[CHEERING]
 Welcome back to the show.
With so much focus
on powerful men
and their inappropriate
touching of women,
it's easy to forget there's
at least one thing even more
dangerous, powerful men
inappropriately touching
the nuclear launch buttons.
I did not travel to North
Korea to learn more.
We're hurtling toward
war with North Korea.
One insane person is
bullying another insane
person who's launching
missiles in our direction.
I wanted to find
out if there was
a way to prevent the end times
in the next couple of weeks.
So I sat down with
North Korea expert,
Christine Ahn to find out.
There are two things that we
all know about North Korea.
One, they love marching with
their missiles and equipment.
And two, Kim Jong-un loves
being in photos that are awful.
What can you tell us about
North Korea that we don't know?
 What I would say
is that there was
an indiscriminate bombing
campaign waged by the United
States against North Korea.
I mean, 80% of North Korea
was completely destroyed.
 And people are alive today
who remember it, who were there?
 Absolutely.
More bombs were dropped
on the Korean peninsula
than in throughout the
whole Asia-Pacific theater
in World War II.
 This was not a storyline
in M*A*S*H that I recall.
Know what else
wasn't in M*A*S*H?
The fact that two guys
at the State Department
divided the Korean peninsula
without Korean input.
That, along with the
brutality of the Korean War,
cleared the path for
Kim Il-sung to create
one of the most repressive
regimes in the world.
But look how cute this
terrified Shirley Temple is!
Ooh, ooh, I don't know
how to fake yodel!
Riddle me this,
why have the Kim's
been such shitheads
to their people?
 Well, it depends on what
you mean by shitheads.
I mean, if it means having
the world's largest prison
population, mass surveillance
of its citizen's communications,
systematic discrimination
of one group of people,
and spending far
more on its military
than on the well-being
of its people,
I think we have to
ask the very same
question of our own government.
 Excuse me for a second.
Christine drops all the mics.
[APPLAUSE]
I get it, we suck.
But I wanted to hear about how
shitty it is in North Korea.
For that, here's North Korean
defector and Michigan resident,
Esther Lee.
 Both South and North
Koreans just drink a lot,
and they just hang out a lot.
 They party?
 Yeah.
 So plots from
Seth Rogen movies
do actually happen
in North Korea?
 Oh yeah.
Yeah, right.
 If I can just say
on a very basic level,
I don't think Americans think
that North Koreans ever smile.
 That's not true.
They are having fun.
I mean, they are people like me.
I'm not a kind of brainwashing
perfect smile guy.
SAMANTHA BEE: But
a lot of us have
been brainwashed to
believe all of North Korea
is in a state of famine.
It's not.
Well, some of it is.
And there's torture, and
there are work camps,
and it's not a place
you want to live.
But that doesn't
mean we should be
fucking casual about
dropping nuclear bombs
on innocent civilians.
Before you came to
Michigan, what did you
think you were going to find?
 The soldier.
The soldier is the typical
image of the US people.
 So you thought we
all looked like GI Joe?
 Oh yeah.
 God, I wish they
all looked like that.
They don't, they
look more like this.
[GRUNTING]
[LAUGHTER]
 (MUFFLED) Meatloaf is good.
 Oh, sorry.
I thought I had more time.
Speaking of gluttons,
Donald Trump
is calling for a new
set of sanctions that
would deny the people of
North Korea everything
that people need to--
I don't know-- not die.
Do you support sanctions?
 Oh, never.
They did it.
They did a sanction,
and thousands of people
died, ordinary people
who just work on
the farm, or going
to the factory,
and the kids who go to school.
It's not targeting Kim's family.
It's targeting the
poor innocent people.
 That is a very on-brand
for the Trump administration.
Know what else is on-brand
for the Trump administration?
Tweeting dumb shit.
Is he going to
covfefe us into a war?
 I hope not.
Many military analysts
are predicting
that we are somewhere
between 30% to 50%
chance of going to
war with North Korea.
And many analysts say
that the winds of war
are blowing through the Beltway.
In the case of an outbreak
of a military conflict,
within the first few days,
300,000 people would be killed.
And that's not even
including nuclear weapons.
And with that, it would
be up to 25 million
people would be impacted.
- OK.
Well, these jokes
aren't funny anymore.
So now what?
 Well, hopefully,
there are those
within the administration
that realize that a war would
be unimaginable.
 What are the alternatives
to military action?
 Diplomacy.
 Does diplomacy have a
track record of working?
 It does.
It has worked in the past.
SAMANTHA BEE: Well, how is
diplomacy supposed to work when
the administration doesn't
care enough to even nominate
an ambassador to South Korea?
And what does it say
that the closest thing we
have to a diplomat is this guy?
I can't believe I'm
asking this question,
but was Dennis Rodman
actually an emissary of peace?
 I think he was.
To have an African-American
with tattoos and piercings
come to the country?
I mean, I think
that was awesome,
to just really kind of
disrupt their narrative
or their stereotypes
about Americans.
 So in some ways, we
should all be a little
more like Dennis Rodman.
2017 is so fucking weird.
Donald Trump, you and Kim
Jong-un would get along great.
You both go to the same blind
barber, and you love trucks.
So go save the world
by talking to him.
And if saving the world
isn't motivation enough,
think of all the Twitter
followers you're going
lose if all of us are dead.
[LAUGHTER]
So we'll be right back?
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
