26 minutes 59 seconds
🇬🇧 English
Speaker 1
00:00
-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ North Korea, America's number 1 excuse for putting off chores this week. You know, I could do laundry, but if the world's about to erupt into nuclear war, what really is the point? North Korea has clearly been on everyone's minds this week, and I think you know why.
Speaker 2
00:18
President Trump and North Korea escalate the war of words, lobbying new threats and sending new tweets. North Korea now accusing the President of the United States of pushing the world to, quote, the brink of nuclear war.
Speaker 1
00:32
Wow. When Twitter was invented, I bet even they didn't imagine that it would 1 day lead us to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. It's like if the invention of the Furby had led to the Sudanese Civil War. Who knew that that's where it was headed?
Speaker 1
00:48
Now, tensions have sharply escalated this week, which is a little surprising, given that the world has been dealing with North Korea's provocative missile tests for years now. Just 2 weeks ago, they were doing this.
Speaker 3
00:58
North Korea fires yet another missile, but Pyongyang claims this 1 will be able to hit the U.S. Mainland, striking cities like Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and possibly even New York and Boston.
Speaker 1
01:10
Wait. New York? I
Speaker 4
01:12
live in
Speaker 1
01:13
New York. This shit just got real. You know, I think if anyone is really...
Speaker 1
01:17
If everyone is really honest, your level of fear over the North Korea situation is in direct proportion to whether or not they can hit the exact place where you live. We filmed this show on 57th Street. If you told me that the blast radius stops at 56th Street, I'd think, well, I hope nothing happens, but we've still got time before things get serious. Now, it is worth properly understanding what North Korea is currently capable of, because while their missiles may be able to reach us, and they do have nuclear warheads, most experts believe that they don't yet have the technology to reliably hit the U.S.
Speaker 1
01:53
Mainland. So that is reassuring. Although, on the other hand, a recent Pentagon assessment did suggest that they could cross that threshold next year. So, if a job interviewer asks you, where do you see yourself in 5 years' time, it is now perfectly acceptable just to scream in terror into their face.
Speaker 1
02:10
--LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Look, this is clearly a very serious situation requiring a deft hand, And sadly, that's not what it got.
Speaker 5
02:20
North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen.
Speaker 1
02:34
Fire and fury. The only way that that is not terrifying is if you report it the way that 1 newspaper actually did in Maine, saying, -"Trump warns of fire and furry." -$TIME OUT! In which case, Trump was threatening to send this to North Korea, which is a very different kind of threat.
Speaker 1
02:52
Now, in response, North Korea announced plans to fire missiles that would land just off the coast of the U.S. Territory of Guam, which is frightening, although not unprecedented. They have made similar threats before, but what is different this time, obviously, is that we now have a president who has the general temperament of a wet cat. And in response to that Guam threat, Trump promptly doubled down.
Speaker 5
03:15
Frankly, the people that were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn't tough enough. If anything, that statement may not be tough enough.
Speaker 6
03:24
What would be tougher than hiring Hillary?
Speaker 5
03:26
Well, you'll see. You'll see.
Speaker 1
03:29
Yeah. We're gonna go with that bomb more destructive than the nuclear bomb. Why? I don't know.
Speaker 1
03:33
Who cares that it doesn't exist? Sincerely yours, Donald Trump. I'm not writing a letter, I'm talking, says you. Fake news.
Speaker 1
03:39
Goodbye! --LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE --So, tonight... We thought we would ask, what exactly is North Korea thinking? How did we get into this mess?
Speaker 1
03:48
And what can we possibly do about it? And let's start by trying to understand just a little bit more about North Korea. And that in itself is difficult. It's 1 of the most isolated and insular nations on Earth.
Speaker 1
03:59
If you know anything about it at all, it's probably just that they have a wacky, totalitarian leader who loves military parades, and Dennis Rodman, and who really didn't like that Seth Rogen movie about his assassination. And it can be hard to trust any information about North Korea because lots of it is inaccurate for multiple reasons. First, there's the outright state propaganda, which glorifies North Korea's leaders, the Kim family. Just last year, we showed you Western journalists being taken on a tour of a historic target range where they learned something suspiciously impressive about Kim Jong-un's father.
Speaker 3
04:34
Comrade Kim Jong-un shot 3 bullets and 3 of them got bullseye.
Speaker 7
04:37
They all got bullseye? And how old was he at the time?
Speaker 3
04:41
He was seven-year-old. The seven-year-old got 3 bullseyes?
Speaker 7
04:44
That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3
04:45
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1
04:47
-♪♪♪♪ I mean, that is the... Of someone who really wants to shut down a conversation. She sounds like a parent fielding questions about where babies come from.
Speaker 1
04:59
So, a stork brings the baby, uh-huh, it carries an 8 pound baby through the air in its mouth, mm-hmm. Isn't that dangerous, mm-hmm. Where does the stork get the babies? Storks fuck!
Speaker 1
05:11
They fuck each other! Storks fuck each other, and the baby comes out of the stork's vagina! Don't ask for the truth if you can't
Speaker 4
05:19
handle it!
Speaker 1
05:19
-♪
Speaker 4
05:20
I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man...
Speaker 1
05:21
-♪
Speaker 4
05:21
I'm a man, I'm a man... But here's the thing.
Speaker 1
05:25
Inaccuracies like that are easy to spot. What is tricky is that a lot of eye-catching Western reporting about North Korea can be shakily sourced, like this 1.
Speaker 8
05:33
The BBC reports all of the men in the Hermit Kingdom must now sport the same haircut as the dear leader, Kim Jong-un. His look was known as the Chinese smuggler haircut, not too long ago in the region, But now it will be known as the haircut every man in North Korea must have. Lucky them.
Speaker 1
05:50
Here's the thing. There is no solid evidence that that story is true, but it is seductive because it sounds like it could be. It's like if you saw the headline, Trump to NATO, I invented squirrels.
Speaker 1
06:01
You'd believe it because it sounds like something he would have claimed, even though, as of this taping, he has not. And while it may not be true that all men had to get the same haircut as Kim Jong-un, state TV did run a series called, Let us trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle." And it's weird when a verifiable truth is almost as strange as a wild rumor. It's like how the Richard Gere put a gerbil in his ass story is completely false. But what if The truth was that he engaged in consensual mutual anal play with a chinchilla.
Speaker 1
06:33
That would still be bizarre. You wouldn't have to exaggerate that. And sometimes the truth about life in North Korea can be just as striking as the urban legends. For instance, you may have seen claims online that every teacher in North Korea is obligated to play the accordion.
Speaker 1
06:50
We could not confirm that, although in trying to, we did discover that North Korea does love the accordion to a surprising extent. The country is full of them. Here is an accordion factory. Here's some school children playing the accordion.
Speaker 1
07:04
Here's Kim Jong-un looking at an accordion. Here is an air combat exercise where the camera pans across pilots, and guess what? Yep, it's a fucking accordion. They also have a very popular song called Nothing to Envy in the World that begins with the line, the sky is blue, my heart is merry, let the sound of accordions ring.
Speaker 1
07:24
And then, there is this video of North Koreans playing the last song that you would expect. -♪ ♪ -♪♪ -♪♪ Yes. -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ Yes. That is North Korean accordionist playing Take On Me.
Speaker 1
07:46
So beat that, everyone else who plays the accordion. By which I mean exactly 2 old French men and 1 weird Al Yankovic. And if you think that that is the most amazing piece of North Korean pop culture that you're gonna see tonight, you are wrong. Because let me introduce you to Pulgasari, a 1985 movie known as the North Korean Godzilla.
Speaker 1
08:08
The whole thing is incredible, but this is undoubtedly my favorite part.
Speaker 9
08:13
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yeah! Oh!
Speaker 4
08:18
0, boy! -♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪♪ Ha ha ha.
Speaker 9
08:19
Yeah! I believe.
Speaker 4
08:21
Ha ha ha. Just a little bit. Just a little bit.
Speaker 4
08:25
Do you
Speaker 1
08:25
know why I love that? It's relatable. No matter where you're from or what your religious or political beliefs are.
Speaker 1
08:32
At some point, everybody has been about to decapitate someone, and then, out of nowhere, a baby monster jumps up and takes a bite out of your sword. It works, because it resonates. And look, look, we're all having fun, we're laughing about North Korea, and it can be very funny. But, the very fact that that is true can be extremely frustrating to journalists who cover it.
Speaker 7
08:54
It's always, you know, an exaggeration and a parody and, you know, kind of a freak show. Which I think those of us who cover North Korea find a little bit distressing because it's not actually very funny to the 24 million people who live there.
Speaker 1
09:11
She's right. She's absolutely right. And even when North Korea is objectively funny, like with Polkka Sari, it has dark undertones Because Kim Jong-il got that movie made by abducting 2 of South Korea's biggest names in film and forcing them to make movies for him for years.
Speaker 1
09:27
And you know what? They did eventually escape. So I'm gonna go ahead and say, and I know this is not gonna be a popular opinion, but if that's what it took to give us that baby monster scene, it was fucking worth it. Just my opinion.
Speaker 1
09:40
Just my opinion. But the underlying truth of North Korea is that it is a dark place. Not just figuratively, but literally. You can get a sense of how little development there has been there when you look at it from space.
Speaker 1
09:53
See that void? Where there is almost no lights? That's North Korea. It looks like a divorced dad's Christmas tree where he gave up halfway through hanging the lights, got drunk and fell asleep watching Ken Burns' baseball.
Speaker 1
10:06
-... And the Kim family is known for their bone-chilling cruelty and mismanagement. They were largely responsible for the deaths of somewhere between 600,000 and 2 and a half million people during a famine in the 1990s. And we know that there are large, brutal camps where political dissidents are imprisoned, sometimes alongside their extended families.
Speaker 10
10:27
Satellite images show their scale, but for a picture of what they're really like, we can only rely on those who've been there. These sketches are the recollections of other prisoners who've managed to escape the camps.
Speaker 1
10:56
That is truly horrific. But the existence, the continued existence of those camps brings us to a really important point to understand. Kim Jong-un is terrified of losing power.
Speaker 1
11:06
And while we love to present him as a madman, many experts believe that his actions are motivated by rational self-preservation. He has seen leaders like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi scale back their nuclear programs only to be overthrown either by the U.S. Or by their own people and die gruesome deaths. And it's true that dictators generally don't end their careers like disgraced American politicians with a stint on dancing with the stars.
Speaker 1
11:31
Although, that would have been an incredible season. Saddam, that fox trot was a weapon of mass seduction, and MoMA, you worked hard and it showed. --LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE --So... So Kim Jong-un has continued his family's military-first policy, spending huge amounts of money on what is the fourth largest military on Earth and an expensive nuclear program in an impoverished country whose economy has been estimated to be smaller than that of Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 1
12:00
And Birmingham is a small economy. Their most notable export is American Idol season 5 winner Taylor Hicks. Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing. Soul Patrol forever.
Speaker 1
12:10
Soul Patrol till I fucking die. So... So, How can Kim Jong-un justify that spending? Well, he argues that the huge military is the only thing staving off imminent invasion from a host of outsiders, and that is where we come in.
Speaker 1
12:26
Because the most dominant and useful villain in North Korea's narrative is the United States. And it is not like that comes out of nowhere. We sided with the South during the Korean War. And while many Americans may have forgotten just how devastating that war was, the North Koreans certainly haven't.
Speaker 1
12:41
They have an entire museum devoted to American war atrocities. And I'm not saying that there were none, but I don't think any were quite as over the top as this.
Speaker 11
12:53
In the last liberation war, during our strategic retreat, the American hyenas occupied the land of Shinchon. They arrested Min Young-sik and stabbed her muscles with a three-pronged spear and sucked her flowing blood. They also took the flesh from her thighs using a bayonet, dipped it in salt, and ate it.
Speaker 1
13:12
And in case you're wondering, yes, you can buy coasters depicting that scene in the museum gift shop, but they are $16, which is the real war crime there. And the North Koreans' indoctrination in anti-Americanism starts extremely young, as 1 defector remembers.
Speaker 4
13:27
Holy
Speaker 12
13:27
shit! You know, there are 4 American bastards. You kill 2 of them. Then how many American bastards left to kill?
Speaker 12
13:36
And as a child, I had to say, 2 American bastards. And that was
Speaker 4
13:41
my education.
Speaker 1
13:42
Holy shit! It is fascinating when a country's culture seeps even into their math lessons. Although it's not really surprising.
Speaker 1
13:49
As a British child, our math questions were, if Johnny has 2 artifacts, and Dinesh has 2 artifacts, then how many artifacts is Johnny about to have? The answer, of course, all the artifacts. Dinesh's family can come visit them in the British Museum whenever they're in town. And the notion that North Korea is working on a bomb that can kill all the American bastards is a tremendous source of national pride.
Speaker 1
14:15
There have been stamps depicting missiles hurtling towards the U.S. Capital. And a few years ago, they produced a video depicting the destruction of New York set to the least appropriate song imaginable. ♪♪ Yes, you heard right.
Speaker 1
14:42
That was a karaoke version of We Are The World set to New York in flames. And the last time I saw a karaoke song with background imagery that inappropriate was, every time I have ever sung karaoke. I don't know what LL Cool J's doing it has to do with these 2 babies in a field of sunflowers, but it's making everybody uncomfortable. -...
Speaker 1
15:03
So the North Korean regime has been very careful about presenting a threatening image of Americans to its people, and some activists have actually been trying to undermine that by sneaking information into the country on USB drives.
Speaker 13
15:18
We send various content, from stories on human rights, general information on South Korea, to images depicting the average American.
Speaker 14
15:25
Or a fictional version of the average American, TV shows like The Mentalist and Desperate Housewives, Kang says scenes like this 1 from NCIS...
Speaker 9
15:34
Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
Speaker 14
15:37
That show police officers reading suspects their rights are especially useful.
Speaker 1
15:42
You know what, if nothing else, we finally have our answer to the decade-long question, who the fuck is watching NCIS? It turns out, it's all your mom's friends and the people of North Korea. And if you think about it, that is very dangerous for Kim Jong-un, because if people get a sense that the image of America that he has carefully painted for them is false, he could have huge problems.
Speaker 1
16:04
And when you understand him in that light, as a dictator, desperately hedging against a loss of power, it is possible to understand why all his recent threats against the United States have been reckless, but in his mind, also rational. And that brings us to the key question here, what are we going to do about this? Because on the campaign trail, Donald Trump made it all seem very simple.
Speaker 5
16:26
They said, would you speak to the leader of North Korea? I said, absolutely, why not? Why not?
Speaker 5
16:35
And they come out, Trump would speak to him. Who the hell cares? I'll speak to anybody. Who knows?
Speaker 5
16:45
There's a 10% or a 20% chance that I can talk him out of those damn nukes, because who the hell wants him to have nukes? And there's a chance.
Speaker 1
16:56
No. No. There really isn't. Partly because, Remember, Kim Jong-un believes they are critical for his survival, and on top of that, Donald Trump is a shitty negotiator.
Speaker 1
17:06
In his short presidency, he has failed to get Mexico to pay for his stupid wall, he's failed to get a Congress his party controls to pass a healthcare bill, and even when his administration does get something done, it way oversells it. Like when the White House announced a trade deal with China as very big news, gigantic, and Herculean, and 1 much-celebrated component turned out to be lifting a ban on beef imports that China had preliminarily agreed to last September. So, way to fucking go there, Donald. What a very big Herculean deal.
Speaker 1
17:38
Thanks to you, except not entirely thanks to you, America is now marginally more able to export beef again. And since taking office, Trump has voiced support for an even simpler solution.
Speaker 5
17:51
China is helping us, possibly or probably, with the North Korean situation. Okay? Which is a great thing.
Speaker 5
18:04
Great thing.
Speaker 1
18:06
So, in the space of 14 seconds there, he said the word, great, twice. He pronounced China with 3 syllables, suggested someone else should do the work for him, and then threw in a possibly or probably rendering the whole thing meaningless. I think I may have just hit Trump bingo, and the prize that I want is to go drown in a river.
Speaker 1
18:25
But Trump's idea there of convincing China to exert influence on North Korea is not inherently crazy. China shares an 800-mile border with North Korea and accounts for as much as 90 percent of North Korea's total trade. So they do have significant leverage, but some are skeptical about just what China could or is willing to do. Take sanctions.
Speaker 1
18:46
The UN have tried multiple rounds of increasingly harsh sanctions, but North Korea has always found easy ways around them.
Speaker 6
18:55
North Korea is a 100 percent state enterprise. So these companies change their names the next day if they're listed for sanctions. That way the company stays, but with different names whenever there are sanctions.
Speaker 6
19:06
If I'm included in the list, my name can be changed too.
Speaker 1
19:09
Yeah, and that is some pretty weak enforcement. Think about it this way. Let's say HBO decided they wanted to cancel this show.
Speaker 1
19:16
Their hand would be pretty weak if I was just able to get around that simply by changing the name to Earlier Times But Now, starring Spence Mugendorfer. And it is true that China could increase enforcement of its sanctions, but they are understandably worried about where that could lead.
Speaker 15
19:33
What they worry about is, if they do that, will the regime collapse? What does that mean? Millions of refugees pouring into China.
Speaker 15
19:41
Possibly a unified Korea that is then a pro-American country sitting on their southern border. Don't forget there are 30,000 American troops in South Korea,
Speaker 4
19:50
which
Speaker 15
19:50
would then be on China's border. And, by the way, 15 nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1
19:54
You know that there are a lot of problems when you end up saying, -"Oh, and by the way, 15 nuclear weapons." --LAUGHTER Imagine you were a babysitter and you heard, okay, you've got his EpiPen, you know about his nut allergy, he needs his inhaler every hour. Oh, and by the way, he has 15 nuclear weapons. Now, Trump has also been mentioning military solutions, but even targeted strikes against weapon systems could get out of hand very fast.
Speaker 1
20:19
North Korea would likely retaliate, and they have an estimated 8,000 pieces of heavy artillery stationed just north of the DMZ, which is here. And that artillery is capable of reaching Seoul, which is just 40 miles away, and is an area with 25 million people. So, even a non-nuclear war could have horrific results. And let's just engage in some truly magical thinking.
Speaker 1
20:40
What if you could somehow just take out Kim Jong-un? Well, you've probably got an immediate humanitarian crisis on your hands, as well as a leaderless country with a power vacuum and nuclear weapons. And as we've learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, when regimes fall and there is no plan in place, that vacuum can be filled with terrible things. We do not want to find out what North Korea's ISIS would be.
Speaker 1
21:03
Even just the phrase, North Korea's ISIS, is absolutely terrifying. It's like saying, 9-11's Bill Cosby. What would that even be? I hope we never have to find out.
Speaker 1
21:16
So, sanctions are no guarantee, and military action could be catastrophic, and diplomacy is gonna be extremely difficult, given that you usually need to have a specific goal in mind, and Trump seems to be making all of this up as he goes along.
Speaker 16
21:30
We are learning stunning new details about President Trump's extraordinary fire and fury threat tonight. Multiple sources telling CNN the president ad-libbed those words. They improvised on the fly.
Speaker 1
21:40
For fuck's sake! That is just not a good idea. As I'm sure someone has had to say to Wayne Brady at a funeral more than once, now is not a good time to improvise.
Speaker 1
21:52
Here's a one-word suggestion, Wayne. Mourn. Mourn like a person. And look, look, the thing is, that's not a surprise.
Speaker 1
22:00
Deep down, we all assumed that he was winging it. We have become accustomed to discounting a large percentage of what comes out of his face. But North Korea is listening to what he says. And the people there have been primed for decades to believe that America is on the brink of an invasion.
Speaker 1
22:15
Just look at their government's response to his fire and fury line. -...
Speaker 6
22:21
The American commander-in-chief remains stuck at a golf course, oblivious to what is happening, and talking about such nonsense as fire and fury. Since it is impossible to have talks with people who are incapable of rational thought. The Strategic Armed Forces has judged that we must respond with absolute force.
Speaker 1
22:38
Hey, hey, hey! Okay, just to be clear, the president is not stuck at a golf course, unless the cart ran out of gas and he has to walk, in which case, yes, the president is very much stuck at the goal course and may need to be airlifted out. So, here is where we are.
Speaker 1
22:52
We have 2 nuclear-armed leaders who are accustomed to issuing empty threats to impress their own people, and they are now currently goading each other towards Armageddon, which is absolutely terrifying. And I don't really have a solution to this, but part of me would love the chance, just the chance, to speak directly to the North Korean people. So, on the off chance that this show is smuggled over their border on a USB drive crammed with NCIS episodes. I would just like to say this.
Speaker 1
23:21
Hi, North Korea. You may be hearing some frightening rhetoric from our president, but if it helps at all, when our president says words, he doesn't necessarily mean what those words mean. It's very difficult to describe to you. We're still trying to wrap our heads around it ourselves.
Speaker 1
23:36
Really, it's our problem, except it is now kind of your problem, too. But I want to talk to you about some misconceptions, because we certainly have misconceptions about you. But you should know, ideally, that we are not remotely what your state propaganda implies either. We honestly do not spend our days plotting your destruction.
Speaker 1
23:56
We spend them sharing cat memes, and spinning fidget, and getting furiously angry about a singing boy barely appearing in our favorite Dragon Show. So, for what it's worth, I would like to give you, the North Korean people, a sense of how America is feeling right now in a way that you might understand and enjoy. And that is through the international language of the accordion. And I have some good news and some bad news there.
Speaker 1
24:21
The bad news is, I do not play the accordion. The good news is, I know someone who plays it like a fucking angel. Ladies and gentlemen, and the people of North Korea, please welcome Mr. Weird Al Yankovic!
Speaker 1
24:34
-♪♪ -♪♪ -♪
Speaker 9
24:47
Would you annihilate us if you had the chance? That's such an antisocial thing to do. You've got us crapping our collective pants.
Speaker 9
24:57
May I suggest you take it down a notch or 2? We're not exactly sure why you're upset Did that Seth Rogen movie make you super mad? You'd like us if you got to know us, I bet We're mostly harmless, decent people Hey, we're really not so bad My point is, please don't nuke us, North Korea Right now we're all a little tense Believe me, we don't hate you, frankly We don't even think that much about you, no offense Now you might call us bloodthirsty dogs But that metaphor's not very apt We're just a bunch of simple fidget-spinning goofy dorks Who probably couldn't find your country on a map No, we're not savages or cannibals Well, maybe just a Really, really, really small percent So I think it would be best if you'd knock off those missile tests Don't turn us into sender while we're swiping right on Tinder Don't jumpstart Armageddon or our fridge will soon be wetting Won't you think this through for a moment, please? Now why would you bomb our life celebrities?
Speaker 9
26:02
But why in the world would you kill Tom Hanks? Cause nobody doesn't like Tom Hanks! So, leave those noogas, North Korea That would seriously ruin our day Remember, we're not evil psychotic monsters No matter what the news may say We're just those goofballs
Speaker 4
26:32
from the USA Please don't nuke us, please don't nuke us, please don't nuke us Hey! Of U-S-A! Hey!
Speaker 4
26:39
Yeah!
Speaker 1
26:42
-♪♪
Speaker 4
26:45
-"Rainbow Yankovic"! Rainbow Yankovic, ladies and gentlemen! -♪♪ -♪♪ We are The Yanktomans!
Speaker 4
26:48
We are The Yanktomans, ladies and gentlemen!
Speaker 1
26:52
-♪♪
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