, it's very-- I don't know how serious any of this stuff. is anymore. LAUREN WALKER: Yeah. And I remember reading that last year, Iran's cryptocurrency ecosystem grew to, like, nearly $8 billion.

Like, it's not small, the avoiding of sanctions, most likely. And, I mean, we're the largest holder. of Bitcoin at this point. So it's really a tool of states. And it's going to keep spiraling. if all these politicians have no incentive to regulate. JON STEWART: And here's my guess. Even Khamenei wouldn't be so shameless as to create. an Ayatollah coin. [LAUGHTER]. Even Khamenei would not-- he would be like, look, I don't want to rip people off to that extent.

GILLIAN SPEAR: That seems a little scammy. Yeah. JON STEWART: I'm a crazed dictator. who wants them to live-- but even I would not. That seems--. GILLIAN SPEAR: A bridge too far. JON STEWART: Hmm. Feels dirty. Just feels dirty to me. Fucking crazy. Brittany, what do people want from us this week? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Here we go. JON STEWART: Come on. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, do you think. presidents and governors should have. the power to grant pardons? JON STEWART: Ooh.

It depends on if I'm friends with them. [LAUGHTER]. I do think there is value within the pardon system. I just think it has to be done where you're, like, rod and reel fishing, not just throwing a net out and going, all right, 3,000 people? They're fine.

But, I mean, I would say the pardon, it just shouldn't be absolute-- that there should be some. process within the court system that. can readdress those that are--. and, look, let's face facts. The Supreme Court has made it so that corruption no longer. really exists in this country unless it's, like, you write on a piece of paper and go, here's $10,000, and you have to do these three things-- like, unless it's such. explicit quid pro quo. But, I mean, the selling of pardons, the fact that money.

grants you access to our judicial system. in that way-- don't rich people have enough of an advantage? GILLIAN SPEAR: No. Give them more. Why not? LAUREN WALKER: They're all satisfied. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. JON STEWART: I mean, would you guys get rid of it completely? GILLIAN SPEAR: No. I mean, well, it's hard. I feel like now, with the ways that we're seeing it so abused, it's like you would rather that it just went away.

But, like, we have such-- there's. such failures in the Justice system. that you want something to exist in that regard. JON STEWART: Right. And you do want a redress. And think about what felonies do to a person's life. And you do want a system that allows for mercy and grace. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Absolutely. Yes. GILLIAN SPEAR: I mean, I would love if it didn't have. to go all the way to a presidential pardon. or a governor's pardon in order to get that justice for people, but sometimes it does. JON STEWART: Oh, Gillian, I don't know--. what do the kids do now?

They do this with their fingers on that? I'm giving you-- although, when, I was a kid, this was just the way that you attacked your brother. Err. Err. All right. What else, Brittany? What else? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, is it just a coincidence that TDS. stands for both The Daily Show and Trump Derangement Syndrome? JON STEWART: Listen, we were here first. That's all I'm going to say. These are my initials. If anything, this is copyright infringement.

that he is purporting on us. But we were here first, and it will always. stand for The Daily Show. LAUREN WALKER: Jon, do you think that with those initials. and you possibly appearing in an image of Trump. as maybe Jesus, that maybe someone's sending you a sign? JON STEWART: Listen, when I saw that image--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yes. JON STEWART: And, people, it's a podcast. You can't see the image. There's the image of Trump as--. I'm sorry, he believes as a physician.

By the way, wearing--. LAUREN WALKER: Robes. JON STEWART: It's literally the picture. you always see of Jesus with the light. in his hand healing somebody. But somehow, Trump was like, I think that's from The Pitt. Like, he's such a fucking--. like, he's such a lazy liar now. He doesn't even-- he's that comfortable with us. that the magic has gone from our relationship. He doesn't even try anymore when it comes to the lying. When I did see that image, I was like, wait,

I know I don't look great. GILLIAN SPEAR: It is uncanny, honestly. LAUREN WALKER: When I saw it, I thought it was you. And then when you brought it up, I was like, oh, good, it wasn't just me. JON STEWART: Can I tell you what's most upsetting about it? It's clearly an AI picture. So someone had to write in Trump. has Jesus with eagles, and fireworks, and all this stuff. And just grab me a sickly looking man. [LAUGHTER].

Like, that's clearly the prompt to AI was--. and we need somebody in the bed. Somebody robust? No, no, no. Make it, like, somebody that looks like they. are in a bed in need of divine healing. [LAUGHTER]. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, no. GILLIAN SPEAR: Brutal. JON STEWART: And it's fucking--. like, it's not even, oh, that-- like, I really thought, like, did they use--. is what that is? LAUREN WALKER: It's very possible. JON STEWART: It is, right?

LAUREN WALKER: It's a little too close. GILLIAN SPEAR: Somebody wrote in, healing Jon Stewart of his Trump Derangement Syndrome. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: There you go. JON STEWART: Oh, that's what it was. Well, that would make me feel better. than random computer image of sickly man on bed. that could use divine light. You know, the worst part about the whole thing. is he was laying his hands on my head, his little Trumpy hands. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. JON STEWART: I didn't need that aspect of it.

And I love the people that I'm surrounded by on the bed. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: Like, the lady. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: So hopeful. JON STEWART: I hope he's OK. He's so low on vitamin D. I hope he's OK. LAUREN WALKER: I really couldn't believe. how busy that image was. It was like Lisa Frank for MAGA. There's just, like, so much chaos. JON STEWART: So surprising. His taste is normally not garish in that. It literally is-- have you seen--. by the way, a wonderful thing to do-- somebody. should do a time lapse of the Oval Office.

since he's been in there. Because he keeps-- like, at a certain point, it's just going to look like my grandma's. apartment in Brooklyn. Like, it's just going to be tchotchkes that she fucking won. on the boardwalk at Coney Island and, like, a little jar of butterscotch. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: My grandma still has all of that. GILLIAN SPEAR: I'd take the butterscotch. JON STEWART: They lived above a candy store in Bensonhurst, and you'd walk into her apartment, and it was just like, are you opening up a vintage shop?

Like, what are we doing in here? GILLIAN SPEAR: That sounds cozier than the Oval Office. LAUREN WALKER: Yeah, it's like a mind palace. JON STEWART: It was cozy and also slanted. So when you walked on it, you literally. looked like-- you felt like you were walking. and you were just going to go right out the window. Last one, Brittany. Last one. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, has anyone interesting. slid into your DMs? JON STEWART: That's a great question. I don't know. [LAUGHTER] GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

JON STEWART: We talked about this before. I don't know what that--. so interesting people have commented. Like Jack White-- I put up the drum set, and Jack White, or whoever runs Jack White's thing, was like cool setup, man. And I was like, obviously, no chill-- like, come by anytime. Let's play drums. So that was, like, ridiculous.

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: So you read the comments? JON STEWART: Oh, you got to read the comments. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Which we've told you not to do, but yes. JON STEWART: I understand. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. And I would especially say after the crypto episode, maybe take a break from reading the comments for a few days. JON STEWART: You have to-- let me tell you why. Why should I feel good about myself? [LAUGHTER]. Why shouldn't I spend a little time. having people beat the shit out of me. with their own commentary?

But the DMs, I don't know. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I'm tempted. to ask you to open them right now. and, like, read the first one. JON STEWART: OK. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: You see where it says requests. on the right hand side? JON STEWART: Oh, yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Hit that, baby. JON STEWART: I have 10 of them. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Let's see. GILLIAN SPEAR: That's all? JON STEWART: Yeah. Oh, OK. Oh, All right. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, no. JON STEWART: I am never doing that again. That is for sure. [LAUGHTER]. Oh, shit. OK.

GILLIAN SPEAR: Are you all right? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: We'll never do it again. I'm sorry. GILLIAN SPEAR: You need to be healed by Trump now. JON STEWART: I feel like one of those things. where, like, it's the end of Raiders, and I opened up the Ark of the Covenant, and I'm just like ahh! Melted. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I'm so sorry. JON STEWART: Oh, that is-- well, Brittany, how. do they get in touch with us? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Not your DMs. Do not--. JON STEWART: All right. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Twitter, we are WeeklyShowPod. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, we.

are WeeklyShowPodcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment. on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. JON STEWART: Fabulous, fabulous job, everybody. Fascinating episode, as always. Thanks to our fabulous staff and crew. Lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mehmedovic, producer Gillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, and our executive producer is Chris McShane, Caity Gray. All right, we will see you guys next week.

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. is a Comedy Central podcast, is produced by Paramount. Audio and Busboy Productions. [MUSIC PLAYING].