Who Is Government? Storytime with Michael Lewis | The Weekly Show

JON STEWART: People have a faith in him that is religious. GUEST: Yep. He's like Bitcoin, right? JON STEWART: Are you saying he's a pump-and-dump scheme? GUEST: Yeah, basically. JON STEWART: He's a meme coin. [THEME MUSIC]. Hello, everybody. Welcome to The Weekly Show Podcast. My name is Jon Stewart. I will be your Weekly Show Podcast. host on this celebratory--. we are taping this on Wednesday, April 2,

as we all know. Liberation Day, there are-- it is Liberation. Day, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know how you traditionally. celebrate with your families. But liberation day was always--. always big. I may go down to Times Square today and see soldiers. kissing nurses, and see the people throwing. their hats in the air. Three cheers for Liberation Day. It's the day that we all remember, where Jesus rose from the tomb and raised prices on Honda.

Civics by $2,000 a car. And I think we all remember how that goes. You know, this is prior to the announcement, so god knows. There may not-- it may not be tariffs. It may be something else. The unpredictability of all this. is probably part of what's driving all the attention. to it, which is, I would assume, Donald Trump's whole plan because god knows the man likes.

nothing more than a bunch of people. not knowing what he's going to do and hanging on his. every word and oh, he's just so important to all of us. Meanwhile, Cory Booker-- I don't know if you guys-- look, I'm not a big performative--. you know, but I must say, I was quite. taken with Cory Booker, and especially the idea. that he stood up there for 24 hours. and broke Strom Thurmond's horrible filibuster.

record when Strom Thurmond--. I guess it was in the late '50s--. filibustered the-- the Civil Rights Act because sure, why wouldn't you try and prevent. that from ever happening? But to see Cory Booker up there--. and again, forget about his verbal abilities. because they are-- they are massive. The ability to stand and speak, even if you've got some. preparation and even if you're just. reading it off a list-- my god, you. could read War and Peace and--. and it wouldn't take you that long.

For him to be able to, oftentimes. extemporaneously, still be--. forget about being even riveting, just coherent. But maybe the most impressive to me, as an older man, is the lack of urination. I-- I mean, forget about book ending it with powerful John. Lewis anecdotes. To go 24 hours, awake, conscious,

which means if you're conscious-- look, I'm awakened. from dead sleep by urination--. not obviously-- I mean by the urge. And then I go--. I don't want to--. I don't want to, in a podcast, suggest. to you that as an older man, I just lie in my bed and. piss myself. That is-- I'm sure it's coming, but it is not here yet. So just the part of your brain that goes, hey, hey!

Bladder! Buddy! And then you get up and you go. But the idea that he could stand. there, as a conscious human, for more than 24 hours--. because you're not allowed to urinate. That's one of the-- you know, there's all these rules. You can't sit down. You can't urinate. I don't even know if he's allowed to have, like, space food. I don't even know how they do any of that stuff. But more importantly, I thought what he did was kind.

of a primal scream of alarm, and not in a processed, reactive, shitty, let's all put on a play and hold up placards. that have "Musk lies" on it. I thought he actually put some teeth behind it. And I actually thought he put a great deal of thought into it. And I found it moving. And-- and that's all I'll say about that. And speaking of-- of moving-- and you know, in the way.

that right now, government-- not the political side of it, but the bureaucratic side of it, the administrative side of it-- is being demonized, boy, this moment is ripe for somebody. to give a more nuanced view of what's actually. going on behind the scenes. And on this week's podcast, it couldn't be more timely. And we couldn't be more fortunate. Our guest today, Michael Lewis. [THEME MUSIC].

So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to get to--. I'm so delighted that our guest today can-- can join us. I'm just an enormous fan of his work, and have spoken to him many times over the years. His-- his books, too numerous to--. Moneyball, The Big Short, all these fantastic, storytelling yarns that are always. on the cusp of exactly the cultural moment. that's about to break. Editor and contributor to The New York Times bestselling.

collection, Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, Michael Lewis. joins us. Michael! MICHAEL LEWIS: Jon, good to see you. JON STEWART: Michael, how in god's name. do you always find yourself on the precipice. of the next cultural moment? The DOGE crew comes in and they absolutely demonize and destroy. the people who work in the bowels of the government.

just as you come out with a collection of stories. that you've contributed to that actually humanize. these faceless bureaucrats. How did this idea arise? Did you anticipate this moment? What-- give me some backdrop on this. MICHAEL LEWIS: So you remember, Trump won. I got interested in the government, Trump--. the first term. The only-- what caught my attention.

was when he fired his transition team. right after he was elected. There were 500 and something people who were supposed. to go in and get these briefings. from the Obama administration. And by law, the--. the outgoing president is supposed. to prepare so that the incoming administration. can hit the ground running. And Obama had deputized a thousand people. to spend six months, like preparing the best. course ever prepared about the federal government. and how it worked. And Trump just didn't show up for the briefings. He told Chris Christie that we--.

in an hour, we can learn everything. we need to know about--. about how the federal government works. And I saw that in the paper. And I just thought, it's just a great premise. Like, I thought it was a comedy. I thought, I can go in and I can wander this place. and figure out how it works, and the reader. will know they know more than the president. about what's going on in whatever. And as a challenge, I just thought, pick the places. that nobody knows what-- nobody knows anything about like. you, probably. I'm surrounded by people who just.

are always inflicting their political opinions on me. But if I ask them, you know, what is. the Department of Energy do? They have no-- no idea. And so I picked energy, agriculture, commerce. And I started just--. I just wrote about these places. The book was called The Fifth Risk. And-- and while I was there, I was--. the thing that shocked me the most. was the quality of the person who was inside. , Like it was not--. I didn't know what picture I had in my head of bureaucrats, but you know, bureaucrats, right?

It was like, I had this lazy stereotype in my head. And I kept meeting these people who were just like, smarter. than the bankers I worked with at Salomon Brothers, devoted to their mission, like, counting the paperclips. before they bought another one. You know, it was insanely driven, interesting people, who didn't think. of themselves as characters. So I realized at the end of that, that I'd sort of missed a trick.

And it was, I should have focused less on the institution. and more on the people. And so I thought, if I ever come back, it's going to be with the people, what-- was the awareness was. I mean, I got to tell you about the guy I met, the guy. I met that triggered this. All right, so I was at the end of The Fifth Risk. I had to write an afterword for the paperback. The government was shut down because Trump had shut. down the government, 2018-'19. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: There were all these people, who were furloughed. Like, 2/3 of the civilian workforce was sent home, no pay, told they were inessential workers.

JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: I got a list of like, thousands of people. who've been furloughed, who had also been nominated. for some civil service award. And like, someone thought they'd whatever they'd done. was good. But it was thousands of people. And I didn't know what to do with it. So I just took the--. it was alphabetized. I just took the first name on the list. His-- his name was--. JON STEWART: It can't be this easy. MICHAEL LEWIS: It is this easy--. Arthur A. Allen. I call up Arthur A. Allen, and Arthur A. Allen.

is the only oceanographer in the Coast Guard. Search and Rescue Division. I call him and I say-- he's in middle of Connecticut. And I call him and I say, can I come visit and talk to you? And what do you do? Like, what's this inessential work that you do? Kind of thing. And he had all the time in the world. because he wasn't working. And so I went across country and I. spent three days with him. And it turned out that this guy had, over a course of about 25 years, had basically created a science. And the science was, the science. of how objects drift at sea.

So if you go overboard on your sailboat--. JON STEWART: What? MICHAEL LEWIS: If you go overboard on your sailboat. and you're just floating, you will move differently. in the water than if your sailboat turns over. and you get on top of it or if you're in an inner tube. or if you're on a life raft. And if the Coast Guard doesn't know which--. doesn't know how your object drifts, even though it might know when you got in trouble and how long. have you been in the water--. JON STEWART: They won't know where you are. MICHAEL LEWIS: --they won't know where you are.

And he had seen a mother--. a young mother and a daughter die on the Chesapeake Bay. He had seen it. He found-- he'd been there when they got the bodies--. JON STEWART: Oh, wow. MICHAEL LEWIS: --because they couldn't. predict how their overturned sailboat drifted. And he set out to say-- he said, I'm never going to let this happen again. And it took him forever. But he like, classified 300 different objects. And I mean, it was like a magic act. The minute he gave the Coast Guard his algorithms. for objects drifting at sea, like a week later,

a fat guy fell off a cruise ship 300 miles--. 80 miles east of Miami. And like, fat guy-- fat guy off--. wait, wait-- fat guy off cruise ship is like, a problem. It happens. It happens. And Americans, like, we have an incredible talent. for getting lost at sea. We are just doing it all the time. JON STEWART: Really? MICHAEL LEWIS: So the fat guy, any other time. in human history, he's dead. But they realized, like a few hours later, oh, he's gone.

They looked at the cameras on the ship, and they could see when he went off. And the Coast Guard flew over and plucked him out of the sea, like seven hours after he had fallen--. JON STEWART: Alive? MICHAEL LEWIS: Alive. And--. JON STEWART: What? MICHAEL LEWIS: And so since then, thousands of people. had been saved because of this guy. Here's your inessential worker. But here's the kicker. So I spent three days with him. And I thought, my god, it's an incredible story. I wrote it up at the back end of The Fifth Risk. But-- but on the way to the airport, after I'd spent three days with him, you know,

interviewing his wife and his children, going to work in his office and going out on the Bay with. him and all that stuff, he--. he calls me on my cell phone. And he says, hey, you're-- you're a writer! And I said-- I said, I'm almost sure I. said that when I called you. Yes, I'm a writer. He goes, no, my son just told me that, like, you wrote a book that became a movie and-- like, he said, are you going to be-- are you going to be--. he says, are you going to be writing about me? And I said, yeah, Art.

Like, why'd you just think-- why do you think I just spent. three days talking to you? And he said, I just thought you were really interested in how. objects drifted. JON STEWART: [LAUGHING]. MICHAEL LEWIS: And-- and at that moment--. you will get this. You will get this. At that moment, I realized, like, these people. don't know they're characters. And that makes them great characters. JON STEWART: Oh, yeah. MICHAEL LEWIS: They're just so in the weeds. with the thing they're doing, they're so about service, like, helping others, it does not occur to them to like, promote. themselves, to sell themselves, to market themselves,

to talk to journalists in a certain way. so their story gets out. His story just never would have been told. And I just thought, like, there are thousands of people. like this in the government. If I ever come back, come back with that in mind. But don't--. And then, the second thought, as we approached the-- you. know, it was a year ago now-- JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: --when I curate--. I hired six writers who I thought were great writers. And they weren't like, normal journalists. They were novelists. They were stand-up comedians. JON STEWART: Yes. I mean, Sarah Vowell and, you know, people--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Kamau Bell is a stand-up comedian.

JON STEWART: I mean-- MICHAEL LEWIS: Dave Eggers--. JON STEWART: Incredible group. Dave Eggers, right. MICHAEL LEWIS: --Geraldine Brooks. It was a great group. But I just-- I wanted people with different voices. But I wanted-- I wanted some protection from the charge that. oh, this is just Michael Lewis making things up or spinning. it a certain way or--. JON STEWART: Why were you concerned about that, Michael? MICHAEL LEWIS: Because if it's just one writer, it's easy to attack them. It's easy for someone who wants to make the other argument--. JON STEWART: You made it more resilient. MICHAEL LEWIS: I made it more resilient. It was like, OK, seven people are dropping in,

and they can do whatever they want. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And-- and all of them, like, in a moment, found some story or usually, some person, that was just incredible. And I'm telling you, we could do 10 of these, and you wouldn't run out of material. And so what does that say about what's going on right now? I mean, I started-- so to answer your second question, I had no idea. I mean, I knew that Trump didn't give a shit, right? He's just like-- he-- what is it? JON STEWART: You were following your own--. I'm interested in how Michael Lewis, current, how he travels.

through because you are. You drift into these areas almost. as if they have gravitational force. But there is actually no--. you are following something that you are self generating, but it turns out there is a larger--. if you step back in the macro, there's a larger pattern. And I can actually almost trace it through a lot of your books.

And it has to do with data and systems and analysis. and how I feel like you're a climate scientist. of humanity in some respects. MICHAEL LEWIS: None of them-- yeah, my math teachers from high school would all disagree. JON STEWART: But it's not. But it's a humanistic mapping, and almost. how it's translating behavior from data. in all these different areas. MICHAEL LEWIS: So I would think of it slightly differently.

JON STEWART: Yeah. MICHAEL LEWIS: But-- but it's--. and it's that-- where I get really jazzed. is if I find a person or a situation that. is radically different from what. general opinion is about it. I mean, the book before was about Sam Bankman-Fried. I got unbelievable amount of shit because I described him. actually how he was, rather than how everybody--. how everybody wanted him to be, because at that--. But, you know, I started writing it when he was in jail. I knew everything he had done. But he was not a deeply sinister character.

He was a kid who did something wrong. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: So it was closer to that. And everybody around him understood that, even the people who hated him. But there was-- it got me excited to know that, like crypto Twitter was out there, saying this guy was like, evil incarnate without knowing him, and that there was a story to-- there. was a story that was just true and different, and that-- that--. that just didn't match with what people thought they knew. And this feels the same way.

It's sort of like, people think--. they have this lazy stereotype in their head. of what a federal worker is. And-- and that lazy stereotype enables DOGE. Like, if everybody knew who these people were, they would be outraged on their behalf. Like--. JON STEWART: And they exploit-- by the way, they exploit that lazy stereotype. I don't know if they do it consciously, but certainly, their strategy is to do that. MICHAEL LEWIS: Totally. No, I mean if-- it's a bit like, you can demonize federal workers in the same way you can. demonize trans people and immigrants, you know,

that we've created this category in people's head, that oh, it's-- they classify it as, oh, bad or wasteful or corrupt. And then you can do whatever you want to the individuals. because actually, no one knows any of the individuals. It's a bigotry. JON STEWART: Not only are they--. and by the way, they-- in this bigotry, those characters are not caricatures. They're actually evil. What they do is, they portray this as, these are evil forces working with purpose.

to subvert America. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. JON STEWART: Couldn't be further than what it is. MICHAEL LEWIS: The opposite. I mean, they're waiting to do the president's bidding. when he-- if he'd just tell them what it is they. want him to do. But mostly, they're engaged in pretty long-term missions. that everybody has agreed, like, we need. Like, we need nuclear weapons not to go off. when they shouldn't go off. JON STEWART: We need to find all these people. falling off of cruise ships. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's exactly right. JON STEWART: We need to know. MICHAEL LEWIS: And, you know, it's-- it's amazing. I tracked down one of the dudes who had.

been plucked out of the water. It was a separate fat guy, who fell off a fishing boat. JON STEWART: Ozempic is going to end this entire thing. No one's going to fall off anymore. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, that's not what's going to happen. They're going to fall off and die because when you're fat, you survive. JON STEWART: Oh, no one knows how they float. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, no, they know how they float. But when you're fat, you can survive forever in cold water. If you're-- if you're skinny, you're a goner. So being fat is a huge advantage. if you fall into cold water. Hypothermia gets to you if you're skinny. JON STEWART: I am learning dynamics about this.

that I had no idea of. Fat people have a huge advantage. MICHAEL LEWIS: I mean, it's kind. of great that Americans get lost at sea lot, and are also fat. JON STEWART: Well, the cruise ship, then. is the perfect vehicle for that because it's an all. you can eat buffet for weeks and weeks. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's right. You start with a buffet and then you end in the drink. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: But I found one of these people who had. been plucked from the ocean. This was the Pacific Ocean. And-- and I asked him, like, do you know why you were saved? Like, you were floating there for hours in the dark.

And in human history, when a human being. goes off the side of a boat, you just can't find them. It's like finding a soccer ball in the state of Connecticut. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And he said, yeah, he goes, I do know. It was Jesus Christ. I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior. while I was in the water, and then I was saved. [JON SIGHS]. And I said, no, it was actually Arthur A Allen--. [LAUGHTER] --you know. It wasn't Jesus Christ. It was Arthur A. Allen. And Arthur A. Allen figured out how to find your ass, and that's why you're alive. And he was like oh, no one told me that kind of thing.

And that's the problem. No one tells anybody that. So people don't know, kind of, what. their taxpayer dollars are doing for them. because no one explains it. JON STEWART: I wonder, too, if it's the type of situation. where government is very happy--. because in some respects-- have you ever seen those videos. where, you know, an incredibly angry and frustrated traveler. is just screaming at somebody who is manning the Southwest. Airlines counter?

[LAUGHTER]. And it's, how dare you route these planes? And don't you understand? And the person is just looking at them. like, I don't know if you know this, but I have not designed--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: And in some respects, as you said earlier, these are individuals who are doing. what they have been tasked to do. through congressional action. But rather than place the onus on what the Congress has put. into place, it's this faceless, dark group. of lazy, entitled, sucking off the teat.

of the taxpayer's largesse. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: And what it ultimately turns out to be is, political appointees are more likely to be in that category--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Oh, yes. JON STEWART: --than the people who are in the rank and file. MICHAEL LEWIS: Oh, yes. You know, the whole idea that the place. to go find corruption, like financial corruption, is a federal agency, is insane. Like, I can remember working on Wall Street. There were a thousand things that would happen every day. on a Wall Street firm--. or in a Wall Street firm-- that if you.

did it in a federal agency, you'd be in jail. JON STEWART: No question. MICHAEL LEWIS: There are so many eyes on you, you can't buy them a sandwich when. you take them out to lunch. They're they're-- they're so sensitive to oh, we're-- we have to be careful because if we put a foot wrong, we're going to be hauled in front. of Congress and we're going to be in the newspaper. JON STEWART: The Inspector General will be on top of it, in terms of tracking where that money went, et cetera, et cetera. MICHAEL LEWIS: Used to be, except Trump. fired all the inspectors. JON STEWART: When we used to have inspector general.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, that's right. So-- so it's kind of wild that they say they're coming in. to get corruption and waste, and they. fire the person who's eliminating. corruption and waste. I mean, there's no question, we're now in a situation. where it's much easier to be corrupt and wasteful. inside the federal government. JON STEWART: I mean, they've made it explicitly legal. I think Trump-- one of Trump's first orders of business. was to say that you can bribe officials now. The Supreme Court has made corruption, unless you literally say, I'm going to give you.

money for this exact action, it's not even. considered corruption anymore. MICHAEL LEWIS: So what do you make of, you know, the claim? I mean, it's kind of interesting that they come in, saying, that's what they're trying to do, when they do the opposite. It's not even that they're not doing it well, it's that they're doing the opposite. JON STEWART: I would say, I think that's the strategy. What it-- what it appears to me to be, is that they've got. a much deeper plan about privatization. and sort of a-- you know, do you. ever remember-- did you ever watch the show Peaky Blinders?

And I brought this up before on the--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Out of the corner of my eye, when. I was walking through the bedroom, and Tabitha was watching it. JON STEWART: It's a fantastic story of these, you know, Birmingham gangsters called the Peaky Blinders in the 1920s. But he's got a theory of power, Tommy Shelby, called "big fuck small.". And the whole idea of government. is to create these systems of collective action. that can somehow protect minority rights, that. can protect people that would normally just.

be at the whim of warlordism. And I think they have a theory of power that is much more. feudal and much more warlord. And what gets in the way of that? Somebody who will diligently study how objects flow. through water to help people. This is about patronage. It's about changing the way that we act together. It's a much more sinister plan than just pretending.

that you're going after waste. I think that's just the delivery system. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. But that the American public would--. would begin to accept the delivery system. is kind of amazing. I mean-- and this is what got me. interested in the first place. It wasn't like, oh, Trump's going to destroy this. so you got to protect it. It's, oh, my god, these stories are incredible. And when you hear them, you're just moved and inspired. And you're proud of your country and all the rest,

that these people still exist. And-- and we've built-- we've kind of built a mechanism--. and I don't know how far back it goes. Maybe it goes forever--. but the mechanism that prevents the stories from getting out. And it's-- it's--. and the mechanism is the elected officials. The elected officials, the political class. that comes into the government, to run the government, has--. has something that's kind of convenient for them. If something goes wrong, they can haul one of these people.

out and say, they were to blame. But if something goes right, they can take credit for it. They have no incentive to celebrate. the work of the permanent federal workforce. And-- and so as a result, there's. no kind of culture of recognition. And it's actually pre-Trump. This is a problem. It's like-- JON STEWART: Sure. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's like, who--. what business runs well if the employees only get punished? If nobody gets rewarded for-- for doing good stuff? And I think you can track back, you know,

to some extent, when there's government failure, to this, to like, people are not allowed. to stick their necks out. They're not incentivized to stick their necks out. JON STEWART: That's right. And creativity and innovation wouldn't be rewarded. It would be that kind of risk taking. Look, it's similar to the idea--. you know, when they talk about Musk, they say, this is the guy that's got to do it. But understand that his methodology is--. and by the way, for an entrepreneur. and an inventor and an innovator, it probably works. But you got to blow up a bunch of rockets. before you find the rocket that-- that does right.

Well, if you're working for the government. and it's a bunch of people that are falling off of things. or you're protecting them, the ethos isn't, a bunch. of these people are going to have. to die until we figure it out or to get us to figure it out. It's actually the opposite. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. And the minute he blows up the first rocket, he's fired. and never allowed to work again. JON STEWART: That's exactly right. MICHAEL LEWIS: The whole Silicon Valley celebrating. failure and risk taking and all that, yeah, it is the opposite. So--. JON STEWART: What do you make of that then? You know, do they, within the bureaucracy, A,

do they feel maligned? Is that something that you-- that you found from them? Do they get frustrated with it? Because the system is-- look, it. is built in a bit of a Rube Goldberg kind of a way, in terms of, there are so many checks on waste, fraud, and abuse, it's almost wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive, that part of the system. So do they-- do they reflect that to you? MICHAEL LEWIS: I'm just-- let me think about this. JON STEWART: Yeah.

MICHAEL LEWIS: So I did-- there's. eight stories in the book. I did two of them. But-- but-- and the other writers did the other six. And the characters that I have dealt with, they are not-- they. don't celebrate the structure they're in. They're aware that oh, this is-- it's a pain in the ass. to do what I'm doing. It's more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be. Everybody agrees with that. And you know what they also agree with, is that by the time. I get to them--. so I was able to get to Arthur A. Allen. because he was furloughed, because he. was not employed at the time.

And so there was no communications officer to stop. me from getting to him. But with all the other ones that--. every story in this book--. there was a little phalanx of-- of political people. And this was the Biden administration, you know, kind of prevent us, basically, from telling the story. So they were very aware that, like, kind of amazing. we're now in this situation where. I can actually talk to you. JON STEWART: Yes. MICHAEL LEWIS: It took a lot of persistence to get to them. But once you get to them, then yeah, they'll say that, you know--.

so I'll give you one concrete example. JON STEWART: Yeah. MICHAEL LEWIS: The last story in the book. is actually a story of government failure, but kind of personal heroism. There's this woman, and her name's Heather Stone. She may be gone today. They're firing all these people in the FDA. But-- but she's in the FDA. And she noticed a problem that she tried to set out, and solve with a colleague. And the problem was, pharmaceutical companies. have no interest in developing drugs for really rare disease. There's no market for them. They're a rare disease. So you get something really horrible somewhere.

in the world, and no one's developed the drug for it. And you're going to die. And doctors will experiment, just, OK, you're going to die anyway. Let's try this, let's try that. And there's no formal record keeping of these experiments. So if something works, you might not hear about it. And if something doesn't work, you might not hear about it. And so-- so--. the rare disease at the center of this story is Balamuthia. JON STEWART: Oh, my god! MICHAEL LEWIS: It's a brain-eating amoeba. In and of itself, it's kind of a wild thing,

wasn't discovered until in the mid-- in the 1990s. And the San Diego Zoo, someone discovered this thing. And there's a whole, long story, back story, about it. But-- but she-- she built this app. to encourage doctors from all over the world. to, if you have a case--. like, just say what you did and what happened. And so if you have Balamuthia, if you treated it-- all right, so you gave them x and it didn't work,

well, it's nice-- it'd be good for other doctors to know that. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: Well, there was actually, at UCSF, a researcher, six or seven years ago--. his name is Joe DeRisi--. actually found a drug that worked--. in his lab-- that worked on Balamuthia, called nitroxoline. And it's a drug that's used to treat urinary tract infections. in Europe and China. Not approved-- yeah. Weird. What he did was, he took the Balamuthia in the lab, and he took the 2,000-something approved drugs.

anywhere in Europe or America. He bombarded the Balamuthia, and he found this one. thing killed the Balamuthia. JON STEWART: Jesus. MICHAEL LEWIS: And-- and-- but here's. the-- but this is what Heather Stone at the FDA. was responding to, was that he had done this because he'd. watched someone have their brain eaten before him, and he'd figured out it was Balamuthia, and that person died. He went-- he went and found-- made this discovery. The next time a patient walked into UCSF with this, they tried it. And it worked. But-- and I said it. I said to Joe DeRisi, I said, well, this is great,

you found the cure. And he says, we don't know that. It's one person. But-- but even though I've done that, no one will know. If you're lucky enough to walk into the UCSF Hospital. with Balamuthia, yes, they may think of using this. But no one else will have heard of this. And-- and-- because medical journals. tend not to write up single-case studies, so on and so forth. So this woman at the FDA had identified this problem. and said, I'm going to market this app,

I'm going to let everybody know the FDA is a safe place to come. tell your stories, and every doctor in the country. will know that if they've got a Balamuthia case, they hit the button and they can see that 50. times, someone has done this. And she's unbelievably frustrated because--. because the FDA doesn't have the funds to market it. There's no money. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: There's a kind of nervousness about, well, what happens if someone gets a bad recommendation. off the site? It's-- it's all risk averse. JON STEWART: Yes, yes. MICHAEL LEWIS: So what happens in the story,

which is kind of amazing, is that in this particular case, Joe DeRisi, the scientist, managed. to write up a paper about how this person had been cured, and thanked--. thanked Heather Stone at the FDA. for getting him the nitroxoline, the drug, even though it wasn't approved in the United States, really fast. JON STEWART: What? MICHAEL LEWIS: And there's a little girl. who's alive in Little Rock, Arkansas, right now--. JON STEWART: Come on. MICHAEL LEWIS: Or no, in Queens, Arkansas. She's six years old. Her name is Alaina Smith, who was. dying in the Dallas Children's Hospital because the mom--.

her mom saw this paper on the web, saw Heather Stone's name, called her up, and Heather Stone. got the drugs to the hospital, and the girl was saved. But-- but at the same time, there. was another six-year-old girl in Davis, California, whose doctors never saw this, and who died. But so Heather Stone would tell you-- if she were here, she'd say, we are the mechanism. The government is the only place that's going to do this. We are the mechanism for getting these--. this information out to people.

And I am-- am somewhat stifled because-- because beaurac--. because people are risk averse, because we. don't have resources. And you see this, and you're just like--. you-- it breaks your heart because you. just know that there--. there are so many tragedies that could be avoided. JON STEWART: And the demonization occurs--. what also happens is, the expectation of the public, for some reason, is that government, there has to be perfection. We have the same thing in the criminal justice system.

We have a system that demands anybody who's let out of jail. must not recommit, even though the system does. nothing to rehabilitate them. So we have a system that demands perfection, yet is. unable to discern the difference between a. real threat and a non threat. You know, so we're demanding something that is absolutely. not possible to achieve yet. MICHAEL LEWIS: Can I stop you one second? JON STEWART: Please. Please. MICHAEL LEWIS: You just-- what you. just said, what personal relationship.

does that remind you of? JON STEWART: Of-- of-- demanding. perfection for something? MICHAEL LEWIS: And being extremely, harshly critical when there's any kind of little error? JON STEWART: Well, I'm going to say my mother, but--. MICHAEL LEWIS: There you go. That's right. [LAUGHTER]. That's it. It's exactly right. You just put your finger on it, that we are-- as a country, we treat our government the way we treat our mothers when. we're like, 14-year-old boys. That's the country right now. And it's over and over and over.

It's like, and you ignore all the good things. Mom has done because it's just assumed that Mom's. going to do the good things. JON STEWART: That's right. MICHAEL LEWIS: But if Mom screws up and puts a bologna. sandwich in your lunch instead of a peanut butter. and jelly sandwich, Mom, you don't know me, you're a horrible mom. JON STEWART: Or the opposite, which is, Mom, I'm trying as hard as I can! Do you think I wanted a D? Come on! [LAUGHTER]. So it's-- it's-- it's reciprocal. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's both ways. And this is the WASP, Jewish thing. JON STEWART: That's exactly right. It goes-- it goes both ways.

In fact, my favorite story about that with my mother. is-- this is a complete tangent, and we'll get back to what we're talking about--. unfortunately-- so she's 91, and she's. doing great, sharp as a tack. Couldn't be, you know happier about that. But she did get pneumonia about a year ago. and was knocked out, on her ass. And this is a very strong person, but she unfortunately had to go to the hospital. for about five days, five days, IV. drip of a ton of antibiotics. Don't think it was dioxoline, but it was-- whatever.

it was that they were throwing in there. that I'm sure I'll have to thank Heather Stone for. But after five days, I go to get her, to pick her up, and she's lying out, she's got the oxygen tube, and she's completely out of it. And I said, Mom, Mom, we're going home. I'm here to take you home. And she looks up and she opens her eyes. She looks at me and she goes, you look tired. [LAUGHTER]. I was just like, oh, it's so hard to-- to--.

yep, yep, you got me. Let's-- like, meanwhile, I've been up for like, five days straight. MICHAEL LEWIS: So this is--. I mean, I have a less dramatic version. of this that just happened-- JON STEWART: Yeah? MICHAEL LEWIS: --here in New Orleans, in my childhood bedroom. And I did a favor for my mother, and went and talked to one of her community groups. And she said, could you go talk to this group? And I got on stage, and I talked for whatever. And she drove me over there and drove me home. And she didn't say a word on the way out, until we got in the car. And she said-- when we got in the car, she said, you and your father have one thing in common.

And I said, what? She goes, you both do go on quite a bit. [LAUGHTER]. It's like, all right, all right. You're welcome. JON STEWART: See? And this is why we don't have the government we deserve. MICHAEL LEWIS: This is exactly right. It's exactly right. JON STEWART: Which brings me-- so. to-- to bring this back around--. and here's, I think, what has been so. interesting about your work. So you've had feet in the Wall Street. industry, professional sport, all these different industries.

And now in government, the expectation, I think, to some extent, we forgive. business for the mistakes they make and the damage. that they do. I mean, The Big Short, you're talking about, in 2008, destroying almost the entire world financial system. because as Alan Greenspan would say, I really thought the banks would have done a better. job regulating themselves. Like--. And now you get into this and what you see is,

there is no margin of error. And it is because maybe there is, mistakenly so, a purposeful. cloak over the intricacies of what the government actually. does, how it actually does it, because of a risk aversion. or a fear of criticism or an exposure to litigation. Why do you think it is that we're so.

enamored of private industry and so reflexively angered. by government industry? MICHAEL LEWIS: I mean, top of the list. is that we admire rich people. You know, we admire money making. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: We're the biggest. money culture in the world. So that's one thing. You're never-- the government people are always going to be--. and they're always going to be low status. because they have low-- they don't have any money. So that's-- that's one thing.

JON STEWART: We deem them, if you're good enough, you wouldn't be in government. Is that the idea? MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, yeah, that's true, which is. completely false, by the way. It's people that have made a conscious choice to serve. And that's what's so offensive about going after them. as if they're criminals. They're actually-- it's sort of like the takers. going after the givers and--. and without anybody ever acknowledging that. there's this moral disparity. But-- but there is another thing that-- what. happens in the private sector? We see the successes.

The successes survive and get celebrated. And the failures kind of fade into the background. No one pays them him that much attention. They come and they go very fast, whereas in government, it's much more complicated. What's the government? The government is the place all the problems the private sector. won't solve go. JON STEWART: Say that again because that-- man, that. is such an important nugget of wisdom. for people to understand. Please repeat that--.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Well--. JON STEWART: --in capital letters. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yes. The government is the place that all the problems the. private sector can't solve go. What are these problems? I mean, you know who it reminds me of? So I spent like, six months with Obama. when he was president, writing a story about him, just what it was like to be president. And I remember one of the first things he said about--. and I was just writing about the job. And one of the first things he said was, you know, this job is a decision-making job. And it's an unpleasant decision-making job.

because all the easy decisions get solved, but get. made by everybody else. What gets to me are the horrible decisions. because nobody else wants to make them. So what gets to government are all the problems. that-- unpleasant problems that no one's. going to make money solving. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: No one's going to make money figuring out. how a fat man drifts at sea. [LAUGHTER]. No one is-- no one is going to make money. figuring out how to get rare--. collect anecdotal information about treating rare disease. No one is going to make money figuring out how to stop. the roofs of coal mines from collapsing onto the heads.

of coal miners, a problem that killed. 50,000 coal miners in America in the last hundred years. JON STEWART: What? 50,000? MICHAEL LEWIS: 50,000. Being a coal miner during the Vietnam War. was more dangerous than being in the Vietnam War. It's an incredibly dangerous occupation. It's less dangerous now, a lot less dangerous, because of the dude I write about in the book, because he figured out how to stop. the roofs from falling-- from falling in on the heads of.

coal miners. JON STEWART: That person's just not the next person on. the alphabetical list, is it? I mean, you did--. you did branch out from--. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, no, let me tell you how I found him. It's great. So it was great because I--. so I hired, you know, Geraldine Brooks and John Lanchester. and Dave Eggers and all these famous writers. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And I sent them out in the government, and I realized, oh, shit, I have to find. something to write about. And so I called up the people with the list. of people-- of civil servants who had. been nominated for some award. And I got this year's list. And-- and it was in this case, it wasn't thousands of names.

because it wasn't over 20 years. It was like 600 people, 600 people. And-- and the list was just--. can I tell you this story? Do I have time? JON STEWART: Yeah. MICHAEL LEWIS: All right. JON STEWART: It's a podcast. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's wild. JON STEWART: The people are driving to work. It's like a two-hour commute. MICHAEL LEWIS: OK, OK. It's wild. So the problem with the list was, it would say, like, Helen Jones, FBI agent, broke up a cyber crime ring, period. And it didn't say-- there were all these names and all these. amazing things they had done, but no sign of a human being,

like on this list until I got--. I was just flipping through it, and then it said--. said, Christopher Mark. Christopher Mark, inside the Labor Department, solved the problem of coal mine roofs collapsing on the heads. of coal miners, a problem that killed 50,000 Americans. in the last hundred years. JON STEWART: Holy--. MICHAEL LEWIS: But then it said, a former coal miner. And I thought, wow, there's a story, that-- that he grew up in West Virginia,

his dad was killed by a falling roof. A movie sprung in my mind. He had some-- who solves this problem? Who comes out of it-- who but-- coal. miner gets out of the coal mine to solve this kind of problem? So I find his phone number, not even email. I find his phone number. He's in Pittsburgh. I call him up. He knows who I am because he's read Moneyball. It's kind of funny, But so he's-- so he'll stay. on the phone with me. And-- and he says-- about the first thing out of his mouth--. because I said, like, what's the story? What's your story?

He says, I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, and my dad was a professor at the University. And I went, oh, shit, there goes my story, like, this is going to be boring. And my whole fantasy, my whole--. what I had in my head-- was just wrong. This is where it gets wild. This all happens in the first 20 minutes I'm talking to him. He explains-- he explains his dad, a guy named Robert Mark, was actually quite a famous engineer at Princeton. And he was famous for-- for having taken. a-- a mechanism he had developed to stress test like,

fighter planes. He'd build models of the fighter planes. and subject them, in his little device. to stress, to see if like, if you had this design, would the wing fall off if you went too fast? And the military hired him. And Princeton had hired him to test nuclear reactors, to see if they were going to work if they built them. Robert Mark is teaching engineering at Princeton. when an undergraduate comes into his class. from an art history class and says, this is really cool, what you've developed. Can you use it to stress test Gothic cathedrals, to figure.

out how they were built? Like, where the stresses are in the building? No one knew-- all these Gothic cathedrals were built in France. without anybody knowing-- without any record being left. behind about how they were built. So he does this, and he becomes the world's expert. on how the Gothic cathedrals were built because finally, someone has something to say. And he can like, predict, like, where in [INAUDIBLE]. there's going to be a stone that's going to need. to be replaced because it's--. it's too much load. JON STEWART: That's a load bearing stone, right there. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's wild. It's wild.

And like, PBS documentaries were made of him. He was featured in Life Magazine, blah, blah, blah. But his specialty-- what he's doing. is, figuring out why the roofs of Gothic cathedrals. don't fall down. The son, who I've now got on the phone, Christopher, tells me about his dad. Then he says, because what you got to know. is that, like, I didn't want any part of my dad's world. The Vietnam War was raging. I was in high school. He started throwing words like "Bourgeois". around the house, you know? It was like, I don't want any part of your Bourgeois life.

I'm going to join the working class. So he could have gone to Harvard or Princeton. Instead of going to Harvard or Princeton, he leaves home after high school. and joins the working class, works in a car factory, works in a UPS warehouse, and finally. ends up with three fellow radicals in a coal. mine in West Virginia. The other three radicals flee after a day, it's so awful. He-- he-- he actually finds something really. appealing about coal mining. And he lasts a year, but is almost.

killed twice by falling stuff. JON STEWART: Oh, wow. MICHAEL LEWIS: And he figures out there's this problem. And he gets himself out, goes to Penn State, gets a-- studies rock engineering, and starts this journey. And the journey, the intellectual journey, is riveting, how he figures out what he figures out. But anyway, he tells me-- that, I find out later. But the first 20 minutes, he's telling me, roughly what happened in his life. And I said to him, I said, oh, so you rebelled. against your dad, and then you just relived. your dad's life underground. He figured out how the roofs of Gothic cathedrals stayed up,

and you figured out how to keep the roofs of coal mines up. And there's this pause on the end of the line. He goes, that's not true. It has nothing to do with my dad. These things are not--. And he's so-- he's so hostile. JON STEWART: What? MICHAEL LEWIS: Well, I think-- this is a story. It's great. He does not know that--. he-- how-- how this looks. JON STEWART: He doesn't get structural integrity. of ceilings in cathedrals are not--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Here's where it gets beautiful, beautiful-- there are two things that happen, that are just beautiful. One is, after I've written the piece.

and I'm on a hike with his wife, his wife says, finally, someone said it to him. You know? JON STEWART: Oh, no! [LAUGHTER]. Amazing! MICHAEL LEWIS: But-- but-- but the best thing is, is like, around the year 2000, the federal government figures out. that the National Cathedral in Washington. might be falling down, the National-- yeah, I don't know, that thing was built over like, a hundred years. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And the people who built the foundation were. less ambitious than the architects who.

came in after them and built-- made it. bigger and bigger and bigger. So the foundation could-- can't support the building, properly. And it was tilting like Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was like, one of the towers was-- was sinking. faster than the other tower. So they called up Chris Mark's dad, to say, can you-- you did it with Gothic cathedrals--. come do this? And he comes in and he realizes that, my tools. work for what's above ground. But actually, something's going on below ground. And he calls his son, and says, we've got--.

I need your help. And so the son and the father, together, figure out whether the National Cathedral--. JON STEWART: Oh, my god. MICHAEL LEWIS: They write a paper about it. I mean, this is literature. You know, you can't make this-- but you can't make this up. JON STEWART: It's Shakespearean. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's unbelievable. JON STEWART: I mean, it's-- it's--. MICHAEL LEWIS: The stories are unbelievable. I found this now, so many times. And the fellow writers have found it so many times. It's like, why? Why are these stories so good? Why is this-- this federal government. generating literature that nobody's paying attention to?

JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: The-- the seriousness. of the mission, like, how important--. the fate of the society is at stake. if they don't do a good job. The nature of the person who's attracted to it. is not a selfish, self-absorbed, look at me. kind of person, just the opposite. And when people-- like, when people. think they're characters, they-- they. cease to be characters. They, like, they lose altitude on the page. They're like, zany. JON STEWART: There's nothing performative. about these people. MICHAEL LEWIS: Nothing.

And so that-- and that gives them an altitude on the page. It's sort of like, the reader figures out. that they know things about this person. that the person themselves may not have even thought. about because the person's not thinking about themselves ever. They're thinking about some mission. And-- and the fact that all this is happening. in a context where we, as a society, are attacking them and dismissing them and trying. to traumatize them and all this other stuff, it-- it creates. a kind of moving situation.

It's like, an emotion. There's emotion there that--. that just, is naturally sort of fuel for story. But I'm telling you, it's not a party trick. It's like, every time--. JON STEWART: It's the foundation of it. MICHAEL LEWIS: It's the foundation of it. Yeah. JON STEWART: Let me ask you a question about--. and I think this maybe encapsulates a lot. of what we're talking about. Last week on the podcast, I'm talking to Ezra Klein. And we're talking about his--. he's written this book, called Abundance, about, maybe a new theory of Democratic governance,

you know, in terms of regulations. getting in the way of us being able to build things. abundantly and all that. And so he walked me through this rural broadband. project, right? MICHAEL LEWIS: It's been a disaster. JON STEWART: A disaster. MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. JON STEWART: Billions of dollars, there's a 14-point NOFO, which is a way for them to just even. get started on doing it, it's a 14-point bureaucratic process. that basically weeds out anybody.

who might possibly be interested. in building rural broadband. It's-- it's honestly-- I was saying to him, it's like if you were told to design a machine that would. prevent people from getting rural broadband, this. is somewhat of what it would--. what it would look like. Right? MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. JON STEWART: But it gets back to something. you said earlier, which I thought. was such an important nugget. The fact that we have an issue with rural broadband. is a failure of the private markets. MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. JON STEWART: They're not interested. because there's no money there because the distance.

of these people-- it's like when. we tried to get electricity to people or water to people. That's not a moneymaker. That's a utility. And it's something that has to get out there. The frustration is, here's this need that the private sector. refuses to solve, right? The government has this responsibility. to come in and lift all boats through the spending. And they create a process that is the antithesis.

of fixing the process. And then there are all those people, humble, smart, hardworking, who are tasked with whatever it is. that the government muckety mucks come up with, they'll execute. And they're given the shit sandwich. And we all blame them--. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's right. JON STEWART: --when they had nothing to do with it. So how do you--. as you look at these systems, as the climate. scientists that you are, how do we create--.

how do we empower those people to help build these systems? Because I know they could do it. I know there's a ton of people within the government right now. who could get rural broadband out there effectively. and cost effectively and all these other things, who are not allowed to. And-- and they are being demonized for it. MICHAEL LEWIS: So if I could answer. this in a way that fully satisfied you,

I should be president. JON STEWART: Hey, I'm fine with that. Whatever you want. I don't care. I'm happy. MICHAEL LEWIS: But my first thought is--. and when you look at the things that work in our book, how Chris Mark fixed the problem of roofs. falling on coal miners, he was given a-- he. was given a lot of rope. He was so superior, intellectually and-- and is. mission-driven, that everybody around him. just said, let him go, like, let him. just do what he needs to do.

And because--. JON STEWART: Even within the government, they understood, like, this dude's something. MICHAEL LEWIS: This dude's something. So I'm just guessing here, but I bet if we you and I wandered. through the government looking for bright spots, like, things that worked--. Ezra's looking for things that don't work. And there are plenty of things that don't work. But if you are looking for things that work, you'd find that over and over, that--. and it's where there's some distance. from the political process. JON STEWART: Yes. MICHAEL LEWIS: You depoliticize it. You put it-- so for example, the Centers for Disease Control.

was gold standard for health agencies. in the '50s, '60s, '70s. And Americans adored it, like, thought. it was just the bee's knees. Reagan, in-- in his first term, I think, changed the head of the CDC from being a career person, who. the president could not fire, who was there for longer. than an administration, to a political appointee, who had.

to keep looking over his shoulder. at what the White House thought of whatever he did. And if you go in the CDC and interview people, they will say, this place has deteriorated since then. We've gotten more risk averse, less able to do our mission, more politicized. And I think that--. I would systematically go through the government, I think, and try to-- try to put some distance between. politicians and the people doing the job, which is the opposite--. JON STEWART: I was about to say, I've got some bad news for you.

MICHAEL LEWIS: I know, I know, I know, that you politicize it, you're going to make it less effective. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And so it's, you--. they've got to be able to fail some. They've got to have some-- just some flex. And they can't be always looking to some senator, who's making a snap judgment. JON STEWART: Because politics, the event horizon on politics. is two years. It's-- you-- and even within that, the electoral cycles are so often now, and the access to social media, the circadian rhythms. of everything have sped up.

There is no patience for that. MICHAEL LEWIS: Correct. But so many of the problems the process is trying--. the government is trying to address--. are long-term problems or are longer projects kind of thing. And so you-- there's a mismatch there between the incentives. of the people who are ultimately. bossing the operation and the people-- and the operation. So you know, if you look at institutions that kind of work. in our government, the Federal Reserve works pretty well. I mean, you know, we can argue about. whether they should have raised or lowered by half a percent.

But-- but basically, they've kept us in a situation, people trust the dollar. JON STEWART: We have not been as--. as bubble vulnerable as maybe we have sometimes, in the past. MICHAEL LEWIS: They do make mistakes. But no one thinks the president's. controlling the money supply. And-- and--. JON STEWART: Well, for now. MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. The minute he does, it's a catastrophe. It's going to be done worse. It's going to be-- everybody's going to know. it's going to be done worse. So it's sort of like--. JON STEWART: And then the data's politicized. And then you don't--. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's right. JON STEWART: And then we have nothing. And isn't that kind of what they want?

MICHAEL LEWIS: Well, that's an interesting question. It is, do they want to live in a world. where there is actually no objective truth? They seem to. JON STEWART: I'm going to say yes. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yes. And I can understand. I agree with you. But you're going to pay a huge economic price. if nobody trusts anything. I mean, the whole society runs on trust. Now, Trump is like a trust-destroying machine. JON STEWART: He's a trust-destroying machine. for those who might look for more objective. or data driven or things.

But he engenders-- let me say this. He's a trust destroyer, but a faith creator. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: People have a faith in him that is religious. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. JON STEWART: And it's an interesting dichotomy. if you think about, you might look at it. and I might look at it as, is anybody saying the emperor. has no clothes? And they would look at it and go, nope, that's a beautiful fucking coat. MICHAEL LEWIS: He's like Bitcoin. [LAUGHTER] Right?

Right? JON STEWART: Are you saying he's a pump-and-dump scheme? MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, yeah, basically. JON STEWART: He's a meme coin. MICHAEL LEWIS: He's bitcoin because he's got. more faith than a meme coin. But he's-- but it's-- it's still, basically, when you're trying to predict the future of this, it's like predicting the future of Scientology. Like, are people-- are people going to continue. to believe in this? Who knows? Like, it's because it is faith. JON STEWART: Well, ultimately, that's why these, you know, populist leaders-- like, the whole thing is, there's sort of this misnotion that, you know, Mussolini, well, at least he made the trains run on time.

But the truth is, populists actually don't. govern in a very good way. They just have to prosecute their scapegoat case. until the point where it's--. it sort of becomes absurd. And that's kind of where we--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Are now. JON STEWART: --end up. Let me ask you-- because look, anytime something is obtuse. and you don't know what it is, you can project onto it all. of your anger, disappointment, or other things, like with the government bureaucracy. But the minute you start to humanize it and individualize.

it and start to realize a lot of the good that they're doing. and the types of people that they are, boy, invaluable. What this book is to me is, especially in this moment, you know, you've pulled the curtain back in Oz. And rather than it being a wizard, you're like oh, those are just really smart engineers that. are working to-- oh, that's how they. make-- so that's how the Yellow Brick Road got built? So it really was, they were looking for load bearing. and they-- and they discovered how?

And then there was a guy who said--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yes, someone had to build the Yellow Brick Road. JON STEWART: And how do munchkins. flow through currents? And how-- and where do we find them on the back end? So it's this incredible insight into this. And what we find is, maybe--. because how I always feel-- and this. is through a lot of experience with the VA. system or other things that we've worked on--. is that the government sets up an adversarial position.

to its constituents for fear of being drained of resources. Right? It's overly policed. And because of that, everything costs way more than it should. and is overly complicated. There must be a way to reduce that aspect, to see what it would be like if these talented people actually. were given the opportunity to do their jobs in the way that.

they should because I think, never forget the original. premise statement that Michael said earlier, which is, government exists to take care of the things. private sector won't or can't. MICHAEL LEWIS: And it's shocking, what's on that list. You know, it's shocking, how much it's. charged with, say, preventing. You just take for granted an awful lot of what does. You know, you turn on your faucet. and there's water that you can drink and not worry. that you're going to get sick. There's a kind of miracle there, going on. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: Someone's done that.

JON STEWART: I think we've all gone to places where that is. not a miracle, and-- and then when you come back, you. think, hmm. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, hmm, yes. The question that-- that pops into my head. after you said what you just said. is, like, what does it take for the society to wake. up and realize it needs to be better at governing itself? It needs to-- it needs to allow our government. to work and give it some room to operate kind of thing. And-- and I keep coming back to, it's going to take some sort of existential crisis,

like, that the people are going to have to actually fear. Americans turn to the government in a nanosecond. when there's a trag-- when there's a tragedy or a crisis. Like they just assume FEMA's going to show up kind of thing. Or-- so--. JON STEWART: They're looking to get rid of that. MICHAEL LEWIS: I know. I know. JON STEWART: Let me ask you, Michael--. that brings up an interesting point because you. say an existential crisis. You could say COVID was that crisis. And rather than-- there was a moment where it engendered. a tremendous amount of trust.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: And then that not only ebbed, almost reversed, and in some ways, we're still dealing with the fallout of--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Correct. JON STEWART: --institutions that we felt like--. like the CDC, like the NIH, that we thought. overstepped or were being overly critical. of outside theories or weren't being honest. about any of the negative effects of a vaccine. or of a medication. You know, it actually, in that moment, lost trust.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Yep. So COVID wasn't bad enough, I think. [LAUGHTER]. JON STEWART: Oh, no. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, I-- JON STEWART: Don't say that. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, I think that the moment everybody realized. it just kills old people, and they got that in their head, and then once-- no, really. If COVID-- if you flip it around--. JON STEWART: As an old person, I object to that. MICHAEL LEWIS: No, no, that it was--. it was, if you had flipped it, and it was more like the 1918--.

JON STEWART: Oh, when it was mostly younger people. who were dying of influenza. You're right. MICHAEL LEWIS: --I think there would have. been a different reaction. That's one-- that's one thing. But the second thing, I mean, we still have not, as a society, answered the question, well, what should. we have done? You know, like, OK, you're angry about what happened. Either you think there was not enough government. action, but more likely, too much government action. What-- there's not been a commission to like, figure out--. satisfy us all that there was some stuff that should be done.

JON STEWART: And could there be a depoliticized commission. that could do that anyway? I mean, at this point--. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's the problem. So-- JON STEWART: Yeah. MICHAEL LEWIS: It is-- it was not enough of a crisis. that the society is demanding a depoliticized response, that-- that in a real crisis, what's going to happen. is, people are going to lose patience with politics, with the politicization of things, and say, just get me a guy who can fix it or a woman who can fix this. JON STEWART: And isn't that what they say Trump is? They sort of say that because of all. this inaction and politicization. and bureaucratization, I alone can fix it,

and we alone will give you that--. that rope. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah, but he's-- yeah, it's the wrong--. JON STEWART: Yeah, I'm not saying it's real. I'm saying, that's the--. that's the-- the populist demagogue--. MICHAEL LEWIS: That's right. JON STEWART: --mentality. MICHAEL LEWIS: But-- but there's a--. we should have learned some things from COVID. Our response was bad. We had a disproportionate number of deaths. than we should have had. We should have done better than the rest of the world. and we did worse than most of the rest of the world. And like, why?

I mean, I think there are answers to that question. But we don't-- we've not grappled with that. And I think we've not grappled with it. because most people weren't all that scared of it after--. they were scared right at the beginning. And when they went oh, it's just old folks. homes or whatever, they said--. Now, New York-- New York had its own--. New York-- New York is the one place--. JON STEWART: I was just about to say that. MICHAEL LEWIS: --that had this. And why did it happen in New York? Because it hit there early, before. they learned how to treat it. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And the numbers are something. like, if you went into hospital with COVID in April,

you were like, four times more likely. to die than if you went in in late June. And the difference was just, it took a couple of months. to figure out how to handle the patients. JON STEWART: That's something I've. had trouble with, grappling with, for myself because I live in this area. It was terrifying, the velocity of death, the refrigerator trucks, people I knew in the health care. industry who were, I mean, basically writing. their wills as they went to work,

and the fear that gripped it. And I think it was hard for me, originally, to get out of the head space of how I felt in this moment, to understand how people in other areas, who. are not feeling it--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. JON STEWART: --to that same level of terror--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: --might be viewing the remedies differently. And it took me a long time to wrap my head around, oh, you know what? They're not being callous, they're just not experience--.

you know, it's like how I would--. there's tornadoes ripping through Oklahoma. and I'm like, oh, that's tough. But like, I don't have--. you know what I mean? Like, I don't have that same, like--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Exactly right. JON STEWART: That was a hard lesson for me to learn--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yes. JON STEWART: --and to give grace. to all those others, who weren't. experiencing it that way. MICHAEL LEWIS: Probably, someone has done this work, but it would be really interesting to see what. the different psychological after effects. are in New York versus the rest of the country.

Like, if you went to New Yorkers who were there. when they watched this wave of death, if they would be more or less likely to say, oh, just let it run the next time there's a--. [LAUGHTER]. No, really, but they saw what happens when you let it run, right at the very beginning. JON STEWART: And also, the mental gymnastics of-- look, I remember when this was all happening in New York and--. at-- when the doctors would get off. their shifts and the firehouses would come out with trucks, and people would line up outside of hospitals in mass.

and applaud the doctors. And then six months later, they'd. be out in front of the same hospital with a sign going, stop killing people with vaccines. Like, the-- what you must go through, in your mind, of like, wait, I was a hero, who. risked my life to go in there. They were clapping for me. And now I'm the enemy, who's been withholding. Ivermectin suppositories just so I. could kill people on purpose. And you're like, the mental gymnastics of that.

were, I'm sure, devastating. MICHAEL LEWIS: Right. It terrifies me, but I can't--. it's hard for me to imagine anything. but all of us being on the receiving end of a tornado to--. to wake up. They need that to wake up and say, well, we actually need to run-- run this place better. And we're about to get a lesson in what the government does. because they're disabling it. I don't know how long it's going to take. JON STEWART: Right. What would you say is the--. you know, when we talk about when you weaken.

an infrastructure-- and in some ways, you know, to bring it full circle, we're kind of now. talking about the support systems. on the ceilings of mines and on cathedrals. They don't collapse right away. MICHAEL LEWIS: No. JON STEWART: But the more that you. take away those load-bearing operations, right? It begins to list. And I think in some ways, we may not see the results. of that for a long, long time. But it will be because of that.

And we may misdiagnose it, you know, because the time horizon is not right next to it. MICHAEL LEWIS: And they--. Trump is certainly aware of that, right? If he thought he was--. JON STEWART: I'll be gone. MICHAEL LEWIS: If he thought--. I'll be gone. That's exactly right, I'll be gone. It's all charging-- charging the future for. present political benefits. JON STEWART: Did you talk about any of that with the folks. that do this work in the government, about--. because it's sort of-- it came out before this, really, you know, the operation to undercut it was.

But do they fear the results of a future. where these investments aren't being made? Or did they not--. were they not talking about that? MICHAEL LEWIS: It's come up. And it's come up now. I mean, the coal mine ruse is not just a metaphor. They just fired the inspectors who. make sure that the standards that Chris Mark created. are being abided by. So what will happen now is that coal mine companies will. cut costs by not doing what they need. to do to keep the roof up. I mean, this literally will happen.

Another example, Geraldine Brooks wrote a piece. about a guy in the IRS, kind of bad ass, sort of black belt in something, who runs the Cyber Crimes Division. or works in the Cyber Crimes Division. And-- and this is a profit center. I mean, they've collected billions of dollars of crypto, and they just kept it for the federal government. They've gone in and gutted that operation, and it just can't work in the way it worked before. So you like these fuses all over the society. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: And there's a bomb that the spark.

is eventually going to get to. And it-- function to function, the length of the fuse. is different. But the bomb is there, everywhere. And-- but-- but you're right. Many of the fuses are very long. And, you know, it's hard to know. when the explosions happen. And you're also right that when it happens, that he may be. gone, they may be gone, and some poor schmuck, who. had nothing to do with it, is in the White House, and gets blamed for it. And even if it happens now, you can be sure that the right-wing.

narrative machine will spring up to tell a story, that's a false story, about how this had nothing to--. that it was all the fault of inept government. workers or something. JON STEWART: But this is why--. Michael, this is why--. you know, you write a lot of books. And this is another one of them. But this is why the stories that you are telling, in my mind, are so crucial. What you do so well is tell stories. And stories is how we interpret the way that, you know,

we move through life and the dynamics. And it's how we absorb it in a much more accessible way. You know, it's interesting. I think, sometimes about what you and I both do. What you do is, you go in and you try and illuminate. the totality of the picture, to paint people. three dimensionally. Comedy is almost the opposite. We work in two dimensions, almost exclusively.

Without stereotypes, I'm not sure I have a career. [LAUGHTER]. Like, without reducing people to their, you know, most caricatured traits, how do I deal with a heckler? But it's such an important thing. to be out there because if those stories are told, they can be accessed, and they can be used to fuel. a more honest narrative.

And it's why I love the things that you write. MICHAEL LEWIS: Thank you. At the very least, it creates cognitive dissonance. in the minds of someone who's just trying to live. with a dumb stereotype. It's like, oh, gay people are evil. Oh, but my cousin's gay and I like him. JON STEWART: Right. MICHAEL LEWIS: You know, it's that. And so it causes that-- just causes a bit of hesitation. And it leaves you a little less susceptible to--. JON STEWART: That room, man. That room, that little hesitation, that little piece of room--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah. JON STEWART: --that's everything.

Because I'm convinced most people--. people aren't evil. There's a few of them out there, malevolent. But most people, we're all just-- we've got blind spots. We're-- we're ignorant of certain things. And any light that you bring to that. brings us closer to a more honest accounting. of like what you say. We may not have the solution, but boy, if you've got an honest accounting, then there's people like Chris Mark, and there's other people out there, who are smart enough to look at that accounting. and create solutions that--. that improve things as they move forward.

MICHAEL LEWIS: Yep. Totally agree. JON STEWART: Well, it's fantastic. Michael, this-- this time goes so quickly. with you because I just--. I love hearing about your stories. And I love the way that your mind is working. And I really appreciate you taking the time. I could do this all day, but I know. you've got to go back and clean your childhood bedroom--. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yes. JON STEWART: --because I'm sure you. can't just stay in your house and not make that bed. MICHAEL LEWIS: I'm going to go put. the posters back on the wall. [LAUGHTER]. The Kiss poster--. JON STEWART: Get that Pink Floyd up there, baby. MICHAEL LEWIS: Yeah.

JON STEWART: Dark Side of the Moon, get that triangle up there. Michael, thanks so much for-- for taking the time. Michael Lewis, he's got that new book, Who is Government? It's a New York Times bestselling collection, The Untold Story of Public Service. and obviously, everything else that you do. Thanks so much. MICHAEL LEWIS: Thanks, John. [THEME MUSIC]. JON STEWART: Michael Lewis, I feel badly. because he's like, the greatest dinner guest of all time, and I got him no food. I got him nothing. I just sat there and enjoyed all these stories.

He's just such a wonderfully evocative, specific storyteller, but always with purpose. I just--. COHOST 1: I could listen to him for hours, honestly. Yeah. COHOST 2: And I really appreciated those. stories that aren't in the book because it really. underscores the fact that the people in the book. are not anomalies. JON STEWART: Right. But what if he did say that, though, if he came on, and he's like, it's just these eight people? We scoured the entire government, and we found eight people.

COHOST 2: 24 million. JON STEWART: Luckily, the first one was, how fucking crazy. is it? The first one, he's like, so I went alphabetically. and then he just comes up with this incredible individual. But I think it's right. Do you guys remember? I think Steve Hartman still does this. It's a thing where everybody's got a story. And he stands by a map, and he just throws a dart, and then he goes to the town, and then he calls people up. He was doing this back when there were, like, phone booths. And he would, like, open the yellow pages--. and call somebody up, and whoever. would agree to talk with him. And then he would sit with them.

And he would tease out, always, this incredibly. moving, interesting story about this utterly random individual. And this book strikes me as kind. of the heroes version of that. COHOST 1: Mm. Totally. You know, I was thinking, during that interview, just about that Ronald Reagan quote, that's like, the nine most terrifying words in the English language. are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I guess you never had Balamuthia.

[LAUGHTER]. JON STEWART: Interesting story, Ronald Reagan. suffered from Balamuthia for most of his life. COHOST 2: You're crazy. JON STEWART: He got it from the monkey that he was in the. movie with. I think Bonzo had given him Balamuthia. But he did--. I mean, the mining story. COHOST 2: Mm-hmm. COHOST 1: Yes, yeah. Incredible. COHOST 2: I couldn't help, when I was reading, thinking, I wonder how many of these people are still working. COHOST 1: Well, that's what he said.

He said, maybe the woman at the FDA might have been let go--. like today. JON STEWART: Right. COHOST 2: Yeah, and then, like, as Mark's team was gutted--. and so, I was reading this morning about what. conditions are like. You can cut me off whenever, but. "for some federal employees, returning to the office. has meant an expansion of their duties. to include cleaning toilets and taking out the trash. For others, it has been commuting. to a federal building, only continuing. to work on video conferencing. Some showed up at the office just to be sent home. Others showed up early and had nowhere to sit. Some employees within the FAA returned to an office where.

lead had been detected in the water, and spending freezes have meant a shortage of toilet paper.". It's just like--. JON STEWART: But listen, it's incredibly efficient. If you don't have toilet paper, everybody's. pulling a Cory Booker all day. Nobody's going to the bathroom. Nobody's doing anything. COHOST 2: I just feel bad. It's like, thankless work, and then this is the condition. JON STEWART: In the name of efficiency. That's-- that's the whole point of it. They're-- they're lying about what they're doing. There are improvements to be made in administration. and all these other things. But this is not that. This is amputation.

This is mutilation. This is none of the things that they purport it to be. And the real question is going to be, what is the render time till disaster? Because it will come. I think what Michael was talking about. is, we don't know when it's going to come, we don't know when the roof is going to collapse, but it's going to. COHOST 1: Yeah. JON STEWART: And I'm assuming they. think they're going to be--. COHOST 1: Didn't they just let go of people. who oversee the bird flu response? Like, these fuses are lit. JON STEWART: What's bird flu going to do? It's only jump to cats now. And who's got cats?

What's there to worry about? Yeah, the whole thing is-- is-- is fucked. But yeah, I really enjoyed--. I've enjoyed-- you know, some episodes, I don't enjoy as much. I can't really point to-- to. Many. COHOST 1: Ooh. COHOST 2: Yeah, who are you calling out? COHOST 1: Name names. JON STEWART: I think one was--. I think there was like, a Harvard. economist who was like--. I was like, that guy's just a dick, but--. COHOST 1: Oh, yes. JON STEWART: But-- but mostly, I'm always fascinated. But this one, in particular, was. just incredibly pleasurable. Any questions from the audience this week?

Any-- anything they want to--. COHOST 1: Always. JON STEWART: All right. COHOST 1: "John, I'm ready for my next binge session. Should I go Peaky Blinders or Severance?". JON STEWART: Oh, I mean, here's the thing. You can't-- it all depends. So Severance is 2 seasons of 10 each. And I do think you want to keep it. relatively tight because it's so dense with the--. they-- they do this show to such detail,

with so many interesting layers and things. that were placed in the first season, that pay off. So I would-- if you got 20 hours, I would say you got to do that over like, a fortnight. So if you've got yourself a fortnight, I'd go Severance. Peaky Blinders, if you want to take a gap year. and roll through--. I don't know how many years it was, but the only problem with Peaky Blinders. is, you will speak Shelby.

You will speak Arthur Shelby. My wife was ready to throw me out of the house. for how often I'd be like--. (IN COCKNEY ACCENT) That's right, that's right, that's your boy. That's your boy. He's like a cross between the guy from Sling Blade. and like, a cockney accent. So yeah, I drove people crazy with my Arthur Shelby. impression for many years. But you can't go wrong. COHOST 2: You got some good accent work in. COHOST 1: And it's going to come back. JON STEWART: Peaky Blinders is doing a--. COHOST 1: --movie. Yeah.

JON STEWART: Yeah, they're doing a movie. Yeah, I can't wait. Such a good show, everything about it. All right. That's mine. What else we got? COHOST 1: "What's worse, torpedo bats or the tush push? Is it cheating?". JON STEWART: Oh, let me tell you something. So here's what's worse, using a torpedo bat for the tush push. COHOST 2: Oh, my god. JON STEWART: I gotta tell you. COHOST 1: That hurts. COHOST 2: Those dastardly Yankees. JON STEWART: I don't mind any of it. I-- listen, you know, this is the whole--. the whole idea of sports is, the pitchers have a thing. So now we got to lower the mound. And then everybody's always sacrosanct about, like,

but that's-- but the bases have to be--. you can't make them smaller. And you're like, it's a fucking--. they're throwing a ball at each other. and trying to hit it with a piece of wood, and you're like, but the piece of wood--. Like, I understand make it fair, keep it on a thing. But people are always going to be--. It's like, how fair is it that everybody's gotten. bigger, stronger, and faster? You know, when I was a kid, I actually believed that I could. play professional baseball because Bud Harrelson was. the shortstop for the New York Mets, and he was like 5' 8" and 140 pounds.

and he didn't have to hit. And now you've got guys like Derek Jeters out there, like 6' 4", Rodrig--. You know, come on. COHOST 2: This is Jose Altuve erasure. He is like 5' 2". JON STEWART: It makes what Jose Altuve does--. I don't care how many trash cans you bang on to let you. know what pitch is coming, if you're 5' 6". and you're banging 30 home runs a year, you're a fucking. winner in my book. So I don't know what's going to happen to either one of those, but I don't have a problem with either.

COHOST 2: I'm sorry to interject, but I did not know what that question. was until you said sports. I was panicking inside. JON STEWART: What did you think the tush push was? COHOST 2: I don't know. COHOST 1: Her mind was going to dark places. JON STEWART: It's so--. I always think that. And I forget, it's like, when I used to read the financial news. and I'd be like, none of this makes sense. But if you asked me, like, on-base percentage of, you. know, utility player for the Mets from 1984, I would have it for you like that.

It is a different language. And you forget, not everybody, certainly--. COHOST 2: Yeah, I'm here to represent. the people who have no idea what sports ball talk is. JON STEWART: Welcome-- welcome to our country. COHOST 1: Yes. COHOST 2: Thank you. JON STEWART: Hit him with the socials, Brittany. COHOST 1: Twitter, we are weeklyshowpod, Instagram threads, TikTok, Blue Sky, we are Weekly Show Podcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment. on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. JON STEWART: Boom. And make sure to watch all my TikTok. dances, which as always, go viral because they're awesome. Fantastic job again, guys.

Boy, Michael Lewis, what a lovely dinner. date that turned out to be. And as always, I want to thank lead producer Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mehmedovic, our video editor and engineer. Rob Vitolo, audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, researcher and associate producer extraordinaire. Gillian Spear, executive producers Chris McShane, Katie Gray. Thank you guys so much. We will see you next week. Bye Bye. [THEME MUSIC]. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. is a Comedy Central podcast that's produced by Paramount. Audio and Busboy Productions.