Hilarious...
Let`s go right now to Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert.
TOM BROKAW, NBC ANCHOR: All right, thanks very much, Chris Matthews.
We were listening earlier to the man, Tom Vilsack, who described himself as the great governor of the great state of Iowa.
We`re joined by Jon Stewart, who is the governor of the great state of disbelief.
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Yes. Nice to see you.
BROKAW: Good--thank you very much. But you don`t actually need that, because...
STEWART: I put it in too late. I wanted to hear...
BROKAW: I`m right here.
STEWART: Oh, I wanted to hear the crazy things Scarborough was saying.
(LAUGHTER)
BROKAW: I missed the whole thing.
STEWART: Actually, he was praising John Kerry for his courage and Reverend Alston`s tribute to John Kerry and who he was. And he said he would sleep better knowing that John Kerry, someone who showed that kind of courage at an early age, was in the White House, even though he disagreed with 90 percent of what John Kerry said.
STEWART: That`s interesting, Because I was always under the impression that "SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY" was right next to Crazyvania. So I`m excited that they`re slowly changing the language spoken in "SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY." That`s very exciting.
This was a great night. I really enjoyed it. The theme was the Kerry-Edwards plan for the future. And all they left out were Kerry, Edwards and the plan.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: But other than that, there were a lot of great speakers.
BROKAW: Bill Clinton knows how to give a speech.
STEWART: Man, that was something. How about that wisdom and strength are not mutually exclusive? I thought that was a great line.
BROKAW: Is it a thought for John Kerry to just give his speech to Bill Clinton on Thursday night and say, why don`t you go give it for me?
STEWART: Listen, he`s--I think, you know, if he doesn`t rise to the occasion, he doesn`t deserve to be president.
But the interesting thing to me is, with all the challenges that face the country today, whether it be terrorism or the economy or that, the real question is, are the Democratic wives loose cannons? I think that`s really the thing that we should all be talking about.
BROKAW: Well, we had a chance to talk with Teresa Heinz Kerry earlier tonight. And she said that reporter mischaracterized what she had said. He came back to her and said, what were you talking about un-American activities?
STEWART: Right.
BROKAW: And she said certain un-American traits, which is civil discourse in American politics.
STEWART: Absolutely.
But it is--I think we should focus a lot of time on the wife race, because, as you remember, we nearly lost World War II when Eleanor Roosevelt told the reporter from "The Hartford Times Courant" to sit on it. So, these are issues that we really should be talking about. And Teresa Heinz Kerry, for what it`s worth, yesterday I saw kill a hobo with her bare hands.
BROKAW: Now, when you`re down here on the fort, a lot of people come up and ask your opinion.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: You`re going to let me go with that? You`re just going to let me say Teresa Heinz Kerry killed a hobo with her bare hands?
BROKAW: Yes. Yes. Right. Yes.
STEWART: You`ve been here for how many hours straight? Nobody should sit like this unless they`re raising money for a disease. How long have you been here?
BROKAW: Or getting counseling.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: That`s true.
Russert, he didn`t even bring his menu thing with him to write on.
BROKAW: The board.
STEWART: The board. Where`s the board? You just going to do it on post-its this year?
TIM RUSSERT, NBC WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Now, as you know, all these speeches tonight were vetted. Al Gore had to rip up his speech and write a new one.
STEWART: You`re kidding.
RUSSERT: In order to modulate his tone. Will you put...
STEWART: That does not sound like something that would happen at a political convention.
RUSSERT: Will you put the unplugged Al Gore original version on your program?
STEWART: No, I absolutely won`t. That`s not the program we`re running.
BROKAW: What was the joke that he had to leave out? Al Gore had to leave out a joke.
RUSSERT: Al Gore has told all his friends that the Bush plan on terrorism is like a drunk who lost his keys. And he`s looking all over the place and he says, what`s wrong? He says, I lost my keys. He says, where did you lose them? He says, over there. He said, then why are you looking here? He said, because that`s where the light is. And he said, and that`s what the war on terrorism in Iraq...
STEWART: Really?
RUSSERT: Oh, yes. Yes.
STEWART: I don`t think they cut that because it was the wrong tone.
I just think--Al, that`s not really very funny. I think you should just lost that.
How do you think Al Gore will love it the day when he can open a speech without a recount joke? How much is that just an albatross around that man`s neck?
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: He`s going to 80 years old. He`s going to come up--how about Carter, by the way?
BROKAW: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: Who thought he would be the velvet hammer tonight?
BROKAW: Right.
STEWART: Carter comes out with--that--he sounded like my grandfather a little bit. He came out swinging.
RUSSERT: Our soul is at stake. Jimmy Carter said that.
STEWART: Yes.
And I`ll tell you something. Carter, for all the houses that he built
· and everybody talks about what a great guy and he builds a lot of houses
· nobody ever talks about all the houses he knocks down.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: Because he`s out there.
BROKAW: Knocking them down so he can build them up.
STEWART: Knocking them down. And then acting like he just came upon the scene and building another one.
BROKAW: When you were talk about Al Gore and can he ever get to that day when he cannot open a speech...
STEWART: Right.
BROKAW: There was a time when Fritz Mondale went to George McGovern after having his own landslide loss and said, how long does it take to get over it? And McGovern looked at him and said, what do you mean get over it?
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: It`s never going to happen.
BROKAW: It never goes away.
STEWART: Yes. No.
I imagine that it puts him in a very difficult position. And it takes a certain amount of grace to even come into the arena again and give a speech and do what you have to do. But this was really very polished. It`s almost as if it`s being produced by someone who produced the Emmys.
It had that kind of...
BROKAW: It might have been Don Mischer, who does produce the Emmys.
STEWART: You`re kidding.
BROKAW: And maybe he had chosen you at one point to be the host of the Emmys.
STEWART: I would have loved to have done it. I couldn`t do it. I have a baby. I can`t--I`ve got to spend time.
BROKAW: What works better for you, Democrats or Republicans?
STEWART: Neither.
The theater--that works best for us is the theater, is sort of the absurdity of the stage managing and the craft. But, to be perfectly fair, there`s nothing wrong with turning this into one of those herbal life conventions. There is a certain feeling, towards the end of the night, where, as they start to whip up the crowd, you expect the speaker to say, and how much would you spend for a president like that, $100? Because, no, my friends, Kerry is only $50.
It is--you know, there`s a certain sense of, I`ve got this tonic here and it`s going to cure your liver spots, and, as well it should be, because they`re selling to the crowd.
BROKAW: There`s no secret about the fact that you`ve brought a lot of young people to your program and to the idea of politics as a subject, and whether they`re just looking at because they can get a laugh out of it.
But I also happen to believe that they`re more engaged in it in part because of you and the way that you`re dealing with it.
STEWART: That`s very kind of you to say.
You know, we don`t have any idea. The beauty of what we do is that we`re completely isolated. Our studio is over on the West Side of Manhattan. We don`t have colleagues. We barely go to dinner.
BROKAW: Cheapo studio, by the way.
STEWART: It`s a very el cheapo studio. You have been over there. You have embraced us. You saw that our green room included bite-sized Musketeer bars.
But, you know, if they are getting engaged with our program, it`s not, I don`t think, purely for the humor. It`s for what they believe to be the underlying foundation of the show, which is, don`t look at the acting, look at the script and see what`s the context and what`s the content.
BROKAW: Well, they are more engaged, I think, this year than they
have been in the past presidential
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: Well, I think, right now, they`re worried about being drafted. And I think at any point--I mean, I`ve always said this. You want to get young people involved in politics, reintroduce the draft, and, man, you`ll see voting rights skyrocket.
BROKAW: Jon Stewart, thanks for being with us.
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: Thank you very much. I very much enjoyed it. And thanks for telling me to wear a tie.
(LAUGHTER)
BROKAW: Back to you, Chris.