how do you balance the seriousness of a topic like this with trying to be funny and make jokes about it I feel like you're thinking that I wrote that question because the first thing I said to everybody who brought this because this is my third or fourth border Southern border piece I did a piece with dual say when Trump with the Tijana San Diego border I did a piece where I dressed as a part of Trump's wall called bricky the border wall and went to a trump rally I did a border piece with you wh
ere Americans were crossing daily into Mexico in yum Arizona to get dental care and you had dental surgery in that piece yeah dental surgery in that piece and then I did this piece and my initial reaction when when someone says hey it's a southern border piece s Costa I go is is really hard to be funny it's really hard to be funny with this topic there's baby shoes next to the Rio Grand River as all Daily Show pieces I think we did get some funny moments but it's hard because it's real it's this
isn't like uh it's not a light subject but the hypocrisy of claiming it's a problem and then refusing to solve it is is a good yeah there's there there's good room there for comedy and I think in this case we had the whole all of the hype and the propaganda Around The Invasion and the Fox News angle and the politicians saying the same thing again and again and we could sort of play off of that yeah so we weren't actually really talking about the actual sad tragic reality we're talking about the
fake [ __ ] reality and it's good that we had that conversation many times before the piece because we had a clear hook to hang our hat on I mean ladies and gentlemen the [ __ ] like North Dakota governor is down there Governors that believe the border is a is a campaign strategy for them go down there even though their state is 3,000 miles away I mean it's just like 100% they use this little Park that had to cancel its abzo Festival to get re reelection in Louisiana it's just insane right it's
almost like you have to go if you're a republican governor and you have to send fish and game or whatever random office you have left I think what did it for me cuz I was a little bit hesitant about the piece in the beginning like not going um you know before we went was that 13 or 14 Republican Governor showing up it just it's such a photo op right it's not they don't give a [ __ ] they're not trying to solve the problem they're there to show their most extreme base I'm a hard ass I support pu
tting barbwire down so um I thought Biden might have had something when he he had gotten this bipartisan bill at least part of it moving forward um I was excited about that but then obviously it got killed so then I'm back to my back to being a little pessimistic about it yeah one thing I want to jump back to is you talked about how hard it is to be funny in this pieces in these pieces and I think it is it is a bit trickier because it's it's kind of a risk you don't want to seem glib or come off
like an [ __ ] by making jokes around something that is very painful and uh you know sad but I think there are some very funny moments in the piece are there tell me about them uh I I think that some of the organic conversations yeah with the people we talk to like the Democratic chairwoman who was calling the um politicians pendos and then the back and forth between what is a pendo right is a political stunt the Republican pendos who don't give a damn I minored in Spanish but I forgot pendos i
t mean politician well it's kind of a heavier word than idiots mother uh not as heavy not as heavy as [ __ ] but heavier than idiots stupid somewhere between motherucker and idiot uh I would say so you know that is a a funny absurd thing that you're not going to see in any other news story about The Border crisis and it kind of says something about how people see the politician you know well and you know look I've made my own bed I've told Jen flans the executive producer many many times I want
the hard pieces I want this show to rely on me to be able to pull off these things right because I though my favorite Comics can do that but when you're boarding the flight for Eagle Pass you go why did I say that [Music] n
Comments
It's refreshing to see Michael natural, not in his comedic role. He's an integral part to the Daily Show crew. 💚
It's really nice to see Kosta speak out of character for a minute. You know there's a reasonable, thoughtful person in there, but much like Colbert did during his Report days, he plays his character so well and so consistently that it's just cool to see him take off the mask.
Texan here and I would like to thank you guys for showing the absurdity of it all.
Props to the Daily Show team for putting so much thought into a way of tactfully covering these stories in a comedic way. Dig the retrospective on the piece.
I LOVE this behind the scenes. Especially because it shows that great comedy is often hard, and it is ALWAYS hard work.
I remember John Oliver did a piece on how overrun Mt. Everest is, so he created a website where you can get photoshopped onto the top of the mountain. Maybe you can do something similar for Republican governors and the border so they don't have to waste jet fuel and taxpayer money just for a photo?
I love Michael Costa he’s so down to earth
Really great to see the thought process behind pieces like this.
I love it when comedians can bring humour to awful situations without punching down, being glib, or belittling the issue 😍 This is also the first time I've seen Kosta out of character and I respect his humour so much more now 💙
Thank you for always bringing to light such dark issues ❤
Loved her explanation of the nuanced meanings of pendejo! 😂❤🤣
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾Thank you for bringing sanity & humanity to this.
HA! As a former resident of North Dakota, thanks for calling out the NoDak Gov when they are actually on a border but don't worry about "illegal" Canadians ('cause it's clearly about race and privilege).
I wish all the best for Michael, he's really embodying the Daily Show's original correspondences!
Courageous work showing how embracing absurdities perpetuates atrocities.
So true, Kosta. Just a photo-op!!!!! Tragic.
It's a great piece. He is perfect for the job.
Great job, Kosta! Thank you for what you do.
I felt SO sorry for the people living in that town. How do they not go ballistic?
Any time I hear people talk about the definition of the word "pendejo", I think of a bit from an episode of Burn Notice, where it's revealed that the main character somehow never learned Spanish among all the languages he's fluent in, and has to rely on other people to translate for him. Two different people give the exact same explanation of the word "pendejo": "like idiot, but ruder."