Who Is Government? Storytime with Michael Lewis

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

Comedy Central

Politics, News, News Commentary, Comedy

4.5 • 7.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the Trump administration targets the federal workforce, we're joined by Michael Lewis, editor of and contributor to The New York Times bestselling collection "WHO IS GOVERNMENT?: The Untold Story of Public Service.” Together, they explore the vital yet uncelebrated work of civil servants, discuss why negative perceptions of them persist, and consider what we may lose amid DOGE’s chainsawing. Plus, learn what your relationship with your mother says about your relationship with government. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more: > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6	Hello everybody. Welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart. I will be your weekly show podcast host on this celebratory. We are taping this on Wednesday, April 2nd, as we all know it. Liberation Day. It is Liberation Day, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know how you
0:55.6	traditionally celebrate with your families, but Liberation Day was always, always big. I may go
1:00.7	down to Times Square today and see soldiers kissing nurses and see the people throwing their hats in
1:06.4	the air. Three cheers for Liberation Day. It's the day that we all remember where Jesus rose from the
1:15.4	tomb and raised prices on Honda Civics by $2,000 a car. And I think we all remember how that goes.
1:24.8	You know, this is prior to the announcement. So God knows there may not,
1:29.5	it may not be tariffs. It may be something else. The unpredictability of all this is probably
1:34.4	part of what's driving all the attention to it, which is, I would assume Donald Trump's
1:41.3	whole plan because God knows the man likes nothing more than a bunch of people,
1:46.2	not knowing what he's going to do and hanging on his every word. And oh, he's just so important
1:54.0	to all of us. Meanwhile, Cory Booker, I don't know if you guys, look, I'm not a big performative,
2:20.3	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 Thurman's horrible filibuster record when Strom Thurman, I guess it was in the late 50s, filibustered the Civil Rights Act, because sure, why wouldn't you try and prevent that from ever happening?
2:22.3	But to see Cory Booker up there, and again,
2:24.3	forget about his verbal abilities,
2:27.3	because they are massive.
2:30.3	The ability to stand and speak,
2:33.3	even if you've got some preparation
	...

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