Tonight's guest on the Daily Show is Elizabeth Warren. On The Nightly Show tonight it is Spandex night with panelists Fareed Zakaria, Anya Kamenetz, and Kurt Metzger.
Elizabeth Warren is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts. She was previously a Harvard Law School professor specializing in bankruptcy law and is also an author. Tonight she is on to discuss her book
A Fighting Chance
As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher-an ambitious goal, given her family's modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?
Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive-and watched-Senate race in the country.
In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class-and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America's government can and must do better for working families.
Book review: “A fighting chance” by Elizabeth Warren
One of the most moving scenes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s absorbing book “A Fighting Chance” occurs in its first 10 pages. After a heart attack, her father lost his job selling carpets in Oklahoma City and was demoted to a commission-only job selling lawn mowers. It did not go well. The station wagon was repossessed; the family, Warren implies, teetered on the verge of losing its home.
One sweltering day, 12-year-old Elizabeth comes upon her 50-year-old mother, sobbing and trying to squeeze into her best dress, scared but determined to apply for a job answering phones at Sears. When she finally gets it on, she turns to her daughter and says, “How do I look? Is it too tight?” Of course it is. But Warren does the right thing. “I stood there, as tall as she was. I looked her right in the eye, and said: ‘You look great. Really,’ ” Warren writes, recalling it as the moment when “I wasn’t a little girl anymore.”
This book demonstrates Warren’s stubbornness and her populism, but what it doesn’t reveal are her presidential ambitions, if any. You can read anything you want into sentences such as “There are many more fights ahead, and more work to be done — and I worry that we’re running out of time.” But nothing is explicit.
Ultimately, the book’s message is that one person can make a difference, but change is painfully slow, uneven and the work of a lifetime. After reading this book, it is comforting to know that Elizabeth Warren, with her passion, anger and bluntness, will not be silenced.
It sounds like a good book, I look forward to this interview.
Fareed Zakaria
is an Indian-born American journalist and author. He is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor-at-large of Time. He is the author of four books, two of them international bestsellers, and the co-editor of one.
Anya Kamenetz
is an American writer living in Brooklyn, New York City. She is a staff writer for Fast Company magazine, a columnist for Tribune Media Services and lead education blogger at NPR. During 2005 she wrote a column for The Village Voice called "Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young". Her first book, Generation Debt, was published by Riverhead Books in February 2006. Her writing has also appeared in New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, The Nation, The Forward newspaper, and Vegetarian Times.
Kurt Metzger
is an American comedian, actor and writer. Metzger's stand-up act was featured on Comedy Central Presents in 2009, and his hour-long stage act titled "Kurt Metzger Talks to Young People About Sex" was released digitally on Comedy Central Records in 2011. He provides the voice of Randall Skeffington in Comedy Central's animated series Ugly Americans. He has also written for television programs such as Chappelle's Show and Inside Amy Schumer.
Larry has plenty of #SpandexSolidarity tonight.
My favorite is this one:
Who doesn't love The Incredibles? Speaking of which, Brad Bird is writing the sequel!
Next Week's Guests
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
Mo 4/13: Adam Horovitz
Tu 4/14: Fareed Zakaria
We 4/15: Billy Crystal
Th 4/16: Eric Greitens