Charles Yu

Thank you. Amazing. Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Man, it's so good to see you again. The first time I met you was on this show. It is, yes. All those years ago. When you were on with Trevor. Yeah, that was Trevor. And you came back. It was really nice. No, I come back to meet all the Asians. only.

Yeah, so you were my showrunner and executive producer on this TV show. And there was a lot of stuff I couldn't ask you at the time. But now that you're a guest on my show, I got some questions for you. First of all, between me, Chloe Bennett, and Jimmy O. Yang, who got paid the most? You don't have to be specific, but just indicate who was the highest paid one and I'll be sure. Okay.

Taika Waititi. Oh, Taika. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Oh, yeah. Taika was also the director of the pilot and he was the EP on the show as well. And you have a working relationship with him? I do.

But how did you get to work with him?

Oh, so he actually worked on this based on the strength of, it wasn't a pre-existing relationship. It was something you showed him your work on this project. Right. I think so. Yeah. I don't know. No, it must have been, right? You didn't know him before. You're too modest. You don't understand. You showed him the project and it wasn't like you guys were friends before.

Biden might have at least one fun thing planned for his last few days in office.

A little bit before.

And how was it like working with him? I asked you last. I asked myself. That scene is... How was it? Oh, it was great. It was great. I thought he was great. I thought he came and he was so creatively free. I've never seen someone who was that... I think we all aspire to be as free creatively as him.

I mean, it's a creative collaboration, but it was me, really. I remember when that... No, I'm just saying.

Well, I mean, we kind of launched into it, but, you know, the problem is, like, I feel like I did the press tour with you for this show, and everyone wants, like, the elevator pitch for this show, which is so annoying, because it's just like, tell me in five seconds, or I won't watch it. But now that we have time, and this is my show now, so freaking, you know, f*** the elevator pitch.

Like, tell us what the show's about.

I don't know if I can get my leg up here. Thanks for trying to sell that. I didn't need you to... We sell these socks enough on this show. Everyone's really angry about it. Paramount's trying to take a cut of this. What's the non-elevator pitch for this show?

Right. And how much money did Jimmy make on this show per episode? He's still going at it. Yeah. Okay. So, because this will help my contract negotiations. If I... Did he get a companion ticket for this? Could you bring, because sometimes I try to bring my wife on the, you know. Yeah. Let's talk about the, we'll do the contract stuff after.

One thing I really love about this book is that it's not written, in my opinion, it's not written in a traditional narrative. And as someone who, narrative structure, I mean, you know, because it starts off as a screenplay and then it kind of, you know, it becomes like a, I don't want to spoil it, but it becomes almost like a legal drama.

In my opinion, it doesn't, as someone who's, or anyone out there who's watching, who's trying to write something original, it's kind of out of a template, you know, because oftentimes when we're making stuff now, I feel like we're just kind of reduced to filling in a template. for how a story should go, act one, act two, act three, you know, whatever the Dan Harmon hero's journey.

Man, pardons are getting so confusing. I mean, it used to be that you had to commit a crime to be pardoned, but now Biden has to do this weird, like, minority report pre-pardon thing where it's like, hey, we know you didn't do anything, but Trump thinks you did something, so I'm going to pardon you for anything you did, even though you didn't do it. It's what our founders would have wanted.

So how did you manage to break out of that rule, you know, when you're writing this book?

Right. And it's also rare that someone who, you know, wrote the book on it and it got adapted into a TV series. It's kind of rare for like the author of the book to be so intimately involved in the making of the TV show, you know, not just show running, but actually writing it. with a team of writers, but you were head writing it. So, I mean, would you have trusted anyone else to adapt this?

I guess is the question.

I got a few more questions for you here. I think this is the only time we'll ever be able to talk about this on American TV, but why is it so difficult talking about being an Asian man in America?

You don't play a discrimination Olympics here.

Also, also, who in their right mind would reject a presidential pardon? I mean, do you want to go to jail? That's where Diddy is. OK, look, if you're going to reject a pardon, just give it to me. OK, I'll take it. Hand it over. I'll probably need it if Donald Trump comes after me for political satire, speaking truth to power or opening a credit card in my roommate's name. All right.

Well, there is some trauma in it. I mean, it's not completely no trauma. You're being modest again with the discrimination. I, you know, your background is also very interesting. I mean, I'm just, right now I'm just trying to get a raise from you. So I'm just going to keep complimenting. People don't know this, but you... They're applauding that. Yeah, I know. They're capitalists.

They know what I'm trying to do. So you majored undergraduate. You are majoring in molecular and cellular biology. Yes. And then you got a law degree. Right. Then you worked in corporate law, and then you became a TV writer. So your level of expertise here is just out of control. So I need some advice from you. OK. OK? Sure. Just speaking to your expertise. Please.

Do you think that the Delaware Supreme Court's recent decision in the match case expanding the scope of the MFW framework to include entire fairness review for non-freeze-out control shareholder mergers will make market-responsive consolidation too efficient? Yes.

Go ahead.

Well, we're talking about legal issues here. Like, the fridge in my apartment broke, and, like, the groceries, like, went off. So, like, who's responsible for that? Is it my landlord, or do I have to pay for that? Or, like, what's the tenant law on that?

I don't even know what the answer is to that. The New York landlord law is so crazy. Here's another question for you. A new system-level model revealed that transcriptional scolasticity is required for hematopoietic stem cell differentiation. Are you shocked by these findings?

So then you went into law. So I went to law school, yeah.

to my parents disappointment and you worked in law and then you got into you went to a law firm and you worked for years and you became a writer i i got i gotta ask the obligatory like uh so you know any quick advice for all these people out there who are you know in the corporate world and they're trying to get into creative industries yeah you know any any words of wisdom yeah um

get B's in biology. Be a bad student and you too could end up on The Daily Show.

Interior Chinatown is streaming now on Hulu and the book is available everywhere. Hey, Charles Yee, everybody.

Any of those things. Anyway, let's move on, because the story that everyone is talking about isn't in Washington, D.C. It's right here in New York City, where a manhunt continues for a man accused of carrying out a targeted hit on a health insurance CEO. And investigators have been finding clues in some surprising places.

Would you train a mouse to write on it with some kind of mouse crayon? I mean, who gives a how he wrote it? It's not important how he wrote it. What's important is that he wrote it, okay? This guy knows that there are so many bullet casings on the streets of New York and he wanted to make sure we knew which ones were his, right? And now, yeah, I don't know. if we should be applauding that.

And now they're trying to interpret what deny, defend, and depose means. And it looks like it's either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the world on his bullets or something. Honestly, I think all bullets should probably say stuff on them. I mean, how else are we gonna get Americans to read again, right?

We should load up a machine gun with a tale of two cities written in it. I mean, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But now, the cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their healthcare plan and has access to guns. It should be solved in no time. And there's one other thing that might help them piece this together.

Okay, you stopped at a Starbucks on your way to your assassination. Like, oh, you know me, I can't even think about murdering until I've had my coffee. This is helpful, though, because the guy went to the Starbucks. So we now know he's either a tourist or a local who really needed to take a shit.

And if he did use the bathroom, they'll definitely have his DNA because 99% of Starbucks bathroom users somehow missed the toilet. But that's not the only major crime story today. We also have crime in the skies.

Okay, first of all, that's not what a stowaway is, okay? A stowaway has to hug the wheel or hang onto the wing like Tom Cruise. If you're just inside the plane without a seat, you're not a stowaway. You're just losing at musical chairs, okay? And if security's so lax, hey, maybe I should have just left that bottle of shampoo in my backpack instead of trying to smuggle it up my ass. I mean...

I'm Ronny Chieng. We got so much to talk about tonight. Joe Biden takes a farewell tour, Florida tackles the scourge of reading, and an NYPD is hunting for a master criminal who loves pumpkin spice lattes. So let's get into the headlines. Let's start with Joe Biden. Who's that? That name sounds so familiar. But anyway, what did he do?

Am I crazy? Like, how did she do this? Airport security is so complicated now. Like, they have ropes and the dogs and the machines and people and the scanner that, like, takes your naked photo and posts it on the internet. Like, what kind of secret agent acrobatics did she have to do to get past all of that?

Oh, that's it? That's it. We give TSA $10 billion a year and all they got was her water. TSA is like, hey, we literally don't care who you are or what you plan on doing, just do not stay hydrated. For more on this story, let's go live to the airport with Grace Kuhlensmith. Grace. Grace. Grace, how did this woman evade airport security?

Okay, what the hell? Grace, we sent you down there to interview the TSA. Why are you under arrest?

Okay, Grace, it's not your job to get arrested sneaking through a flight crew lane.

Okay, but you didn't have a boarding pass.

Okay. But you didn't have a seat.

Okay, wait. Wait, so once you got on the plane, that's how they got you?

Okay, Grace, do you have anything to report on at all?

Okay, yeah, I hear Joe Biden's hanging them out right now. Grace Kuhlman-Smith, everyone.

Book banning fever is sweeping America, but is it possible that book banning may not be great? Michael Kosta has more.

Oh, I know that look. That's the face I make when I ask someone how their weekend was, and instead of saying good, they actually answer the question. I mean, he looks so uninterested. It would have been less rude to just put on a VR headset at that point. It's like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm still listening to you. I'm just on a roller coaster. But hey, don't worry.