Diallo Riddle and and Bashir Salahuddin channeled their nostalgia musical variety shows like Soul Train and Solid Gold into a hilarious new parody series Sherman's Showcase on IFC. They reveal how they lured artists like John Legend to the show and why all musicians are secretly aspiring comedians. They recall drinking with Lorne Michaels, writing sketches for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and how Sherman's Showcase gave them an opportunity to do all the sketches that were too risky for network television. They reminisce meeting at Harvard, starting their own sketch group just to get better parts, and being on the ground floor of the Youtube comedy boom. Plus Frederick Douglass sells hai

Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake have served as the top cyber security experts to three Presidents, and they discuss their new book The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. They discuss Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and say that Russia will almost certainly try it again in 2020. They warn against the folly of continuing to allow local state bureaucrats to ensure the integrity of America’s electronic voting machines and suggest that Russia’s 2015 shutdown of Ukraine’s power grid might have been a dry run for a similar attack on the grid here in the US. Clarke predicts that the next war that America enters will like

#1 Best-selling spy novelist Daniel Silva's books closely mirror world events, and he reveals how the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi led him to toss out 250 pages of his latest novel and start over. The New Girl is the 19th book in his wildly successful Gabriel Allon series, and he says that he never imagined that his most popular character would last more than one book. Daniel discusses the similarities and differences between his fictional Saudi Prince and the brutal Mohammed bin Salman and why he believes that Russia may have had something to do with President Trump’s decision to give bin Salman a pass on the Khashoggi murder. Daniel recalls his start as a journalist working at C

Joy Ann-Reid is the host of MSNBC's A.M. Joy and she discusses her new book The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story. She says only a New Yorker who lived in the city during the turbulent 70s and 80s can truly understand the rise of Donald Trump. She likens that era to the lawlessness of Gotham City, and says that if NYC is Gotham than Trump is the Joker sowing chaos at every opportunity. She tells the story of her parents' immigration from Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and suggests that America could learn something about healing racial divides from post-Apartheid South Africa. Looking ahead to 2020, Joy believes that unregistered voters

Silicon Valley icon Guy Kawasaki recalls his childhood in Hawaii, his start in the jewelry business, and how his skills at jewelry sales came in surprisingly handy when he became chief evangelist for Macintosh. He talks about personally witnessing the genius and dark side of Apple founder Steve Jobs, he shares some rules that he calls "the Gospel According to Steve," and opens up about the argument that led him to quit Apple in the 90s. He talks about honor and honesty in the tech industry, his litmus test for doing business with someone, and why many of his best deals are done on a handshake. He shares plenty of of sage marketing advice including what he calls "Guy’s Golden Rule" and give

In the President's campaign against what he calls “Fake News,” CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta has become public enemy number one, but Acosta warns that Trump's attacks on the press could have dangerous consequences for America. Jim reveals some of the tricks that the White House uses to skew media coverage and avoid tough questions, and he says that the President’s war on the truth is changing journalism itself as reporters have to do double-duty as "real-time fact-checkers." He shares some of the bone-chilling threats he receives from Trump supporters at rallies and on social media and reports that hateful anti-media rhetoric only got worse during the 2018 midterms. He

Adam Savage (Mythbusters, Mythbusters Junior) talks about building a working prototype of Marvel’s Iron Man suit for his new series Savage Builds and what it was like to fly around with tiny jet engines strapped to his forearms. He discusses how Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson helped him take to the skies in a real World War I dogfight, why Adam's attempt recreate one of World War II’s most bizarre contraptions was less than successful, and how it served as a lesson in the importance of embracing your failures. Adam talks about his love of juggling and magic, his friendship with magician and skeptic the Amazing Randy, his own relationship with the skeptic community, and how he discove

Today's episode is a rerun of a previous podcast that aired December 3, 2018 with guest Trevor Noah. Trevor talks about his standup special TREVOR NOAH: SON OF PATRICIA and why he dedicated it to his mom whom he calls “the first comedian that he ever saw” and “most gangster human being you’ll ever meet in your life.” He discusses growing up in South Africa during Apartheid, the power of humor to fight oppression, and why he believes that hateful words aren’t nearly as important as addressing the hate itself. He shares how the 2016 election affected his own vision for THE DAILY SHOW, why the current President reminds him of certain African dictators, and how he deciphers what’s news and w

Pulitzer Prize-winning Conservative columnist George Will answers the fundamental question “what is it that conservatives mean to conserve" and suggests that modern conservatives are losing sight of that purpose. He extolls James Madison’s belief in the importance of natural rights and government’s role in protecting them, and he makes that case against his fellow Princetonian Woodrow Wilson as the person who did the most to unravel the Founders’ vision. George discusses his decision to change his political affiliation from Republican to Independent in 2016, why he still can’t make the leap to the Libertarian Party, and why he believes it would be better to vote for Joe Biden over Donald T