4:00

not much there for us.

4:03

Also, those debates tend to be

4:05

pretty uninspiring to me. As a

4:07

form of entertainment, yeah,

4:10

you could definitely be entertained by

4:12

what happened. But what

4:14

they actually mean, I don't know

4:16

yet. It

4:18

is pretty depressing that it's

4:20

this close. That's I guess

4:22

my aftertaste from it, that

4:25

it's still this close when

4:28

everyone can see what you can see

4:30

in that debate. It's hard

4:32

not to find that somewhere

4:34

between depressing, infuriating and outrageous.

4:38

Last week tonight has been on the air for 10 years. Yeah.

4:42

And that maps pretty neatly

4:44

onto the Trump era. You sounded like you

4:46

were about to sigh then. It's

4:48

been on for 10 years. No, that's

4:50

not what I was doing. Let

4:52

me be clear. But

4:56

when you look back, what are

4:58

the biggest ways that you think the show has changed?

5:01

So when we first began, we were doing

5:03

our main story in

5:05

one week. Then it became clear that was a

5:07

crazy thing to do. It was a terrible way

5:09

to set it up because we would

5:12

come up with an idea for a story, start

5:14

writing three days later, research would

5:16

come in and should wipe away everything that we'd just

5:18

written. So now you're trying to write the show in

5:20

two days and that's not a good idea. So

5:23

now the answer to how

5:25

our show has changed is that we write

5:27

those main stories in six weeks. So we're

5:29

writing six stories at one time. So

5:32

that doesn't really relate to Trump's role in the

5:34

last 10 years, but in terms of the development

5:36

of our show, that is the most critical part

5:38

of it. It's

5:41

funny, going back to the first season as

5:43

a viewer, I found it to be remarkably

5:46

similar. No, I mean, yeah, there's a consistency

5:48

there. I mean, it is a compliment. I

5:50

was literally wincing both inside and outside. I

5:52

saw you wincing. You did this face like,

5:55

what is she going to say? I don't

5:57

do many interviews about myself. So I am

5:59

kind of emotionally. in a defensive position. And

6:02

unfortunately, I think it's translating to my face. Because

6:07

every time I say something, it's just your

6:09

face looks like you're absolutely, you know, having

6:11

a very, very difficult bowel movement. And so

6:13

I'm sorry. Wow.

6:19

Let me start again. All right. You

6:22

know, there is a consistency there. And

6:25

it does seem like you understood what you were

6:27

up to quite early on. I

6:29

think we learned some big lessons early on,

6:31

because I guess

6:34

one of them would be, we did one story

6:36

called Prisons. And it was about

6:38

16 minutes. And that seemed like a long

6:40

time at the time. And I think what

6:42

we gradually learned was it

6:45

is crazy to try and talk about all

6:48

the problems with

6:50

Prisons in 16 minutes, especially if two

6:52

of those minutes are going to be a song with

6:54

Sesame Street characters at the end. So

6:57

since then, we've basically come back

6:59

and redone that story in 20

7:01

different ways. Because we've talked about

7:03

prison labor, prison phone calls, prison

7:05

recidivism, prison reentry. Like, there

7:08

are so many different aspects

7:10

to criminal justice that you can't just slap

7:13

Prisons on it and say, oh, we've done

7:15

it now. It was in hindsight, I look

7:17

back at that and do slightly wince thinking,

7:20

oh, man, we're moving really fast

7:22

through some incredibly complicated aspects

7:24

of this problem that deserve a lot more

7:27

attention than we're giving it. You

7:30

know, you obviously say you don't do journalism. Yeah.

7:33

I do see you as a sort of opinion

7:35

columnist, though. I mean, it does seem like an

7:37

extended, very pointed, very

7:40

deliberate crafting of an

7:43

argument that you want people to

7:45

understand. Does that resonate for you? Maybe.

7:47

I mean, I think certainly by the end of

7:49

the story, like the last few minutes of the

7:51

story is opinion, right?

7:55

Whenever we're saying, so what can we do, everything

7:57

after that probably is an opinion because people will.

12:01

taking something that has absolutely nothing to

12:03

do with the subject at hand and

12:05

just putting in something completely absurd, to

12:08

lighten it, to give it levity, to just have

12:11

it be a kind of mood breaker, or using

12:14

things that are very much to do with the

12:16

issue at hand but are funny

12:18

in and of themselves because people have said

12:20

absurd things or they've done things that are

12:22

just kind of crazy. Is

12:25

that the kind of stuff that you're looking

12:27

for, the material that you're looking for, after you've

12:29

done the bones of this kind of big

12:31

endeavor? You mean

12:33

once we've got the outlines of the story itself?

12:35

Yes, definitely. That is the challenge for the writers.

12:38

And it's a really hard challenge, but it's a really satisfying one as

12:40

well. And we

12:43

try our best to put

12:45

the writers in a position where they can succeed. But I think

12:47

we've got better at that over the years. In

12:49

the past, we would sometimes

12:52

be handing them stuff that is so dry and

12:54

so bleak. They justifiably

12:56

would be sitting there going, what do you want

12:58

me to do with this? Like,

13:00

this is a horrendous episode of like

13:02

a comedic chopped. I can't give you

13:04

a cake out of these ingredients.

13:07

So now we try and troubleshoot that on the

13:10

way in so that they have enough stuff which

13:13

is light and funny enough that they

13:15

can attack

13:17

the material more directly so that you vary

13:19

the jokes. When

13:21

it comes to pacing out the clips

13:24

of the show, that is something that

13:26

we look at constantly.

13:28

But I guess that the first time that we

13:31

really reckon with it is when we get

13:33

the writers outlines and we combine them. Because

13:35

then we're literally putting the story up on

13:37

flashcards so that you can see it. And

13:41

this is going to sound ridiculous, but we

13:43

literally have like a blue

13:46

star sticker that

13:48

we stick on a clip that's

13:50

really sad and

13:52

red stars and ones that are very funny. And

13:55

so you want to make sure that you, in

13:57

terms of a blue star, talking

30:00

about the label of journalism. And I

30:02

didn't want you to feel like

30:04

I was dodging it there. I

30:06

guess just to be completely clear, we

30:10

really don't elide the

30:12

responsibility of that term. The

30:15

accuracy of our show is so, so

30:18

important to us. We go to lengths

30:20

that I think many would

30:22

find absurd from the outside in terms

30:24

of accuracy. We recheck, report,

30:26

interject that it is still valid. When we

30:28

show people in clips, we try and contact

30:30

as many of them as we can to

30:32

check that they felt their story was told

30:34

accurately and whether there's any other context

30:37

that we should know. We do

30:39

so much and the

30:41

responsibility of that label is

30:43

really important. It just doesn't apply to

30:46

me. And I guess the thing that

30:48

I wanted to get to the bottom of because it seemed

30:50

interesting to me was because this comes up quite a lot

30:52

and this felt like it would be, this

30:55

kind of conversation feels like it might be a good time to get

30:57

to the bottom of it. I was

30:59

wondering why it's so interesting to

31:02

you or why getting

31:04

to a fuller answer, is it that you

31:07

feel like I've dodged in

31:10

the past and how would you feel if I said yes

31:13

to that, that I am a journalist? Because

31:15

my sense is you'd feel, no, you're not, rightly.

31:19

I think the reason it comes

31:22

up a lot is because there

31:24

is a sense that you are

31:26

a news source but

31:28

you don't have the

31:31

constraints that journalists have.

31:34

You can, for example, take a

31:36

topic that is very complicated

31:38

and difficult and put in

31:40

a lot of jokes to make

31:43

it arch or funny,

31:46

to sort of move the audience in

31:48

a particular direction. And so

31:50

I think there is this

31:52

sort of dissonance that

31:55

happens when journalists like myself

31:57

are engaging with this. We're curious about how

31:59

you... view yourself. I mean, I don't think

32:01

it's like a, it's not a knock. It's

32:03

more just trying to understand

32:06

how you view yourself and your show and

32:08

where it sits in the ecosystem, right? That's

32:11

it. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that is

32:13

where much of the show would be, I

32:16

guess to that first comparison you made would

32:18

be more editorial, right? It's just

32:20

that I guess what I, I guess

32:22

when I recoiled at being

32:25

described as an op-ed was, was

32:28

not wanting the worst version of that to be

32:30

applied to this show, not just someone deciding, I'm

32:33

going to say my opinion because it is not

32:35

just that. To

32:37

get back to a point that I wanted to make, because

32:39

I think this is useful to the discussion that we've been

32:41

having is, do you remember which episode it was that got

32:43

you bouncing in your chair? I do.

32:45

And it was an episode recently because I

32:47

remember the literal bounce and it wasn't, it

32:49

was, we were working on an

32:51

episode about the West Bank. And I think

32:54

what I was so excited about

32:56

was the challenges that were ahead

32:58

of us and the material that

33:00

we were gathering and

33:03

the opportunity that we had. And it really felt to

33:05

me in working on that story, it felt like, oh,

33:07

this is the point of having a show where you

33:09

can talk about whatever you want to talk about. This

33:12

is kind of using that incredible

33:16

opportunity to do something

33:19

hard. I

33:22

found this episode fascinating. I was in

33:24

Jerusalem as a reporter for many, many

33:26

years. This stuff is

33:29

really hard. Yeah. That episode

33:31

talks about the Israeli settlements. And

33:33

you really tried to parse what is

33:36

very complicated and very nuanced. And you

33:38

packed a lot in. So

33:40

what was the reception after it went out? I'm

33:45

sure some people liked it. Some people loved it.

33:47

And some people hated it. Do you

33:49

pay attention to that? I

33:52

like paying a little bit of

33:54

attention in the wake of

33:57

our stories, especially regarding

33:59

how experts

34:01

respond to it

34:03

in stories in general. I

34:06

know that people aren't always gonna agree with

34:08

the conclusions that we land on,

34:11

but I do want experts

34:13

to think that the information that

34:16

we presented is accurate. It

34:20

raises this question for me about something you

34:22

said when we first talked. Basically,

34:24

that you ultimately see the show

34:26

and the stories you focus on

34:28

as a vehicle to write jokes.

34:31

Yeah. And I can see that

34:33

logic when you're doing a piece about corn or

34:35

UFOs, for example. Well,

34:38

it's very funny. And you don't see the

34:40

logic applying to something that's more complicated. You don't

34:42

do a half an hour about one of

34:45

the most contentious issues in

34:47

the world because it's comedy

34:50

gold, do you? Oh, I

34:52

mean, that's an interesting perspective.

34:55

I guess comedy is the

34:58

way I handle the world. So it's

35:02

the darkest moments of my life. I

35:05

still find myself compelled to try

35:07

and make jokes, either to take the weight

35:09

off some of what's happening or

35:12

to sometimes to feel

35:14

what's happening a bit more. I find

35:17

people employing comedy at

35:20

moments of tragedy incredibly

35:24

meaningful. I know some might find it

35:26

glib or offensive. To

35:30

me, it is the absolute opposite

35:32

of that when done well. I

35:34

still think one of the best

35:39

moments in late night comedy over

35:41

the last decade was

35:43

Jimmy Kimmel talking about his

35:47

son, Billy's heart surgery. It

35:50

was incredibly generous to

35:53

be so emotionally honest and raw. It

35:56

was incredibly brave to be that

35:59

honest. knowing that people were gonna ask

36:02

him how his son was every

36:04

day for the rest of his life after that. And,

36:06

and this is the most important thing to me, it

36:09

was really funny. And the fact

36:11

that he was telling jokes while choking through

36:13

tears was the thing that really,

36:18

really meant something to me. It

36:21

was more sincere because he

36:24

was communicating through jokes. Explain

36:26

that to me, it was more sincere because he

36:28

was communicating through jokes. Because

36:31

it's the, I love comedy so much. It

36:33

is, like I said, it has been, it's

36:35

my favorite thing just in

36:38

general in the world. So

36:40

I do not see

36:43

a distinction between how could

36:45

you joke about this. For me,

36:47

it's more like, how could you not? How

36:49

could you not tell jokes

36:51

about a situation that is

36:54

absolutely absurd? Darkly

36:57

absurd, but absurd. Does

37:01

that make sense? And that would apply to

37:03

the West Bank too. Do

37:06

you think it also gives, I'm thinking of

37:08

Jimmy Kimmel in particular, do you think it

37:10

also gives people access to very uncomfortable emotions?

37:13

Probably, and for me, look, I'm

37:15

British, right? So my

37:18

ability to deal with

37:20

my emotions is and

37:23

has been limited at best. The

37:26

very fact that I'm telling you, yeah, I

37:28

find it better to laugh at things rather

37:30

than feel them sincerely as a human being

37:32

says something. What I found

37:34

so meaningful about Jimmy's thing was

37:36

I had had, our

37:42

first child's pregnancy was really

37:44

difficult. And I just couldn't, I

37:47

couldn't talk about it in general. I certainly could not

37:49

do anything as generous as decided to talk about it

37:51

publicly so that the people who would also

37:54

experience situations like that could

37:56

feel that their experiences could

37:58

feel Wynnes being. reflected back at

38:01

them, I didn't have the emotional

38:03

ability or even the comedic abilities to do that.

38:05

So that's why I was so in awe of

38:08

what he was doing in the crucible

38:10

of that pain. It

38:12

was just this absolutely incredible

38:15

as a comedian, what

38:17

he managed to do. And yet for me, the

38:20

fact I was laughing along with

38:22

the lump in my throat made it

38:24

way more impactful for me. Has

38:27

being apparent exacerbated that burn

38:30

it down feeling that

38:32

you mentioned about some of the ways the world

38:34

is messed up or the opposite? I

38:37

do remember after the Brexit

38:39

boat happened, looking at my

38:42

baby son and thinking, oh,

38:46

this is sad, your horizons have slightly contracted because he

38:48

would have been able to have a British passport which

38:50

would have been an EU passport, meaning that he could

38:53

live or work anywhere in the EU, which for young

38:55

people in Britain was a

38:57

massively consequential thing

38:59

to have access to. My little

39:02

sister left college, went

39:04

straight to France, started

39:06

washing dishes in a

39:08

bakery, ended up learning to bake, now she's

39:10

a pastry chef. Like the

39:12

ability to move, having those

39:14

borders opened, massively consequential. And

39:16

so I will say there was a selfish

39:18

side of me watching that boat, looking down

39:20

at me thinking, oh, your world got smaller.

39:23

That's very sad. But

39:26

no, in general, my feeling of let's

39:29

burn it down when we're

39:31

at a point of researching a story where

39:34

things seem utterly hopeless and

39:37

the history that we have of working through that

39:39

despair, partly

39:41

by seeing the incremental changes

39:44

that are possible, that's

39:47

probably pretty consistent. I don't think

39:49

they've really changed. I

39:52

think they've changed my disgust with the

39:54

political process and my hope for

39:56

better. Are you

39:58

gonna talk about that with your kids?