Glenn Thrush interviews Colin Jost and Michael Che for POLITICOs Off Message by Glenn Thrush Lyrics

GLENN THRUSH: Are you ready?

So, first, I want to apologize for not being all that clean today. We just came back from the debate, and we haven't changed, so I apologize.

COLIN JOST: We were going to bring it up.

MICHAEL CHE: Oh, you didn't tell us which N words we can't say.

THRUSH: You can say any--absolutely, you can say--

CHE: I can say all of them?

THRUSH: --anything you want.

JOST: I thought you were going to say you were going to tell us which debate you came from.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: Quick question. Who's your favorite white comedian?

[Laughter]
CHE: My favorite white comedian is sitting to the left of me.

THRUSH: Oh, really?

CHE: Absolutely right.

JOST: Aw, that's really nice. That's actually really great. Wait. I'm on your left, right?

CHE: He is the whitest comedian possible.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: You are--

JOST: Definitely the whitest.

THRUSH: You are a very white comedian.

CHE: Yes.

JOST: Thank you so much.

CHE: And second is Chris Matthews. He is--

THRUSH: Do you think he's funny? Does he amuse you?
CHE: I think he's extremely--he's the purest sense of funny because he's funny without trying to be funny. He's just himself.

JOST: He's a liberal Trump.

CHE: Yeah. He's just--he's not trying.

JOST: No.

CHE: He's just hilarious to listen to. I think people like that. I like that.

THRUSH: Do you watch him? Do you actually--

CHE: I mean, I'll catch him, but meeting him, I've become a different kind of fan.

THRUSH: Tell me how.

CHE: Well, I mean, just to watch him work, watch that prompter not move.

[Laughter]

CHE: Watching the director say, "Wrap it up. Wrap it up. Wrap it up," and he's just starting to load in with questions. I mean--

JOST: It's just on a welcome, welcome back, the whole time.

CHE: Yeah. And he spelled our names phonetically too.
JOST: And then also got mine wrong still. It was--it was--and it's just no question--

THRUSH: You are related to Ned Yost, the manager of the Kansas City Royals, right?

JOST: Yeah. Different spelling, but he is my dad, yeah.

It's no question was a follow-up to any other question, all non-sequiturs.

CHE: Yes.

JOST: All, like, unanswerable questions--

CHE: Yes.

JOST: --like, "Why is Chris Christie funny? Is it because he's fat?" What's the right answer to that? Yeah, that's why he's--that's the funny thing.

CHE: Oh, my favorite is, "Why do you do comedy? You come from a nice family." But just you, not me. I don't come from a nice family.

[Laughter]

JOST: He's like, "What do you do? You're smart. Why are you doing comedy?"

THRUSH: He really said that to you?

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: Well, in New Hampshire--I will say this. I was in a bar in New Hampshire, and we were having a conversation. And I go into the bathroom to do what people do in a bathroom, and he followed me in. And he didn't stop talking. Like it wasn't as if he wanted to engage.

JOST: Oh, that's great.

THRUSH: It was like he just wanted to finish his point.

CHE: Yeah. I think he's kind of that guy--I liked him. We had a great time on the show. That's why we couldn't wait to get back.

JOST: We laughed for about two hours after it.

CHE: Yeah, it was so funny.

JOST: I mean, the hardest I've laughed in a while.

THRUSH: But that was just because you were high.

JOST: Yeah. You got to be. You got to, to get through a convention.

CHE: But, also, it was refreshing because, a lot of times, you know, you do an interview or you do like a TV show, and those guys could be very stuffy, asking you the same thing, "Well, how did you meet?"

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: One guy asked us, "Who's the quirky one?" You know what I mean? Like it's just like those kinds of questions, when you have somebody just swinging a bat and just--that's exciting. It makes it fresh for us, right?

JOST: Yeah. And it throws--you don't know. You certainly can't prepare for that.

CHE: Exactly.

JOST: It was fun to just be reacting without any--

THRUSH: But Chris asked you who the black one was, right?

[Laughter]

CHE: He's going blind. Also, he counts M&M's before--

JOST: He kept doing this.

[Laughter]

JOST: Oh, my God. Yeah, he took out a bag of off-brand M&M's right before we go on air, and he puts them on the--he goes, "You guys want some candy, some sugar?" and we were like--and I said something like, "Oh, that probably gives you energy, right?" And he goes, "Are you making fun of me?"

[Laughter]

THRUSH: What is--

JOST: "Why would I be making fun of you?" and then he just took the bag and put it away.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: You lost me at "off." I didn't know they made off-brand M&M's.

JOST: I didn't know either. It was like--

CHE: They were M&M's without "M."

JOST: --a clear pouch full of--it looked like a tall clear sack--

THRUSH: Mexican.

JOST: --of what looked like M&M's.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: Mexican M&M's.

JOST: Yes. Like Mexican--

THRUSH: Made out of lead.

JOST: Real sugar.

THRUSH: Well, how did you guys meet? No, anyway--the one thing I really--I'm from Brooklyn, which I say on every podcast, and everyone gets angry at me. But you guys, I think one of the things you bring to the desk there is the fact you are both New Yorkers, like real New Yorkers, no bullshit. Tell me a little bit about--we know--a little bit about where you're from, Colin, because you have sort of an interesting family. Your mom does an interesting job.

JOST: Yeah. She works at the fire department. She's worked at the fire department for a long time, but I grew up on Staten Island, and I came--

CHE: On Staten Island.

JOST: On Staten Island.

THRUSH: It's swampy, so it's kind of in.

JOST: Yeah. It's, you know, a great place where one of the wealthiest men in history came from, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Maybe you've heard of him.

CHE: Yeah. I think he owned my grandfather.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: Rented.

JOST: Exactly. I went to--I commuted into high school, so I commuted up to this Catholic School called Regis High School. So I was in Manhattan a lot. In high school, I kind of--

THRUSH: So you took the ferry all the time.

JOST: I took the bus, ferry, subway every day.

THRUSH: Wow. Brutal.

JOST: And then a lot of our friends just stayed in the city because everyone was from different boroughs, and everyone kind of wanted to hang in the city, so that was nice. And it was a way of kind of having another experience.

THRUSH: Did you take a lot of shit for being a Staten Island kid--

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: --at a fancy Manhattan school?

JOST: It wasn't a fancy Manhattan school. It was free, and so it was--the idea was it was like economically disadvantaged Irish kids, basically, from back in the day, and then it expanded. But it was always still free. So most people were not from Manhattan. There were like three kids from Manhattan.

CHE: Yeah, my school was like that because I went to LaGuardia in Manhattan.

THRUSH: The performing arts school.

CHE: Yeah. And it was absolutely free, so it seems fancy, but also, it was a bunch of kids from really messed up places because it was free.

THRUSH: Now--

JOST: LaGuardia sounds less fancy, once the airport is around.

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: That's really keeping it humble.

CHE: When I say "LaGuardia," they're like, "In Queens?" I'm like, "No. In, like, behind"--

THRUSH: You have to test into LaGuardia, right?

CHE: Yeah. You have to, like, interview.

THRUSH: What did you do to get in?

CHE: I was an art major, so I had a portfolio. I had to take a drawing test. Then I had to do, like, an interview. It was like a three-part score. I think they changed it recently to make it more academic, which I wouldn't have had a shot. But, initially, it was just, "Can you really draw?" and "Are you somebody that is a good kid?"

JOST: Did you just have to answer, "Yes, so I can draw. I can draw"?

CHE: Yeah. "I can draw."

[Laughter]

THRUSH: It's like one of the tests that you get on the back of a magazine.

CHE: You'd be amazed how many kids get that wrong.

JOST: They're like, "No--uh, yes. Oh."

CHE: Yeah. And it's too late. Then it's too late.

THRUSH: But you can draw.

CHE: I could when I was--yeah.

THRUSH: What kind of stuff did you--

CHE: I used to paint. I used to love to paint, acrylic and oil, and--yeah. Why is everybody shocked?

THRUSH: I'm not shocked. I'm interested.

JOST: We're not shocked. We're--

CHE: Engaged?

JOST: I think it's adorable. I think it's very--

CHE: I haven't done it in like 10 years, but I used to do it pretty well.

THRUSH: Is there stuff--well, we're just up the road from MoMA here. Do you ever go over there?

CHE: I used to. I used to have to go there all the time. We used to have to do reports, you know, and that's, like, kind of the cool thing about going to school in New York is there's so much in New York that you would completely ignore if not prompted to go.

So, like, at school, we'd have to do reports, so we'd have to go to MoMA and Whitney and the Met and all these places to see stuff. And I had lived in New York my whole life. I never even new that stuff was around, you know. And there's places, buildings that you walk by all the time. You go inside, and it's, like, there's--you know, there's the most valuable shit in there. You don't even realize it.

JOST: You never--you pass it every day.

CHE: You pass it every day.

JOST: It's the actual value of school trips too.

CHE: It really is.

JOST: You go. Like, when am I going to go see the Statue of Liberty or--

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: --the Empire State Building? A lot of it was school trips.

CHE: I went to the Empire State Building the first time when I was like 27, you know, and it's, like, people--that's the first thing they do. If they have one week in New York--

THRUSH: What's that?

CHE: --that's the first thing they do.

THRUSH: And that was your first suicide attempt?

CHE: No. It was a high school trip.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: That's why you're good at this and I'm not.

JOST: You led an independent high school trip.

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: I wish I was in high school. I could apply to that--

CHE: I liked high school so much.

THRUSH: All female, surprisingly.

So in terms of the--sorry about that.

CHE: Well, you can't out me as a molester.

[Laughter]

JOST: No, no. You can edit this, right, to make it louder?

[Laughter]

THRUSH: You grew up in the Al Smith houses.

CHE: That's true.

THRUSH: Named after Al Smith, the great--

CHE: Alfred E. Smith.

THRUSH: He was responsible--incidentally, he was responsible for overseeing the construction of Rockefeller Center.

CHE: My parents are from that--are from that projects. Their parents are from that projects.

THRUSH: For real?

CHE: I'm like a legacy in the ghetto.

THRUSH: Those are known--I got to tell you, those are known as not the worst in the city, right?

CHE: Oh, no. It's actually--

THRUSH: It's a good place to--

CHE: I mean, it's not--I wouldn't say it's a good place, but it's--it could be worse because you got--you know, it's downtown.

THRUSH: It's right near City--we should tell folks it's right near City Hall, right near the--

CHE: It's right near City Hall, right near Police Plaza, but, you know, there's a lot of--

THRUSH: It's projects.

CHE: --broken families that would love to hear about how it's not that bad--

[Laughter]

CHE: --over there, but, you know, it is what it is.

THRUSH: What did you--

CHE: And Allen Street, I lived on Allen Street, 45 Allen Street.

THRUSH: So that's cheek by jowl to Chinatown.

CHE: That's closer to Chinatown, right.

THRUSH: So, interestingly, if you were--

CHE: I went to P.S. 42 high--I mean elementary school.

THRUSH: So, when you left, when you left the Smith houses, you were walking into Chinatown a lot of times, right? So you--did you have a lot of--did you feel like you sort of grew up in Chinatown or--

CHE: Well, that wasn't really China--I mean, it was Chinatown, but New York is so segregated that your building could be one thing and your neighborhood could be something completely different.

JOST: Right.

CHE: You know what I mean? Like you could have a big-ass brownstone in Harlem, and it's beautiful on that block, you know, that area, and then right on the other side, it's Harlem. And it's like--

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: --that's a black neighborhood, but this is a white building.

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: You know what I mean? So it's--there's a lot of buildings that--we had like white buildings in Lower East Side that were project buildings, but it was just all old white people, and nobody even knew that it was--but it was technically a project. It was a government building and affordable housing, so--

THRUSH: Called Mitchell--I hate to say it's called "Mitchell-Lama."

CHE: We used to go trick-or-treating there because they were the only ones that gave real candy.

[Laughter]

CHE: You know, they had like--

JOST: Like hard candy.

THRUSH: Are you making that up or is that true?

CHE: That's the God's honest truth. We would go in the building--first of all, it was so hard to get in. We had to sneak in the building, and we'd go trick-or-treating there, because they were old people. They couldn't wait to see kids.

JOST: It's sad when you're going to old people for candy. That's really--

CHE: Well, we just liked candy.

THRUSH: Well, you get extra because they can't eat it.

JOST: It's, like, when you're talking about, though, when you pass a building, you don't know what the art is inside. You also don't know what the living is sometimes.

CHE: You also don't know what the living is.


JOST: And it could be back--you know, next to each other.

CHE: I didn't know Stuy Town

was a nice place. I always thought Stuy Town was like a project or something.

THRUSH: But Staten Island is like--

JOST: I lived in Stuy Town. That was the first place I lived in the city.

CHE: Yeah?

THRUSH: Is that true?

JOST: Yeah, in Stuyvesant Town, but it's like it was just cops and firemen, basically.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: I mean, originally, and then it kind of--

CHE: But you don't know what's in there.

JOST: Yeah, you don't.

THRUSH: But coming from Staten Island, is it like a--I'm from Southern Brooklyn. I'm from Sheepshead Bay.

JOST: Yeah. There were some kids from Sheepshead Bay at my high school. Yeah.

THRUSH: Yeah. And they--the slow ones. And--

JOST: John Magayza, shout-out. I'm sure he's--

THRUSH: Who's that?

JOST: I'm sure he's listening.

THRUSH: What does he do?

JOST: You know, he was in Sheepshead Bay. I assume he's there, still hanging.

THRUSH: Just hanging in Sheepshead Bay.

JOST: We'll see. We'll see if he contacts me.

CHE: I'm lost in white guy. We can go right now.

THRUSH: I'm sorry. We'll--

JOST: You know Sheepshead Bay.

CHE: I do know Sheepshead Bay.

THRUSH: You know Sheepshead Bay because you knew it was a neighborhood to keep the hell out of.

CHE: Sure. Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst.

THRUSH: Bensonhurst.

CHE: Howard Beach.

THRUSH: Bay Ridge.

CHE: Yes, Bay Ridge. Real nice towns, you know.

THRUSH: So--

CHE: A lot of baseball bats there.

[Laughter]

JOST: Not a lot of athletes.

CHE: Not a lot of athletes, but a lot of baseball bats.

THRUSH: A lot of running.

was a nice place. I always thought Stuy Town was like a project or something.

THRUSH: But Staten Island is like--

JOST: I lived in Stuy Town. That was the first place I lived in the city.

CHE: Yeah?

THRUSH: Is that true?

JOST: Yeah, in Stuyvesant Town, but it's like it was just cops and firemen, basically.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: I mean, originally, and then it kind of--

CHE: But you don't know what's in there.

JOST: Yeah, you don't.

THRUSH: But coming from Staten Island, is it like a--I'm from Southern Brooklyn. I'm from Sheepshead Bay.

JOST: Yeah. There were some kids from Sheepshead Bay at my high school. Yeah.

THRUSH: Yeah. And they--the slow ones. And--

JOST: John Magayza, shout-out. I'm sure he's--

THRUSH: Who's that?

JOST: I'm sure he's listening.

THRUSH: What does he do?

JOST: You know, he was in Sheepshead Bay. I assume he's there, still hanging.

THRUSH: Just hanging in Sheepshead Bay.

JOST: We'll see. We'll see if he contacts me.

CHE: I'm lost in white guy. We can go right now.

THRUSH: I'm sorry. We'll--

JOST: You know Sheepshead Bay.

CHE: I do know Sheepshead Bay.

THRUSH: You know Sheepshead Bay because you knew it was a neighborhood to keep the hell out of.

CHE: Sure. Sheepshead Bay, Bensonhurst.

THRUSH: Bensonhurst.

CHE: Howard Beach.

THRUSH: Bay Ridge.

CHE: Yes, Bay Ridge. Real nice towns, you know.

THRUSH: So--

CHE: A lot of baseball bats there.

[Laughter]

JOST: Not a lot of athletes.

CHE: Not a lot of athletes, but a lot of baseball bats.

THRUSH: A lot of running.

[Laughter]

CHE: Yeah. You got to stop wearing those white gloves, dude.

[Laughter]

CHE: You look ridiculous.

THRUSH: By the way, do you have any brass polish?

When you hear Trump talking, as he did last night, at the debate--and we're talking the day after the debate--about Stop-and-Frisk being the greatest thing since sliced bread--

CHE: Yeah, of course, it is.

THRUSH: --what do you think about that?

CHE: I think it's easy to say Stop-and-Frisk is a great thing if you know you'll never be stopped or frisked. You know, like that's to them--if you're never--he's never going to face that, so he doesn't have to worry about that. You know what I mean?

For me, it's hell because you're like, "Well, I know what that means," you know? It's like when Trayvon Martin--we were talking about this yesterday. If Trayvon Martin gets killed in the hood, he--white guys aren't like, "Well, damn, I got a hoody at home. I got to be careful." Nobody thinks of that. I do.

JOST: Right.

CHE: You know, I'm like I can't wear my hoody up right now without making these people feel scared, you know.

THRUSH: I'm a little--you're wearing one now. I feel--

CHE: But it's down because I know.

THRUSH: It's making--do you mind taking it off? It's making me feel a little--

JOST: But … You're fine.

CHE: Well, yeah. That's a--you know, that's a real thing. So, like, for him to say that, I could totally--you only know your reality.

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: So I could understand why even he wouldn't even think that's racist.

THRUSH: Do you think--I mean, you guys have met him because he's been by the show, right?

CHE: I don't think he's racist. I think he's a salesman. I think he--I think he's a salesman playing to the most racist segment of the country.

THRUSH: So you think--

CHE: He's saying what they want to hear. He's a real estate agent. He's telling you, "Listen, there's no--you know, we're going to make sure that there's no undesirables."

THRUSH: And his real estate--

CHE: That's his thing.

THRUSH: --just happens to be redlined.

CHE: Pretty much.

THRUSH: So you--

JOST: I feel like--I feel like I would guess--I don't know what. I think it's always so hard to say this person is racist, this person is not. I mean, it's like judging someone--

CHE: "Racist" is a--I don't like to use that word.


JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: But Hillary--listen, Hillary flat out called him a racist last night at the debate.

CHE: Because she's playing to the elites by "racist," same for other countries, so, you know--

JOST: Right. Yeah. I think I'm his--of his supporters, I don't know what percentage have a genuine, like, active racism about them, if it's 10, 20 percent of the people he's playing to. I think a lot of people have, you know, unconscious racial bias, whether they realize it or not, but then I think a lot of, also, his supporters are supporting that and not even realizing it's racist, certain things, not even realizing they're racist or not really taking the time to examine how they could be racist.

CHE: I agree with that. I think that's a better way to say it.

THRUSH: Well, I don't know. I don't know if I agree with you guys on that. I mean, you grew up on Staten Island.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: Very racist.

THRUSH: And I grew up in South Brooklyn. I mean, come on. You've heard people say a lot of things, right?

JOST: I mean, honestly, not a lot where I grew up, but--

THRUSH: Where in Staten Island did you grow up?

CHE: No?

JOST: No.

CHE: That shocks me.

THRUSH: No, there are very nice parts of Staten Island.

JOST: There are--

CHE: My brother lives on Staten Island. He's a cop.

JOST: But it's not--I don't know.

CHE: I shouldn't say that.

JOST: Staten Island is not very--

CHE: Seriously.

JOST: Staten Island is segregated, but it's also--I don't know. It's like it's not--it's not unprogressive.

THRUSH: It's sort of the way more diverse people like--

JOST: It's conservative in an old conservative way--

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: --where it's not--I don't know. It's like conservative in a--I don't know what it is.

CHE: I think a lot of--

JOST: An Eisenhower way or something, but--

CHE: I think a lot of New York is like that because the Lower East Side is like that as well. It's so segregated that it's almost not as prejudiced because you never have to deal with those people the same--in the same manner. You know what I mean?

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: And I say--when I say "prejudiced," I mean, like, hateful.

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: "It's not like we hate black people. We never see them. They stay where they stay; we stay where we stay," and that's Little Italy or that's--

THRUSH: Which is kind of--

CHE: That's just the way it is.

JOST: I guess it was not like--I had--I went to school with a lot of kids who were Asian, Indian. Like, my dad worked--like, had black friends from work.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: It wasn't like--it wasn't so far in, even though it was Staten Island and it seemed very--I don't know.

THRUSH: Let's talk about your family. Your dad was a teacher?

JOST: He's an engineer. He worked for Procter & Gamble, in the factory that used to be on Staten Island for a long time.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: And then that closed, and he stayed because my mom had a practice, you know, as a doctor and was working at the fire department. So he stayed, and he started teaching at the Staten Island Technical High School on Staten Island. He taught, like, mechanical drawing.

THRUSH: Which is a really good school.

JOST: Yeah, it's a great school.

THRUSH: Yeah.

JOST: And he taught, like, engineering-related things, like computers, drawings.

THRUSH: So we were saying before we sat down, there's a fair possibility that I ran into your mother when I was covering the 9/11 and the aftermath of 9/11. You were, what, a teenager back then?

JOST: It was my first day of college.

THRUSH: Really?

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: Tell me a little bit about that and what your mom--how your--what your mom did and how she has sort of tracked that issue over the years.

JOST: Well, it's, you know--it's weird, 15 years, now that it's past tense, which is very strange looking back.

THRUSH: Crazy.

JOST: I feel very lucky she's alive, but she responded because she responds to all big fires and stuff with the fire department. She's the chief medical officer, so she runs it, the whole medical office, and so she responded. And she was at the bottom of the first tower when it collapsed, and a fireman pushed her to the side of an alcove of a building. And she got buried there, and it was a guy--it was actually a fireman she had just recently cleared for full duty--and pushed her into an alcove and saved her life.

And they were both buried for a couple hours and got dug out, and then she immediately went to work. She set up like a clinic in a Duane Reade that was down there and, like, was helping people. So she didn't go home for three days.

THRUSH: Did you know she was okay?

JOST: I did because I--phones weren't working, you know.

THRUSH: Yeah, of course.

JOST: So I got a text from my dad--or emails from my dad that said like, "Your mom was buried under this thing, but we think she's okay. It seems like she's going to be okay. They've gotten her out." But he didn't see her. I couldn't talk to her because nothing was working, and he didn't see her for three days. So she was, like, there and didn't come home. You know, she was there basically on the site for three days. It was crazy.

And then all her--you know, it was one of the saddest, you know, for all of New York, obviously.

THRUSH: It was unreal, yeah.

JOST: And it was very hard for her because all her friends, so many of her friends at work died, like so many of them were right next to her, were down there responding and died.

THRUSH: So how did she--because I knew her. I believe her predecessor as chief medical officer was a guy named Prezant who--

JOST: They worked together for a while.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: Yeah, mm-hmm.

THRUSH: And he--

JOST: David Prezant. Yeah, he's great.

THRUSH: And how did she--she must have--not to get into too much detail, but she must have had some significant trauma after this, right? How did that manifest itself? She seemed to have thrown herself into her work, right?

JOST: Yeah. I think that's what she did, and I don't--you know, I can't pretend to know what that's like, but she handled it, I think, very well. She's a very resilient person, but, you know, she threw it into getting funding for, you know, anyone who was injured or who is having lingering problems. And she worked--she actually worked with Hillary Clinton, you know, and went down to the Senate and, you know, had helped. She helped her testify and get funding for all these people and set up counseling that I don't--you know, I don't even know like if she went to counseling and stuff like that. I don't know.

THRUSH: So, like the Zadroga bill and--

JOST: Yeah. Zadroga bill that, obviously, Jon Stewart was big--you know, a big proponent of.

THRUSH: I presume if she was involved, did she brief Stewart and probably had some interaction with him? Right?

JOST: She's definitely talked to him, and he's been great. I mean, she's been so thankful to him for raising all the awareness about that on his show and also he's been to so many events.

CHE: Yeah. Jon, he's like one of the least phony people you'll ever meet in your life.

JOST: Oh, yeah.

CHE: He's like--if he's serious, if he's passionate about it on air, he's passionate about it in real life.

JOST: Yeah. No, he was super helpful. So she--I think he's just--I think he and all--the whole fire department is very grateful to him. That was a--that was a huge thing.

THRUSH: So in terms of the--Michael, what did your folks do?

CHE: It was less romantic than a fireman.

JOST: Hopefully less sad.

[Laughter]

CHE: No, it was probably sadder.

[Laughter]

CHE: Well, as I said, we lived in the projects. No, my dad is a teacher now, but my dad was a street dude. And my mom was just a lady with four jobs at a time, trying to raise seven kids.

THRUSH: What kind of jobs?

CHE: She worked at a bank. She worked at--I think she worked at two different banks.

JOST: Wells Fargo, right? Wasn't she doing--she signed up a ton of accounts, though, right?

CHE: She did, yes.

THRUSH: Goldman Sachs.

JOST: Well, did they follow up on that?

CHE: She sent a lot of letters.

[Laughter]

CHE: She sent a lot of letters to people asking for a $20 check.

THRUSH: So, when you say your dad is a street dude, come on. Something doesn't quite track on that when you say your dad--

CHE: How so?

THRUSH: Well, no, when you say your dad started off as a street dude and now he's a teacher, so tell me--that sounds like an interesting story to me.

CHE: Well, my dad was a--he had a lot of problems, and then he cleaned up. And he doesn't have as many problems. So he went back to school. He saw a commercial on TV. I think it was for Judge Mathis, and he got his life--no, I'm kidding. He--

[Laughter]

THRUSH: You just had me there.

JOST: I was, like, he went to Judge Mathis for school?

CHE: He went to Judge Mathis. He became a judge.

JOST: That's like Trump University. Judge Mathis got one too.

CHE: He went to Mathis University.

No, he went to school, and he--and he became a teacher, which is weird, but like in his fifties.

THRUSH: What does he teach?

CHE: He teaches--he was always--my dad was always like an odd-jobs guy, like he always had a van with, like, just a bunch of tools, and he would always be working on jobs. Like he would always do, like, construction, you know. In those days, that was, like, the best way to make money--

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: --that was legal, which it probably wasn't legal, but you know what I mean? But it was, like, the best way for a guy that, you know, just wanted fast cash.

THRUSH: Yeah.

CHE: He would just get in a van, and he'd, you know--companies would make him work, you know?

THRUSH: Yeah.

CHE: Labor. Labor stuff. He was always, like, the fix-it guy. Anything that was wrong, my dad was the guy that people called, usually.

JOST: And he'd just know it from growing up and forever?

CHE: He just--and I always--I've always known. Like we would--they were separated my whole life, and anytime I'd see my dad, like, for the weekends, he would always be working, like that would be our day is that I went with him to work, and we would just be in this fucking building. And I'm just sitting around playing a Gameboy or, you know, doing something, trying to fuck around with tools, and he's just painting, and he's doing that, and he's doing that, and we're just talking.

THRUSH: I worked with--that's not the worst.

CHE: No, no. No, no, no. It's not the worst.

THRUSH: Yeah.

CHE: I maybe overshot it, but it's, you know--but he's--he was always doing that. So then he went to school, and he became an electrician, and then he started teaching. He was, like, an electronics teacher in a vocational school in the Bronx, and then I think he still does that. I'm not too sure.

THRUSH: But you're talking about it like--I don't want to be a dick, but you're talking about it like it's an average story. That's not average for somebody to go back and do that in their fifties.

CHE: Well, it's average because I know it.

THRUSH: Right.

[Laughter]

CHE: You know what I mean? Like it's average like--

JOST: For you, it's average.

CHE: I guess it's average.

THRUSH: I think that's a very--

JOST: And, at this rate, it's going to happen to you every time.

CHE: It's also following 9/11 rescuer, so--let's call a spade a spade, all right?

THRUSH: Well, he was rescuing himself, so--

CHE: That's true. I guess that's a rescue story after all.

THRUSH: Isn't that a beautiful way to end that--

JOST: That's a really nice link.

THRUSH: --to get off of this personal shit and get into what I actually came here to talk to you about?

JOST: Oh, this is all a mic test?

THRUSH: Yeah, it was.

JOST: Do we have the levels?

THRUSH: We now have like 30 seconds.

So let's talk about this--I call it "this fucking election." What do you--one of the things--I think, Colin, you said this. A lot of people gave you guys--gave SNL crap for having Trump on.

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: What do you think about that? I mean, there's a lot of talk about the media having enabled this guy, the blurry line. Give me your spiel.

JOST: I mean, the idea of it, the media--like the idea that him being on a comedy show is going to sway people into thinking he's great and Hillary is bad when we also have Hillary on, it's just nuts to me. The idea that someone is going to see him in a sketch or hosting us now and think, "You know what? I like racism," or there's just not that--it just doesn't work that way.

CHE: It's like a jealous--it's like a jealous husband or something, like there's--

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: --like, "Don't hang around that guy."

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: What? I'm not going to fuck him, all right?

[Laughter]

CHE: Just because he's around doesn't mean I'm going to fuck him. Why do you think that?

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: You know, that's all it is, is just don't even--don't even look at him. I'm like maybe I will. What are you trying to hide from me?

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: Well, this would be a good place to tell me if you had any feelings that you want to talk about.

CHE: With what?

THRUSH: Being around him.

CHE: With Donald Trump?

THRUSH: No. I mean like, you know, feelings.

CHE: Oh. Yeah, it moved.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: What was he--I know. Seriously, what was he like?

JOST: No, but he--it's--they're both--they're both humans, right? They're both--they're both--

THRUSH: Let me write that one down.

JOST: They're also--it's strange. They're both super smart people and super hardworking people.

CHE: And you can't deny that. So like I--that's what bothers me, when people make it seem like, "You know what? I'm smarter than Donald Trump." Like no, you're not, all right?

JOST: Yeah, you're definitely not.

CHE: He's a smart guy. You know, like that's--

JOST: He's probably harder working than you--

CHE: Should he be president? No.

JOST: --than almost anyone, right?

CHE: But he--you know, like let's not pretend that this guy is a mutant, you know, and he's the most evil, racist, mutant piece of crap that ever walked. Listen, there's probably somebody in your building way worse than Donald Trump, and you buy bagels from him, and it's fine. You know what I mean?

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: It's like there's people in your everyday life that are Donald Trump.

THRUSH: Yeah, but you're not buying bagels from Donald Trump. He could be running the country.

CHE: He could be running the country, and I understand why people--I just wish that we could vote and decide like adults and not like we hate him, ill, ill, ill, be mean to him, make fun of him, hurt him because he can't win, as opposed to "This guy is an idiot, and he can't do the job. I'd rather vote for Hillary Clinton."

JOST: And it doesn't--I really think it doesn't help Hillary's cause when people say--

CHE: It doesn't.

JOST: --all his supporters are dumb and racist, because if you're his supporters, if you are dumb and racist, you just get angrier.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: But if you're not, if you're a reasonable person, which I do think some of his supporters are, and you have reasonable complaints about the government or the economy and you get called "dumb and racist" all the time, then you're like, "Why am I"--

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: "I don't want to go over to this side."

CHE: Exactly.

JOST: "They're just marginalizing me."

THRUSH: But that's like--

JOST: I think it's a terrible strategy for Hillary and her supporters.

THRUSH: It's also a terrible strategy for comedy, right? Because if you're narrowing erroneous--

JOST: Yeah. It's boring.

THRUSH: --with that stuff, people aren't going to want to listen to what you have to say.

JOST: And it's boring. At this point, who hasn't said Donald Trump is dumb and racist?

CHE: There's a--there's a large--

JOST: It's like come on.

CHE: --segment of viewers that would just love if we spent the entire show just saying how stupid and racist and ugly and awful Donald Trump is, and they'd be perfectly fine with that. And it's like, as a comedian, you can't have that kind of anger. Comedy is all about--we got to find funny where you couldn't find it ordinarily. We've got to find what you wouldn't--

JOST: Because it should be surprising.

CHE: --say at the watercooler, you know, so that it's got--it's got to surprise you. It's got to be something like, "Wow, I never thought about it that way," and that's kind of our approach. And to just pile on Donald Trump just feels like, "Well, how is that interesting?"

THRUSH: Well, here's a question, though. Speaking of interesting, I initially, before this process started, didn't think he was all that interesting. I mean, when you talk about surprise with Trump, you're talking about two of the most known commodities in the universe with these two guys--people.

JOST: Right.

THRUSH: How do you--what is surprising at this point about Donald Trump?

JOST: But he's--

CHE: It's a different thing now.

JOST: Yeah. He surprised everyone because he hit these huge problems that no one on either side was talking about, like talking about, like, white middle-class America feeling alienated by trade deals that feel like they got screwed on or they lost jobs.

CHE: And lower class.

JOST: Lower-class workers that felt like they lost jobs in their town or their kids are going to lose jobs to immigrants.

CHE: Yes.

JOST: Even if it's not real. Heroin problems in cities, like, actual white problems around the country that no one was talking about because they're talking about a lot of other--sometimes not even America-related issues.

THRUSH: I will just say people were--some people were talking about it, but not with the bullhorn that he's used.

JOST: No.

CHE: No.

JOST: And it was one of many things.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: And he just came, and it's the same, why I thought it was winning at the beginning of the debate, because he was so clear on, like, three issues and hammered them home. So if you're listening at home, you're like, "Oh, I know what his three things are."

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: And he's--

JOST: And Hillary, like I don't know, and then she won later when it got into actual more substance.

THRUSH: And he kind of--

CHE: And he speaks--he speaks living room.

JOST: Yes.

CHE: He speaks bar.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: He speaks--you know what I mean?--country club. He speaks that, and I feel like a lot of politicians don't. They speak like they're speaking to, you know--"And I'm saying that if I"--you know, like they--

JOST: Yeah. And the vocabulary.

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: Her vocabulary is so--

CHE: Trump says nine words, and it's--

JOST: --tortured.

CHE: --everybody knows what they are and--

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: --you know, "huge," "terrible," "tremendous," I mean, "unbelievable." He keeps saying it over and over and over again, and people are like, "Yeah. Huge, large, unbelievable."

JOST: Yeah. The economy is going to be--

CHE: Yeah, yeah. It's going to be great.

JOST: I actually have people that will say--

CHE: He's got the best friends.

JOST: --he's going to be great; he's going to make the economy huge.

CHE: He's got the best friends.

JOST: Like it works.

CHE: Like what do you mean "best friends"? What are you talking--he's got the best people?

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: What are the best people?

JOST: Right.

CHE: Where are they? What are you talking about?

JOST: And who--doesn't work--you can't name a single person that works for him. It's just like--

THRUSH: Well, you can name four.

JOST: Yeah, exactly.

THRUSH: And two of them are in the Ukraine now, but like--

JOST: It's just--I don't know.

THRUSH: But, okay, come on. I know you got to--so, actually, being around him--now, I'm sure you guys didn't sort of hang out a lot when he was around.

JOST: We did. That's the crazy thing. I mean, I hung out with him probably more than any other host.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: Really?

JOST: He was here at least as much, if not more, than every other host--

CHE: Yeah.

JOST: --to the point where--

THRUSH: Give me--

JOST: --we were like, "Are you also campaigning right now? What's going on?"

THRUSH: Well, lay this out for me because--or for people that aren't familiar with--how many days a week would a host normally show up, and how did he--

JOST: It's six days. I mean, it's Monday to Saturday. They're there every day.

THRUSH: And what time period are we talking about when he was on here?

JOST: He came in October, I think. Is that right?

THRUSH: So right when things were heating up a little bit.

JOST: Yeah. It was a weird--

CHE: Yeah, he was October.

JOST: It was a weird thing because people say like, "Oh, he may"--

CHE: He was the first one back--

JOST: You know, this was a big--

CHE: --from the--from the, I think--

JOST: From the--

CHE: I think it was like the fourth show, yeah.

JOST: Yeah. So people were making a big deal about him being on the show, obviously. When Lorne booked him on the show, I remember the worry about it was that he would already--he would already be played out by the time he got there. You know, seriously, that it was already like he had had this big phenomenon, and then it was going to feel like old news. And we had--it's like having a guy on a show that was cancelled or something, you know?

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: That was actually the worry going in.

THRUSH: That's amazing.

JOST: And then--but then, obviously, it kept--it kept building independent of our show.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: And--but he was around, and he didn't have anyone with him. Like Ivanka came for a little while and hung out, but really, he was alone. You'd walk into his dressing room; the door would be open.

THRUSH: Yeah.

JOST: He'd say like, "Oh, did you see this thing with Ben Carson?" Like you can't--it would just be like, "What an idiot?" You couldn't believe it.

THRUSH: And he's sitting and he's looking at his phone?

JOST: His phone, reading, you know, physical things.

THRUSH: Newspapers?

JOST: Yeah, newspapers or printouts maybe that he got, or--he was also looking at scripts and giving notes, you know, on scripts.

THRUSH: Is he wearing a jacket?

JOST: Yeah. Jacket or tie, tie with a--

CHE: He looked like Trump.

JOST: --jacket on.

THRUSH: He's not like, what, in shorts, jean shorts?

JOST: Always in--always in suit and tie.

CHE: Always suit and tie.

THRUSH: Shoes always on?

JOST: I think so.

CHE: I think so.

JOST: Yeah, we didn't get--

CHE: Huge bunions, though.

[Laughter]
JOST: You could just tell. Sometimes you can just tell.

CHE: Through the shoe, you could see it.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: It looked like an elbow was in his fucking shoe.

THRUSH: You figured he would get--

[Laughter]

THRUSH: I'm sorry. Man, you just caught me there. You figure he could afford the custom, you know--

CHE: No, no, no.

THRUSH: Thom McAn?

CHE: Uh-uh.

JOST: He got a great deal.

CHE: He's got a big old bunion.

THRUSH: What did he talk about? Like what kinds--shooting the shit with Donald Trump when he's unguarded, not to give away the crown jewels here, what's he like? Did anything surprise you?

JOST: I think he is what he says, which is he's very superficial in a sense of he's just like, "Oh, here's what I'm thinking now." "Oh, what about that thing?" "Oh, I like this. I like those shoes. I love that hat." He's just kind of saying what he's--as he's processing it in real time.

THRUSH: It's sensory, kind of?

JOST: Yeah. I think it's very visceral for him, and he just says it, you know.

CHE: Yeah. He's like …

JOST: "Good face. I like that face," you know, just stuff like that, and you're like, "Okay."

CHE: He didn't say "good face" to me.

THRUSH: Well--

[Laughter]

CHE: Everyone just walks by Colin and says, "Good face."

THRUSH: I hate to--was he--

JOST: Jesus.

THRUSH: He does--I have to say--

CHE: He's got a good face, man.

THRUSH: You're a beautiful young man.

JOST: I'm out of here.

THRUSH: Did he have any curiosity in you? I mean, did he ask any questions? Was he curious about the process?

JOST: A little bit, a little bit. I think it was more you'd say something to try to get him to do that, and then he'd be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's great. And how about this other thing?" you know. I think it was more that. I mean, there's no--he wouldn't deny--

THRUSH: Kind of--

JOST: --he's a self-centered person

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: But, you know, I think that's served him well in terms of business. Whether that will as the leader of a country--

THRUSH: Okay. One last thing on that, was he--as he was working on sort of script stuff, what did he edit for? Was he editing for funny, or was he editing to take out embarrassing shit?

CHE: Well, see, that's an unfair question because most people that don't do comedy--and this show is a very unique show where, first of all, there's not anything like it on TV--

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: --that's live, that's 90 minutes, that's this much of a variety. So most people that don't do comedy, they give suggestions. They don't really know where the comedy is. You know what I mean? It's very--some hosts will trust the writers, and some hosts are like, "I don't know if this is going to work," or whatever, and for good reason, because we know this job very well.

JOST: It's a foreign experience.

CHE: Yeah, it's a very foreign experience. So, if he had his guard up about things, that's--you can't really judge him based on that because a lot of people feel that way, because it's such a unique thing that you kind of have to do it to get what we're trying to get at. Does that make sense?

JOST: Yeah. And I don't think he was judging things on a political level, like, "Is this going to be good for my political career?"

CHE: Right.

JOST: I think it was more, "Do I think this is funny, and is this going to make me look silly?"

CHE: Right.

JOST: I don't think he likes to look silly.

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: Right.

JOST: You know, so it was more that than it was a political calculation, but obviously, he had opinions on everything. Nothing happened against his will, but that's true for any host. Any host.

CHE: This show is like a wedding. It's like everybody is going to have strong opinions of what they want it to be like--

THRUSH: Yeah.

CHE: --because it's such a special thing, and you may only get one shot at it, or this may be your last shot at it. And you want it to be perfect. So a lot of times, people will have strong opinions about things that maybe could have worked or maybe doesn't work, and that's a natural thing. I mean, even in the cast--

JOST: That's a good analogy.

CHE: --that's how we feel.

THRUSH: That's a great way to put it.

You mentioned he hung out more than most people. Tell me--so he was just kind of--

JOST: He was around. Yeah, he was around. He met with everyone, you know, all the writers and cast on Tuesday. There was--I think we had a host dinner with him, too, right?

CHE: I didn't go to the host dinner, but yeah, we definitely did.

JOST: I don't know if I was there.

CHE: Everything was--it was business as usual.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: He sat in. He took all the meetings.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: Because, usually, when we have a host, they take meetings, and they sit in the office with you.

THRUSH: But he wasn't especially prickly or demanding or--

CHE: No. No.

JOST: No. And he's--and he's charming. I mean, it's weird because both he and Hillary are so much more charming when you talk to them in person than they come across sometimes on camera or in--whatever, you know.

CHE: Which is very strange, but it's like when you see them as people, you're like, "Oh, man. This is the monster?"

JOST: Right.

CHE: Either side, you know. Like when you hear people says these are evil, you know, you're like, "She's a nice, fine lady."

JOST: Right.

CHE: She's just fine.

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: Well, we had her on--we had her on in April for nearly an hour, and, you know, one of the things we were talking about was--I flew around with her in 2007, 2008. I hate flying, and I asked her, "How the hell you're such a good flyer?" And she spoke for like 10 minutes, I think. It was probably the 10 most-interesting minutes I've heard her talk for the whole campaign.

CHE: I like when she's on Seth. I think her and Seth have a really good chemistry, where they really seem to like--

JOST: Just have a conversation.

CHE: Yeah. Like he kind of brings out the lady that I met--

JOST: Right.

CHE: --you know, better than anybody, and Kimmel too. I thought when she was on Kimmel, it was like--

JOST: I didn't see that one.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: But she likes Fallon, you know. She--and I'm not saying this as a dis. She--I think her people really like Fallon because you know what you're going to get.

JOST: Right.

THRUSH: Like I think with Fallon, there's like--there is a sense that you are going to walk in and then you're going to walk out and nothing fundamentally will have changed on the campaign.

CHE: Well, I don't--I don't know about that, but I just know, like as--just, like, with respect to the watching, I feel like she opens up and says more, and you feel like you learn more about who she is. I think that's her problem is, like, when the camera is on, she's so--she's so political, and it's because she's so experienced. Weird that experience is kind of the knock against politicians now, you know.

JOST: Right, yeah.

CHE: I remember they were saying, "Obama, there's just no way he could be president because he's only had two years in the Senate or whatever," and now all of a sudden, they want somebody that's never been in politics before.

JOST: Right. Right.

CHE: You know, so I think, like, with her, she's such a lifelong politician that you kind of--she just--as soon as the camera is on--

THRUSH: She looks--

CHE: --she just loses everything that's charming about her.

JOST: I do think it was informative, and I believe that when Bill Clinton spoke at the convention about how she's not naturally drawn to public speaking or being in the light in that way--and I don't think she is, and I believe that. And I think that's why she's not a natural performer, and Trump clearly is. And that's, you know--

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: But do you need that to be a president?

JOST: I don't think at all, but I think that's the reason that she comes across that way.

CHE: But I think there's a lot of people who think that you do. A lot of people think a president should be the person--

JOST: Once you're president, I don't care at all.

CHE: --should be the person that can give the football speech, you know?

JOST: Like Bloomberg wasn't a natural performer in any way, but I thought he was a very good mayor. And when he came on and he spoke in times of, like, trouble, I bought what he was saying. You know, I didn't think he was performing, but I thought he was--

CHE: Other than going to sing Let It Be … right.

JOST: Yeah.

[Laughter]

JOST: That is trouble. He did. He did sing that once, right? Terrible voice.

THRUSH: No, but here's--here's why I do want to bust your balls a little bit on this stuff.

JOST: Please.

THRUSH: Because it's like--because there's an entertainment paradigm, and you guys clearly have--you know, you got to do what you got to do, right?

JOST: Yep.

THRUSH: But if Trump doesn't know what the nuclear triad is or he is lying about the wall--

CHE: He thinks it's gum.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: Let me finish my question. Stop it.

No, but if he doesn't know the basic shit you need to know to be president of the United States and he's able to charm his way through it--didn't we see this movie with W., by the way, the non-alcohol--you know, the alcoholic who doesn't drink who everyone wanted to have a beer with? Doesn't the bullshitting factor become kind of a problem in terms of running the country?

JOST: I mean, I would argue yes.

CHE: You would argue--

[Laughter]

JOST: I mean, yes.

CHE: Yes, yes.

JOST: I would argue yes. That's a problem. I mean, I feel like five people are probably pining for W. in terms of preparedness or in terms of knowledge of government.

THRUSH: Staff.

JOST: I mean--yeah, exactly. Staff. I mean, there is something--the idea of being an outsider, the thing about being an outsider for him and for Bernie, when they were running as outsiders, is neither of them was abolishing the system or the way the president works. Like they're still going to go into a system, so--and I don't think anyone wants the system abolished. They want it to work more to actually function, and--I don't know. It's--

CHE: Yeah. And, also, you got to--I mean, Obama had such a hard time getting good shit passed. I can't imagine Donald Trump just goes in and says, "All right. New rules," and he just fucking gets everything done. I just don't--I just don't imagine his--it'd be that easy for him either way. I mean--

JOST: Right.

THRUSH: The Republicans are going to give him a lot of shit.

CHE: They're going--even--like he--Obama couldn't bridge the gap between Republicans and Democrats. He had a hard enough time doing that.

JOST: Right.

CHE: Democrats and Republicans hate Donald Trump. What the fuck is he going to get passed? Who is he going to walk in and say, "All right. This is the deal"? They're going to be like, "Dude, this is not how government works. You can't just go and say we're going to build a wall."

JOST: Right.

CHE: And a lot of things have to happen first. You got to get a lot of people on your side, and I don't know that he can do that.

JOST: And it's so unlike what running a business--because when a business--

CHE: It's so unlike--

JOST: He's like, "We're building a building. Do it now."

CHE: Yeah. The buck doesn't stop there.

JOST: And there's no approval. There's no--

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: You know, and you can do that a little bit, but it's not--you can't--you know, I read an interesting article that said like that Obama actually accomplished like 75 percent to 80 percent of what he said he was going to do--

CHE: And it was done--

JOST: --in some form.

CHE: It was--and it was so hard to do.

JOST: Right.

CHE: And a lot of it was he had to fight and cry and he got--

JOST: But he was saying like that--

THRUSH: He got a ton done. I covered it. He got a ton done in the first 18 months when he had a majority.

JOST: Right.

THRUSH: And then what he learned--he had a big dip, and then what he learned in the last two years was how to use executive power.

JOST: Right.

THRUSH: So how to pass, like, stuff through the EPA and the immigration stuff.

JOST: Which is just the problem is then that's all immediately reversible.

THRUSH: Exactly.

JOST: You know, if Trump gets in, that's the thing. Like, you know, 25 percent immediate--of what he did immediately could be undone. But I think people--the argument I was reading, too, was that Trump probably--if he came in--eventually, if he was there for eight years, probably would get a lot of these things that sound crazy done. Like he probably would build some version of a wall.

THRUSH: Well, there is one now.

JOST: You know what I mean? Like--no, but, I mean, something more--like that he actually would do some of these things. Like he probably would impact--

THRUSH: Maybe he'll be like--

JOST: --threaten abortion rights, you know, things like that, but, you know--

THRUSH: Well, he's got this--the thing is we may be talking about three Supreme Court justices, or maybe the wall will be like the one they built--

CHE: That's crazy.

THRUSH: The Stonehenge thing that they built in--

JOST: Yeah.

THRUSH: --you know, in the movie. What was the movie? The rockumentary?

JOST: Rockumentary?

THRUSH: Spinal Tap.

JOST: Oh, yeah, yeah.

THRUSH: The Stonehenge was 13 inches--

JOST: Oh, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THRUSH: --tall instead of--

JOST: I thought you meant a documentary on Rocky.

THRUSH: I'm sorry.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: I'm super tired.

CHE: A documentary on Rocky. It's called the--

JOST: Rockumentary.

CHE: What is wrong with your brain, man?

THRUSH: What's wrong with my brain? Okay. That part, we will definitely cut out.

JOST: No.

CHE: I love you.

JOST: No, definitely double it. Double it.

THRUSH: One last question. Back to Hillary. So Hillary was on doing that Val--Val the Bartender skit, right?

JOST: Mm-hmm.

THRUSH: That was all she did for that one, right?

CHE: Mm-hmm.

JOST: I think--did she do a pre-tape too, or no? No. Right?

CHE: No. I think that was--

JOST: And then she had been on--the last time she had been on was maybe the year before or--I forget.

THRUSH: So you were around for that as well, right?

JOST: Mm-hmm.

CHE: Yeah.

THRUSH: What is she--what was she like when she was around?

CHE: She wasn't quite--

THRUSH: Did she have quite as much spare time?

CHE: I mean, she's got a different kind of presence, you know. There's like--when Hillary is in the building, you know it blocks and blocks away.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: That's a Clinton. You know what I mean? She fucks up traffic. You know what I mean? Trump ain't going to fuck up traffic.

JOST: No.

CHE: He just walks in, in his suit, and a brown paper bag.

[Laughter]

CHE: Combs and gum. His Trident gum.

[Laughter]

JOST: His Trident gum. He did have a lot of mints and gum.

CHE: But Clinton--Clinton, there's a presence with Clinton, you feel like you're in a room with, but I feel like--

JOST: And there's an entourage.

CHE: There's a huge entourage.

JOST: It's like when--

CHE: There's Secret Service, yeah. There's like--

JOST: --LeBron hosted, there's just an entourage.

CHE: Yeah. It's like a big deal, but--

THRUSH: Did she have a bigger entourage than LeBron did?

JOST: Yes, but only in terms of security. You know, she had more--I mean, she had Secret Service.

CHE: But way less jewelry.

JOST: Yeah.

[Laughter]

THRUSH: Like LeBron. That's--it sounds like a yard sign: Like LeBron but with way less jewelry.

CHE: Way less jewelry.

THRUSH: What was she--you mentioned you did break through a little bit and got to talk with her. What was she--what kind of--what was the secret sauce and kind of getting to know her, and what did you--what did you guys talk about?

CHE: Well, I only met her in the meetings because I didn't work on that sketch, and she wasn't there for--she wasn't hosting, so she wasn't there with all of her writers.

THRUSH: Right.

CHE: She was there for that period. I didn't work on that sketch, but I remember in the meeting before the show, like seeing her take notes and all of that stuff, and she was just like just chilling on a chair. Matter of fact, I was standing next to her when she was getting her notes and stuff. It was like she's just a lady.

JOST: Yeah.

CHE: She's just a bubbly lady.

JOST: No, she was--yeah. She was--I just talked to her because I talked to her about some fire department stuff. So I went in and talked to her, and she was immediately very, you know, nice and got up and gave me a hug and was very like--just remembered my mom and was nice, and it was--yeah.

THRUSH: And she really tuned in on that stuff, right?

JOST: Yeah. I think that's a big thing for--you know, I think that was a big thing for her.

THRUSH: Yeah.

JOST: It's such a weird thing because when you see the empathy difference or the affecting-people difference between the two of them.

CHE: Yeah. What's the thing outside of politics that Donald Trump really has showed that--what's the thing that he really cared about and he was--and he was on the front line for? You know, like that's--that's the thing I think people need to ask themselves. Like when he's not trying to sell you something, what--

JOST: Right.

CHE: --do you know about him?

JOST: Right.

CHE: You know, like when he's trying to say that, "I'm for this cause" or "This has affected me deeply," like what tweet did he send out where he was really like, "I want to do something for these people," with all those billions and all his--the best, smartest guys or whatever? I think that's something that people aren't really asking. They're just saying--

THRUSH: She can't project it, but you, Colin--

JOST: Well--

THRUSH: Yeah. What was it? I mean--

JOST: No. She--the thing--I just think--look at both of them. They're both clearly, you know--they're both clearly driven people.

THRUSH: Yes.

JOST: They're both clearly opportunistic. They lie at times, you know. They both have made a lot of money and have gotten a lot of power in their lives, but look at the results. And who else has benefited from that? I think in his case, there have been some jobs created by his company, but also a lot of people that were like--that were in bad places, both stiffed when he was building things, but also investors in his company that never got their money back and he was paid first.

THRUSH: Right.

JOST: She--even if you assume the worst about her and she's ruthless and power hungry and conniving, she's clearly helped people along the way, and people have benefited when she was a senator, when she was--she's also been serving--and yes, she's made money from that, and she's gotten power from that, and so has he.

THRUSH: But in your personal interactions with her, when you were talking about her, you sensed that, that she really gave a shit about the issues that you were--or was it just like a--

JOST: No, but I do think she--I think she cares when she--like I don't know--remembers things that were important in that way and interactions in that way, you know. I don't know. I think that resonates in some way for her, and the thing I thought that was the best was her video before her speech--

THRUSH: In the convention.

JOST: --at the convention.

THRUSH: It was fantastic.

JOST: Which you saw her very naturally talking about what's important, where I came from, the way she was raised, you know, having a hard life.

CHE: Then she ruined it with that big old Jumbotron.

[Laughter]

JOST: It was so great.

CHE: So weird. She looked like the Power Ranger boss or something, like why? Why do that at the end?

[Laughter]

THRUSH: Yeah, that was weird.

All right. This really is the last--

JOST: Similar outfits also.

CHE: Very similar outfits.

THRUSH: No, the one that got me was when Trump is coming through the mist at the convention of the WWE thing.

JOST: It's great.

CHE: Oh, it was perfect.

THRUSH: It was just the best.

JOST: And I don't think--and I don't think he's like--I don't--really don't think he's a bad person in that way. I think he's a businessman, and so that's the way he's thinking about things and "I've made a lot of money," but who else is benefiting from that money, you know?

THRUSH: From the money. And particularly with the charity stuff.

Last question, same one for each one of you.

CHE: We're from New York, man. There's no--Donald Trump is from New York. I don't ever remember a Donald Trump Summer Youth League, you know? I don't remember anything--

JOST: Jerseys, they were wearing, Trump baseball jerseys.

CHE: Trump Summer Camp, Trump nothing. Like what has he--and it just boggles my mind that poor people are like, "He's going to help us." Like he's--

THRUSH: Where's Michael Moore?

CHE: --from here. He's not helped us yet.

THRUSH: Look at--I mean, like the juxtaposition against Bloomberg is startling. Well, first of all, Bloomberg really does have as much money as he says he has.

CHE: No, that's true.

THRUSH: Bloomberg actually hides the amount of money that--he downplays the amount of money he's got.

CHE: I owe Bloomberg money, personally, so he has money he hasn't even collected.

JOST: You have one of his terminals that you have not paid for.

Bloomberg is like a real Trump.

[Laughter]

JOST: You know, it's like--it's like, you know--

THRUSH: You humble me with this. You're good at this shit.

All right. Okay. So here's the last two questions, same questions for each one of you. I'm not going to say you covered this. You kind of cover it, right? Do you like politicians? Do you like politics?

CHE: I don't like politics, personally, but I don't feel like our job isn't to like politics or our job isn't even to cover politics because I feel like for comedy, it's more so--I always attack the social part of it, like what are you trying to say to me, and how are you saying it, and why--and where's the bullshit coming from, and where's the game coming from? Like that's kind of where I try to attack because I couldn't tell you all of the quotes and facts and stats of politics and who voted what or whatever, but I know when the guy is selling me bullshit. And I know when a guy is probably genuine. You know, you try to just read people. It's more about the people connection, you know?

THRUSH: Well, put that litmus to this year. Who's--yeah.

CHE: Well, for instance, like when I say "Donald Trump," I don't know exactly what Donald Trump's politics are. Like I don't even--because he has no politics. He's just saying what he would do and what he wouldn't do, but I don't really know what they are.

But I could say "Well, Donald Trump, what have you really done for anybody" that lets me know he probably would do something like that for me when he's in that position. Just now you're going to be a good guy?

And it's the same thing with the racism. Just now you're a racist? Just now you're a Christian? We've known you for 30 years, and now we find out you're a gun nut? When? That never came up.

JOST: You carry a gun all the time.

CHE: You've been a celebrity--like a celebrity for so long, and not once have you said, "You know, my favorite book is the Bible." You know, like not once, it never came up. "As much as you talk, you've never mentioned the Bible until you were running."

THRUSH: There must be a Trump Bible somewhere.

CHE: I've stayed at Trump hotels. Not once have I seen a fucking Bible in the nightstand.

JOST: It's the same as a Tijuana Bible.

CHE: Ever, never.

JOST: That's a great point.

THRUSH: How about you? You shook your head too. You're not so into politics?

CHE: That's where the comedy is for me.

JOST: That's great, yeah.

THRUSH: Well, it's figuring out where the hypocrisy is.

CHE: Yeah, because--

JOST: It's funny that none of that's come out before.

CHE: Because that's the connection people have when they hear these people talk. That's really--they're buying into people. Most people don't follow politics.

JOST: Right.

CHE: Most people follow people, and that's--

JOST: And hate it, and they're like this--

CHE: Most people hate politics, and it shows by they saying, "We don't want a politician. We want a guy that talks like us," and, you know, I feel like