Deer. All i want for christmas is you. And you. Millivanilly, yall. From the cnn studios in new york city, its king charles. Were not going to waste your time. Nope. With gayle king. Im beyonce, but you can call me gayle. And charles barkley. Its cold out here. Tonight, astrofphysicist, tyson, writer, director, jefferson, and from the New York Times, herndon. King charles starts now. Welcome, welcome, we thank you for joining us tonight. First, toif say this off the bat. Charles, whats the name of your nba show . I know last inside the nba. Inside the nba, on tnt, i was watching that last night, and you, he, you sounded terrible, and i thought theres no way youre going to make it here tonight. Gayle, never going to let you down. I was so worried about that. Full hazmat suit, ill be here for you. Uh wasnt the only one who was worried. This is what your coworkers had to say about you last night. This cant be good. Shaquille oneal, kenny the jet smith. Sir sickalot, the oh, my god. Whats up . Sickeel oneill. Why you got that mask on . Not trying to be sick on christmas. Disinfecting the area. Chuck, thats not how were used to seeing you. Chuck, feel better. Feel better at the pub. Hes not at the pub. Hes at the pub, bernie. Hes back at the crib. At the pub. The crib is the pub is the crib. So, the way i hear it, they asked you to leave. They said charles you dont look so good or sound so good and you were asked to leave. Yes. So and i didnt go to the pub. Okay, i was wondering, where did you go . I went to bed. Hey, let me tell you something, if im in the bed at 10 30 at night, im sick. But how do you feel . Because i was thinking that you had the c word, covid, im happy to say that he was tested and everything is fine. I do not have covid. I dont have covid. Ryan made sure of that today. I was worried about that. He didnt really care, though, he just said, chuck, stay home, were going to test you when you get here, such a nice guy. So glad. This is the thing, this is our last show before christmas. You want to tell people how you feel about christmas . I hate christmas, you know that. Were going to talk about that later on. You have to give gifting to people you dont like, all the people know all the people you give gifts to, you dont like. I dont give gifts to people i dont like. Its expensive. How much do you spend on christmas. A lot, gayle. This is the thing, our last show before christmas. I had the idea wouldnt it be fun if we dress up in onesie pajamas, and you said hell no. I got one for you too, size 6 x, were going to move along, know why . We have a lot to get to tonight. Im just glad youre healthy and youre all right. Thank you. All kidding aside, im very glad about that. Donald trump, as you may have heard, was just kicked off the 2024 ballot in colorado by the state Supreme Court over what they deem was his involvement in the january 6th insurrection. The republican front runners campaign promised to appeal that decision to the u. S. Supreme court. Thats not the only reason that the former president is in the news today. He has been facing criticism for saying that immigrants are, quote, poisoning the blood of the country. Think about that for the second, poisoning the blood of the country. Last night he addressed those criticisms and then he doubled down. And its true. Theyre destroying the blood of our country. Thats what theyre doing. Theyre destroying our country. They dont like it when i said that, and i never read m mein kampf. They said, oh, hitler said that, in a much different way. Something about those words that it did make a lot of people it was triggering for a lot of people, poisoning the blood of the country because that is in the book mein kampf. He may not have read it. I think people close to him may have read it. What did you think when you heard those words . Hes trying to make people fearful of immigrants, black people, hispanics, muslims. Obviously weve got a lot of antisemitic stuff going on, i would even say against jewish people, and i think its a travesty and a disgrace that hes able to do that. Now, i do do agree with one thing. Weve got to fix our immigration policy, cant have people rolling across the border 24 7 like they are now but for a man whos running for the most powerful position in the world to use pseudo racist rhetoric, thats one of the reasons i cant vote for that guy because, man, he just rubs me the wrong way, and people can vote for whoever they want to, but i just do not like it at all. Yeah, but he still has a lot of support. But whats interesting to me is that even the opponents who are running who are challenging him are saying that the court because theyre scared. Theyresying the court should not decide what happens if donald trump is on the ballot or not because Trump Supporters are very hard core. Trump supporters going to be Trump Supporters, but those other candidates need those votes in case something happened, and they definitely gotta do it going into iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, they dont want to alienate any of the republican people. Not sure if they believe that or not. Who wouldnt want to take out the front runner . Theyre just afraid other republicans are not going to vote for them when they go to these caucuses. Right in the middle of the political season. Were going to do a deep dive into the 2024 election in a couple minutes but we also need to talk about this, the senate aid who is out of a job after he allegedly filmed a sex tape in a capitol hill hearing room. We arent going to show you any of the steels, feel free to google if youre curious, it is there. I actually saw it. My nephew showed it to me. I didnt look it up, he showed it to me. Did you see it . No. Okay. The aid do you have any desire to see it . No. The aid who worked for democratic senator ben cardin said in a statement ive been attacked for who i love to pursue a political agenda and while some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgment, ill say, i love my job, and would never disrespect my workplace. I thought, charles, that was a very interesting choice of words because i think the epitome of having sex on your job in a hearing room that is normally public is the ultimate in disrespect for the job. What did you think when you heard this . I think having sex anywhere at any workplace is a fireable offense, especially in that scenario. He didnt get fired. He used poor judgment. He got fired because hes a freaking idiot, i said freaking. I didnt say what i really wanted to say. Im always amazed when somebody do something really stupid and he deserved to get you cant have sex at the workplace. Yeah. I mean, and he has nobody to blame but himself. But himself, yeah. And the one of the things that bother me is one of the the party is so divided right now, one of the idiot republicans put a picture up, a poster, he took the time to make a poster, he put the january 6th insurrection, and this guy having sex on the other side and says which one is worse . Yeah. Man, if you dont know which one of those are worse, you should not be a politician. But, gayle, im just surprised, and amazed how stupid some people are. We all human, and we all make mistakes but to do what he did, just a in the workplace. In the workplace, the ultimate sign of stupidity. Not just doing it, charles, this is the thing, i dont understand why anyone films themselves in a public place, i think its dicey to film yourself at home because you never know where the tapes going to end up or somebody gets mad and they take the tape but i never understand filming yourself in a public place. But anyway, hes out of a job and i think thats okay. Weve never talked about this before. What . I never understand why people tape themselves sexually. Thats not something youve done . No, because me and were bad people, and if you break up with us, thats going on the internet. The other reason i was really glad you were here today, in addition to your health, was ja morant came back yesterday on the court. That was your game last night. That was the game, i watched the first game before i checked out, he had a buzzer beater, great to have him back. Yes. It was great he did the gamewinning. Yes. Gamewinning basket. Hit the gamewinning shot, great to have him back. I just hope he tighten his circle up and have people. Here it comes, the gamewinning shot. This is it right here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, look at that. Look how look at the hang time. The kid is a special, special player. Yeah, but hes had two infractions, do you think that hes learned a lesson . I hope so. And hes young. Well, hes young, but the thing that bothered me the most about ja you want to explain the infraction . Well, he film himself first of all, i never understand why anybody does social media. Yeah. Because social media has it might work for certain people. Theres some redeeming values of social media but i dont understand why you film yourself well, he didnt think people would see that . He filmed himself with guns, gayle. Yeah, twice. And thing i dont understand, first of all, if youve got friends, filming you with a gun, when you think one of them say, hey, man we should film you with a gun, Got Suspended Eight Times the first time and less time a couple months later, he does it again. If your friends are that stupid he lost like 8 million. Thats a lot of money. He lost that much . Yes. Wow. If youve got friends around you who think its appropriate to film you with a gun, gayle, one of the biggest problems we got in the black community is violence. Yes. And for a guy whos that Great A Player to be you focusing like whos made it in life, hes not a 9 to 5 guy. Do you dismiss it in addition to friends, hanging around with friends that dont have your best interest, do you think its his age and that maybe hes learned, 22, 23, right . Yeah, but let me tell you something. You do not need to film yourself with guns and things like that. I agree, i agree. Its just a its and i dont mind him having guns, he have guns, thats his own business. Do you have a gun . I do. You do. A lot of them. Do you . I do. Im scared of guns. Scared of them. They come in handy when the crooks around. I mean, look, i feel safer with a gun, me personally, i dont touch my gun unless i go practice. I dont try to show it to anybody. But i feel safer with it. But im definitely not going to put it on instagram like a damn idiot. Yeah. Especially after you had already did it one time, and less than two months later you did it again. And i never want to get on tv and act like a hypocrite. I am a gun guy. I feel safer with a gun. But i understand, its a my body guard James Heywood is a cop, we talk about it all the time, he said, hey, do not touch that gun except for two reasons, youre going to practice or youre going to shoot somebody. Anything else ive never shot anybody. Have you ever shot the gun. Oh, yeah, i practice. Okay. But i wouldnt want to shoot anybody. If i felt threatened and like i say, ive been arrested a few times for fighting but i would never touch the gun unless my life depended on it. Youve been arrested a few times for fighting . Yeah, i have. Okay. I was young, gayle. Okay, i cant wait to hear that story. And a new candidate is surging in early voting state, early voting state, heres a question. Could nikki haley grab the role of Top Republican challenger . A lot of people think she can do this. Hopefully New York Times reporter Astead Herndon has an answer for us. With us right after the break. Youre watching king charles. So we talked a little bit about the former president a few minutes ago but something has been brewing on the Campaign Trail for a different republican candidate, have you been watching this, the latest polling shows that nikki haley is gaining ground on the former president in the state of New Hampshire, with 29 of likely gop voters saying they would vote for her as president. Well, our next guest, were lucky to say, was just in New Hampshire, talking to reallive voters in the first in the nation primary state, we welcome you Astead Herndon to king charles. Thank you for having me, i really appreciate it. What are you hearing . Weve been reading about momentum for nikki haley. Is it really true . What did you hear in New Hampshire . It is true. When you look at the candidates in the race most of them are going to wrong direction, ron desantis, vivek ramaswamy, the other candidates who arent donald trump are mostly receding, nikki haley the opposite direction, donors, members of the party, elite versions of republicans have rallied around her. Shes gotten big endorsements. Big endorsements, americans for prosperity, coke brothers political group, theyve endorsed her, partially because of her debate performance, looking strong in those, thats helped her in New Hampshire, a moderate state with independent voters and more voters aligned with nikki haley. Thats the good news. Why do i hear a but coming . Bad news, the other states, it looks harder, South Carolina where nikki haley was the governor, thats the place where donald trump still has a big polling lead, and more importantly he has a lot of those state party activists, the people who run the primary, people who get people to come to the polls, still very much with donald trump. So i theres good news for nikki haley in terms of being able to consolidate support from a slice of the party, its much harder to see her path to the republican nomination partly because donald trump has changed the party to a degree. 2016 to now, this is a different version of the Republican Party and that version is really hard to see be compatible with nikki haley. Weve had a few politicians not politicians, news people on the show, and one of their first points was, why is President Biden losing so much of the black community . Yeah. I mean, that is really a central question of why bidens poll numbers look really bad right now. Hes actually doing pretty good with people who are considered independents or swing voters. Its the kind of core of the Democratic Party, black voters, young people of color, young people specifically where hes had some problems. And i think this is specific this goes back some years, weve seen kind of numbers from democrats and black voters drop off, all the way back since 2012. There was kind of a High Water Mark in the second term of obama and its been going down a little ever since, but when we talked to people specifically about joe biden, theres just a sense among some folks when we try to report on this they thought he would be a oneterm president , thought they were choosing an Emergency Option in 2020. He did say in the beginning he was a transitional president , he did say that. He did say that, its an underrated point. I actually talked to bidens chief campaign officer, anita dun about this, and she made the point he only said that once. But i think for a lot of people, thats something they heard it understand. They thought there was an emergency in the donald trump first term and they thought he was the person who could most do that. For a lot of people at the time at the time didnt he say democracy is at stake . Exactly. The soul of the nation is at stake and he did lead many voters to think this is a time, a transition to get us on the other side. Exactly, he actually asked he only said it once, is that what theyre saying . Those specific words once, it was the ethos of the campaign, choose this Emergency Lever Bount and that was something he could provide. He called himself maybe a bridge to the next generation of democrats, i think for a lot of people, there was an implicit one term in this, and so when we talk to a lot of voters, specifically younger voters, they feel like theres a broken promise there that makes them a little more uncomfortable with voting for them a second time. Doesnt mean they dont wont do it. The reality of the choice comes next year. In polling right now theyre less happy about biden than they previously were. The beauty of him being on here today, charles, your own focus group in his family. It is, yeah. Set this up for us, thanksgiving dinner, a lot of people, friends and family. For our podcast, i wanted to follow up on polling numbers, part of the thing is polling can tell you, though, what people are thinking, but doesnt give you the why, doesnt give you the back story, how they arrived to that point. So i thought about who are the black voters i know the best . Its my friends, my family. Over thanksgiving i kind of we got some tape. Let me slow down. Explain it to us on the other side. Sounds good. Lets see. Why are black men more open to republicans than black women . I honestly feel the Democratic Party has forgot about the black male. What i mean by that is, that one of the major demographics that we have is our African American, theyre amazing, theyre very strong, they come out to the polls but as African American men sometimes we get left like our needs, our desires, our wants arent always in the count, we kind of get pushed to the side. I want to say, i agree that black people, and poor white people who are really in the same economic group, i think thats one of the reasons theyre running from the Democratic Party, you know, everybody want to make everything about race in this country, and racism doesnt exist, always has and always will, but economic racism, to me, is the worst thing going on in this country, thats the reason i actually agree with what he said. Because, you know, even when im watching the debates, theyre like, well, lets worry about weve got to help the middle class, and i always sit there and say, they never mention poor people. Never say poverty. Thats a really important point. This that same conversation i remember asking people, why do you think black people vote for democrats in such numbers . The response wasnt about race, to your point, it was about, they think that republicans are for rich people. Much more a class thing than the race thing. And i do think that some of the changes in the Democratic Party that youve seen in the last ten years might be more of an alignment with more alite slice, more College Educated language and some of those some of what were seeing is attrition from black voters that may not be about race, but maybe about a kind of Class Difference thats changed, totally came up in that conversation. Yeah, i think its interesting, it is all about the middle class, it isnt what can we do. Never mention poor people. Its a really important point, when you listen in those debates you will often hear middle class, talk about Small Business owners, that takes some money. And for a lot of more of americans, particularly black americans, thats money thats not there. So i think for a lot of people theyre looking for who are going to be the candidate that can most speak to those interests and i think thats going to be the onus is on democrats and for joe biden to try to find a message that really motivates them. Youve had the last word on that. Thank you, mr. Herndon. Keep doing your thing, man. Appreciate it. Coming passed a new law that might help us find out if were alone in the universe, so charles and i went outside, we do this every time before the show. We go outside and actually talk to you, the people. Do you believe in aliens . No. Yeah, almost certainly, the question is, really, are they here . Thats the real question, right . You see stuff in the sky all the time. Theyre called airplanes. Wait, you believe in aliens . How do you know im not one . Because you look like a person. Well, weve got an expert who can help us, she actually said that, how do you know im not one and said it with a straight face, astrophysicist Neil Degrasse tyson is joining g us riright after r the break,k, yo wawatching kining g charles. The way heher face looooked. Im a little anxious, im a little excited. Im gonna be emotional, shes gonna be emotional, but its gonna be so worth it. I love that i can give back to one of our customers. I hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. Oh my goodness. Oh, you guys. I know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. You have made an impact. So have you. For you guys to be out here doing Something Like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. Can i just say mr. Barkley got jokes, he just said to me, gayle, sound it out, welcome back, was that okay . That was it, that was good. Welcome back. Right before the break you heard us asking people about aliens, thats because Congress Just passed legislation directing the government to release the records that it gathers on ufos within 25 years of collection and we can think of nobody better to talk about this with, World Famous Astro Physicist whats your name . Neil degrasse tyson. Hes the author of the new book, bestselling author, we should say, the book is called To Infinity And Beyond and the director of the Hayden Planetarium here in new york city. Were so glad youre here. We asked viewers to call in, neil, one of the most popular questions we got. Thats dangerous, you know. It is. Thats why we taped the calls. Pretaped. Not going to let them come on tv live. We would, we would, but this was one of the most popular questions, listen to this. Go for it. Hi, my question is, do you believe aliens exist in our universe . Is that for me . Yes. That question was for me. I reserve the word believe for topics like religion, and other things where people why cant you just say yes or no . Because not all questions have yes or no answers. You seen one . None that i couldnt otherwise explain by Natural Causes as being earthbound, yeah. Things that look very odd to me but i know a lot about the sky, about weather, about climate, about lightning, about so where venus is in the sky, what blimps look like in twilight, theres a lot of things that, if i didnt know all of that, i might confuse them for something exotic or extraterrestrial. That seems like a very long answer, to me, that is such a simple question. Okay, ill give you here it is, you ready . Wait, charles, do you believe in aliens . No. You dont. I havent seen one. I havent seen one. I presume you can know something is true even if you have never seen it. Does somebody else thats a good point, neil. Thats not a good point. Yeah, it is. You are not the measure of what is true in the world. Well, somebody else would have told me. Hey, hey, hey hold on. Are you when they say take me to your leader, theyre coming to you. I told you it was an honor and privilege to meet you but if we had a person come on here who met an alien, we wouldnt have you on the show. Let me just say i agree with you, i dont think you have to have seen something to know that it exists. Right, so its not about a belief. Its about evidence. All right. Oh. Is there evidence . How compelling is the evidence . Okay. Do we need more for it to reach a Tipping Point where a skeptical scientist would say, theres good evidence for you . Were all in on this. Well, science is always evidencebased. Is it evidence . Always. Okay, so what we know is that the ingredients of life on earth, if you break it down at to om by atom. Carbon, nitrogen, those are the most common chemically active ingredients in the universe, earth was opportunistic in its early moments, going from the primordial goo to life. Is there evidence there are aliens . No, not evidence that would convince a skeptical scientist, no. Okay. There are People Holding their Hand Up Swearing to tell the truth in congress. Yes. Thats not how we establish objective truths in science. Got it. Dont walk into a scientific conference and say i swear this is true, but give me a book i can swear on, thats not how we do this. You bring out the evidence. They did this in mexico. They brought it put the aliens on display in congress. If we have aliens, thats what they should do if theyre trying to say weve got them in a locked box. Now, in mexico the next step is, you take tissue samples, and send it to other labs. Yeah. Its not just because one person and one lab says something is true. Thats not what establishes the moving frontier of the objective truths of science. Listen any scientist who looks at the universe, they say theres probably life out there in the universe, i cant wait to find it. Listen, ive never seen an alien, either, but i just find it hard to believe that we are the only ones on this planet. I do believe, you hear all the talk about ufos, i do think they exist too. But i just cant believe were the only ones. To be clear, if theres something in the sky, you dont know what it is. Its called an airplane. Of course its a ufo. A blimp . To you. Thats what the u stands for. You dont know what it is, you just called it a ufo, that doesnt allow you to say, i dont know what it is, therefore its visiting curious aliens. In the sky. Visiting our skies, plus, theres 6 billion smart phones in the world. Each capable of High Resolution photos and videos. If we were being invaded by aliens that would have been crowd sourced long ago and it would have been on the internet. We have cat videos go viral on the internet. You know, if people had aliens flying near their airplane that would go viral too. Thank you, gayle. Theres a Million People thank you, gayle. At any moment who are airborne. Youre welcome, charles. With a nice window right out the side of their airplane. I got to ask you why is it all the aliens are visiting navy pilots in restricted air space . I got this question for you. Whats that . Its just going to confirm how stupid men are, and im very proud to be a man. Okay. They have a list of who could land a plane. Yeah. Theres a poll, yeah. 46 of men said it, and now the women, who are always smarter than the men, only 20 of them said they could land a plane in an emergency. Okay, so i let me i think whats going on in the guys head is, i can be talked down to land this plane if i have someone tell me. Okay, not a they just come out there with no with no advice. I bet the men are thinking, i could do this if i had help from the airport. The women are thinking the question means, can you just land the damn plane . That question was, if you if there was an emergency could you land the plane . The question wasnt, if somebody talks you through it. No, i know, i agree, but i think the men are thinking thats how they process. Thats how they do it in the movies. Those men will be crashing and burning so damn fast. Charles, even if somebody is talking you through it, if somebody was talking you through it i think i could land a plane if im talked through it. Youre one of the smartest people in the world. There are dummies out here. Seriously charles, if somebody was talking you through it, do you think you could do it . Gayle, i think every pull the lever. Push the button. I just want to Say Something look at the knob. You cant do that, charles . Put you back on the basketball court. Trust me, i want to be back out there, what theyre paying. In realtime, what they dont understand, even somebody talking you through it in realtime, your brain cant focus and function like that. Now, if youve got his brain, yeah, i believe that. But a regular person, you know, like push this lever, like, theres a lot of levers up here. So charles, charles, the real answer in this being 2023 he does make a point though. 2024, the real answer, you push auto pilot and that will land a plane all by itself. Pilots are like for show at this point. Yes. Given what planes do all by themselves. Thats why youre a genius. Thats why you get paid the big bucks. As much as i like you and respect you if we had a person on here who got aliens, were going to give your seat up. Thank you, neil, thank you very much. You get another seat and id be here with you. Thank you, if you want to be like holly from wisconsin who asked the question about aliens we have our own special number here at king charles, what is it . 18553434king. What does that stand for . Phoenix and philadelphia. Those are his jersey numbers, isnt that good . Thank you. 3434 is him, king is me. That was gayle in fairness. That was good. A quick one, Cape Canaveral in florida what they launched, the area code there is 321. Blastoff. Charles and i are very excited about this new movie, i cant wait for you to, run, dont walk to the theaters to see American Fiction, its got not one, but two Golden Globe Nominations and is already getting huge oscar buzz, the director is Corey Jefferson and i am happy to say he is here, well introduce you right after the break. Were thinking we can get it out in one of those scarves, you mean a dew rag. Thats the new movie called American Fiction from Emmy Award Winning writer, Cord Jefferson, his name, he also directed it and its getting a lot of oscar buzz with a capital b. Youve got to hear the cast. Jeffrey wright, issa rae, tracee ellis ross, among others, we are very concerned that Cord Jefferson is in the studio with us tonight, charles. Ive got to ask you, how in the world did you get this amazing cast together . People keep asking me that. I never directed anything before this, never written a movie before this but the thing i say is the way i got the ensemble, this is what happens when you write real parts for black actors. We talk about it every year come awards season, we talk about how black actors are underrepresented, undervalued, underutilized and i wanted to make sure we had real parts for the whole cast. I tried to make sure that we stayed committed to character and we actually felt like we had real lived in human beings, and fortunately i a lot of people showed up to be in the film. Right now we can see the movie in new york, we can see it in l. A. , its coming nationwide very soon. Whats the message you want people to understand, what this movie is about . Let me just say this, charles, he was on cbs mornings, had a flight back to l. A. , 6 00 or 7 00 tonight, i loved this movie so much. I watched it last night, please, please, stay. He stayed because of you, not because of me. What is the movie what is the message you want from this movie . This movie the story youre telling. This movie in a nutshell is about what happens to people when you when they dont feel free to be themselves, and the strange things that human beings do when they feel like they dont have the freedom to be who they want to be, and, you know, it is you know, theres a bunch of different themes in there but that one encapsulates it the most. Its a black writer who writes the story and the more outrageous and stereo typical it is, the bigger it comes. Its about a black author who is told his work is never black enough, they want a black novel and he says, whats a black novel, they say, you know, inner city crime, slavery, drug dealers, single mothers and he says, well, i dont want to do any of that, i think that my story is universal, theyre black because im black, why isnt that enough . So one day in this sort of like fit of frustration, he writes this very stereo typical book that he intends to kind of be a prank, and sort of embarrass the publishing world but it instead turns into a huge success. Yes. So when we were going over all the notes you said you had to direct it. Yeah. This was your first directorial debut. Yes, sir. Why was that really important to you . And why did you think you could do that . Some people could say, charles, arrogance or confidence, never done it before. Neither, really. I think that it was just a maybe knew what you wanted. What i wanted was to have control of the narrative, right, theres this sort of its this general understanding in hollywood that films are a directors medium and that you can be a writer and write a great skipt, if you give it to somebody and they attach a director to it, the director can totally change it in the way they think it should fit. And often does. And often does. Ive talked to a lot of writers who end up pretty disappointed because a Director Sort of ended up creating a movie they themselves werent proud of. I just felt this story in my bones when i read this novel, that i adapted, and i had no piece of art ever resonated with me as deep as it had, and nothing still nothing has resonated with me as deeply as that novel has. So i just felt like i knew the characters of the story so well that thats what gave me the confidence to direct, despite the fact i didnt know anything about lighting or cameras or anything. Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, so im just talking because i dont know what the hell im talking about. Thats comforting, isnt it . I love it, i love it. Like, gayle, you just cant say im going to be a director and go direct something. But he did. I know, but that was my question. Who did you talk to about directing . A lot of different people, you know the first person who put the idea into my head was aziz an sar, i wrote on master of none, season two. Aziz was going to direct himself and he said to me, have you ever thought about directing, i said, well, you know, ive never been to film school, dont know about the technical aspects of it, and aziz i never went to film school. You dont need to know those technical things, you need a vision and you need to be able to articulate that vision to people who do know those technical things. He really planted the seed in my head. Maybe i could do this. But look at your background, though, cord, youve worked on watchmen, succession, good place, master of none as you just mentioned. That said, you still had a lot of rejection. Oh, yeah. What happened when you got the green light, what did that feel like to you . How were you affected by that . It was incredible. In the movie when they in the meeting when they green lit this film. I started crying. Crying tears . I was confident it wasnt going to happen for me. You know, i had been pushing the rock uphill so long in the world of tv, id been rejected over and over again, i felt like, okay, maybe this isnt going to happen for me. So when they finally green lit the film i was overjoyed. I couldnt i honestly, it felt surreal, like a dream. How much of this movie is your experience . So much, i mean, so much. Its you know, this idea that black writers are not a really sort of like allowed to express themselves has come up over and over in my career, first as a journalist, and then in film and television, you know, three months before i found the novel that i ended up adapting, i got a note from a tv executive that i needed to make a character in one of my scripts blacker. And sort of and then i said, you know, what does blacker mean . You need to explain to me what it means to be blacker, and then the executive, of course, never followed up with that conversation because to have that conversation means that its kind of ridiculous. Its also, i mean, its a civil rights violation, i would imagine. Its insane. There is that, yes. And so just you know, theres a lot of theres a lot of the frustration i felt about, again, not feeling like i had the freedom to be who i am and make the work that i wanted to make in the film itself. Theres a lot of me in there. First, i want to say thank you so much for staying, really, because i know its an arizona thing, gayle. This is my home boy. I didnt know you all had that connection. Youve been nominated for a golden globe for best film, may the buzz continue, cheering you on because this is such a good movie and i cant wait for people to see it. Whats the name of it again. Thank you so much. American fiction. Its in select theaters right now, Cord Jefferson, congratulations and good luck. Thank you so much. Up next, did you see this interview that median z way did with excongressman whats his name . Cant wait. George santos. George santos. Please go away. Please dent go away, stay away. We have got to discuss this. Were going to take a break. Well be right back. Weve got to discuss it. In the words of lady gaga, you live for the applause. If we stopped clapping, but you disappear . No. You would end . No. What can we get you to go away, stop inviting me tear gas. So that happened. George santos broke the internet again. The Ex Congressman sat down with satirical talk show hosts ziwe for an Exit Interview of sorts. I think he raises a point, you want him to go away, stop asking him to do things. Look, were still talking about him. You have the last word. What do you say . Number one, i definitely want him to go away, because he is not, quote unquote, famous for anything on good. The joke is on him. People not having him on the show because hes good. Theyre like, if i get this full on, ill get ratings. You have to know when a joke is on you. Hey, guys, this is our last show of the year. Of the year, yes. Next year, i will say a Merry Christmas happy holidays and a happy new year and all that good stuff. Ill see you next year, but you can see her tomorrow on cbs mornings. I will be there, i will be. Theyre nice. Looking forward to seeing you. I echo what charles says. Have a great holiday. Well see you in 2024, bye bye. [applause]
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