Venezuelans Angry at Official Earthquake Response; Writer David Sedaris on America 250 - July 2

Is it a lot of pressure to be called the Mark Twain of your generation? I think people don't remember much about Mark Twain, so I think that's one of the reasons. Hey everybody and welcome to Here's The Scoop from NBC News. I'm Christine Romans filling in for Yasmin Vesugian. Today on the show, Yas talks to humorist David Sedaris about growing political and generational divides in America and how they found their way into his latest essay collection, The Land and Its People. And for The Inside Scoop, Sedaris shares his thoughts on reality TV, duolingo, and the surprising person he'd most like to roast. But first, it's been just over a week since twin earthquakes and a series of aftershocks devastated Venezuela. Officials say the death toll is now nearing 3,000 and rescue crews are still searching for survivors trapped under the rubble. More than 50,000 people remain missing, according to a website created by volunteers helping families. Meanwhile, thousands of survivors have been displaced by the quakes and they're saying the response from the Venezuelan government has been a failure. NBC News contributor Ana Vanessa Herrero is in Venezuela and joins me now. Hi Ana. Hi guys. You know, we can see the destruction right behind you and just before we got on, you were wearing a face mask. Tell us where you are and what's happening there. Yes, well, I am in Grand Ciro in La Guaira, specifically in a place called Playa Grande. But I have to tell you, I've passed this street so many times to go to the beach and to just have fun and decompress. Me and millions of Venezuelans have written through this now devastated streets and it's just overwhelming the feeling that I'm not even recognizing your own places. So whatever you see behind me does not begin to explain what is really going on here on the ground. There are thousands of families right now here who are looking for their loved ones and they're not even moving from there. I was just with a family in Playa Grande and they were telling me, look, we are not going to move until we find our loved ones, dead or alive, doesn't matter. One of them even telling me, even if I have her skull, she was talking about her baby, her baby, toddler, four years old. And in front of them, the military were there with long guns and they were telling me, it is unbelievable that there are more long guns than shovels. Now a week later, we see the devastation. And now you can see that the problem all along is the lack of government assistance, the lack of authorities helping their own and being the volunteers and the people, the ones who stepped in to save themselves. Ana, you've said the government is asking people to leave. And you talk to these people there who don't want to leave without knowing what happened to their loved ones. Is the government concerned about public health? Are they trying to move people out of there so they can begin demolition at this point? That is the information that family members are telling me here in La Guaira. I have not heard of a protocol or a plan in progress to do so. But apparently, authorities are approaching family members who are outside of areas like the ones you see behind me to tell them that they will soon need to move because they're gonna start to demolish the premises. And they're not only saying no, but they're saying that if they need to do, they want to do that, they're gonna do it with them inside, with them on top of the debris. And they would have to kill them if they want to move into the buildings that collapse. But again, there is no clear protocol in progress. There is no clear information. They are not informing the people nor the media what their plan is. And many of the people I've been talking to here say the government acted way too late, but not only to recover those who might have survived the between earthquakes, but they acted late even now. I was telling you just behind me, you see the one of the collapsed buildings. But in front of me, there is, let's say, an improvised refugee camp, okay, where all those affected by the earthquakes are there. But they were the ones who went there. They were the ones who organized themselves. And they are now sleeping after days. I spoke to a doctor who works for the health ministry. And I said, doctor, well, now you got supplies from the ministry. And she said, no, this supplies come from volunteers. They come from different states, donations. And they also come from personal individuals that just passing by say, what do you need? What are you hearing about hope for survivors, Anna? Just a couple of days ago, officials said there were more than 6,400 people that have been found alive where you are. There have been some rescues in the last few days. Is there still hope for survivors? It is just a very complicated question when you're here. Because we have seen miraculous stories. And everyone here, it's extremely sad. But everyone is hanging to that really thin string of hope that they might find another one of those stories. So everywhere you go, it's every step you take, you see devastation. But you also see a volunteer trying to look for someone, saying that they hear someone praying together. So that anyone, someone who might still be alive might show a sign of lights. Anna, when you spoke to Yasmin last, you were looking for a friend of yours. I understand you were able to locate your friend. How is she doing? Well, so she was buried for a very long time, so she's not in good shape. She's alive. But her daughter passed. She was three years old. Her name was Adriana. She was a beautiful girl. I'm so happy that she didn't make it. And everyone is around. My friend, everyone is just trying to help her in any way we can. And we're so grateful to God that she's alive. And everyone here, everyone that you see right here, it's a miracle. And my friend, it's a miracle. And she's trying to make it out of the hospital to go say goodbye to her girl. She said that it all happened so fast that the floor started to shake. And when she got to the door, she said she didn't even take two minutes. The door fell with her and her baby. And she saw how her mom also passed, fell through one of the cracks of the building. The story side of the survivor is horrendous. And then there's a collective sense of fear and a collective sense of trauma. Every time something, a lot of bang happens or if there's a tremor, there's an aftershock, you can see the panic, you can feel the panic, immediate panic among everyone. But there's also something happening here that we haven't seen in a long time. And it's Venezuelans getting together for one goal. And it's just to help immediately those right now without government just controlling that situation. So many tragedies and so many miracles at the same time. It's just hard to take. Thank you, Ana Vanessa Herrero, for telling us and showing us what you're seeing and living there. Thank you. Thank you, guys. So not many authors could cover a Duolingo addiction, a spouse's hip replacement surgery, and visit the Vatican and Tanzania in a single book. But writer David Sedaris tackles all of that and a lot more in his latest essay collection, The Land and Its People, with his signature wit and dry humor. He has written more than 15 books, including Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, and is often called the Mark Twain of his generation. David Sedaris, it is great to have you here. Yet have I won the Mark Twain award? No. No, I have not. You did sit next to someone who recently did. Yeah, Bill Maher. Bill Maher. And I think that's great. Do you, though? Yeah, I do. I think he deserves it. Is it a lot of pressure to be called the Mark Twain of your generation? I think people don't remember much about Mark Twain, so I think that's one of the reasons. I want you to read from your book a little bit. Okay. Okay. So you talk about conversations that you have with the AI chatbot on Duolingo. I want you to read. This is the first one. Then they introduced Duolingo Max, which changed everything. The upgrade included role-playing exercises with Lily, their sarcastic purple-haired teenage character. Her questions and comments are somewhat predictable, but I soon learned I could easily throw her off course. What do you want to buy, she'll ask in her flat, passionless voice, standing beside the hand baskets in the supermarket. Answer, I would like butter and eggs, please. And the rest of the conversation follows the path you might expect. Anything else, she asks. But answer, yesterday a doctor cut out my tongue with a chainsaw, and white dots will fluctuate above her animated image. This is her AI mind telling her, quick, say something. Tell him you're sorry about the tongue. Then ask if he wants to purchase something to drink instead. Surprisingly, on that occasion, she responded, I'm sorry, I can no longer continue this conversation. Goodbye. She hangs up on me a lot. She asked me, what did you do? What did you do yesterday? I said, I married your, I actually married your mother yesterday. I said, I'm your father now. She hung up on me. Do you want Lily to reject you? No, I'd just like to see how far I can push her. Sometimes she hangs up on me. Sometimes she hangs up on me and I think, oh, I must have used the wrong word, or I must have mispronounced it. Or like when I'm doing French with Duolingo, I don't ever want to answer the question the same way twice. You know, I want to just dust off my vocabulary. Can we talk a little about politics? Sure. So we're in this very divisive time, you think? I'd say. There have been a lot of protests around this country. In one of the essays you write about the No King's protest that you attended in New Hampshire, and you agree with these protesters ideologically, but you were embarrassed by them. Well, no, I was just walking along and it was a group of protesters on the street corner in New Hampshire. And later people said, oh, they're there all the time, that group of people. But they just, they looked like kooks. They were like Tea Party protesters, remember? During the Obama administration. And they were just sort of embarrassing. And it just... But why? Well, one of them had a winter hat on, you know, and it was about 87 degrees out. And their signs were all over the place. And they just looked like folk dance instructors. Each person was like a mess. I mean, I just think of the civil rights protesters and how everyone wore a suit and a nice dress and they went and their signs were professionally painted and legible and they didn't have any curse words on them. And they were on... They all had the same message, right? They were on the same page. And now you go to a protest and it's like, you look at the person next to you and it's like, globalize the antipata? Like, I thought we were here to save Masterpiece Theater. America 250. It's a real transition there that we're making. The birthday is coming up of this country. You live here now, but you lived in Europe for two decades or so. Is there something that you notice that has changed about this country since your return after having moved overseas? What is the thing that has changed the most? I think the thing that's changed the most is just how divided the country's become. Just how... Does that divide feature writing at all? Well, I mean, just perhaps just in the way that I write about America, but it saddens me. I mean, you name a business and people will tell you you're not supposed to go there. You know, and you feel like, why am I supposed to go there again? If personal information gets out about an actor or a writer or a playwright, then all of a sudden, like, why not go into that play anymore? I don't have to agree with everybody. When I don't agree with somebody, I like to ask them questions, right? I don't get up in their face. I want to understand why they think. You want to understand why they think that way. What is the most American thing about you? How eager I am to talk about money. When we first moved to France, I realized, oh, people don't talk about money at all. But Americans do it. Australians do it quite often. But as an American, it's just... You have to train yourself. I mean, in America, if you say to somebody, that's a nice watch, and it shouldn't be. It costs $35,000. And I love that. Your book is called The Land and Its People. It's not about this country. It's not about America. But what do you think should be celebrated about this country in this time of its birthday? I think there are some great artists in America. I mean, there are great playwrights, and I think there are great visual artists, and I think there are great poets and great writers. And nothing can keep them down. Nothing will keep them down. You know, it's not a question of like, oh, if we defund such and such, that's not going to stop people. No, just energize them. And we're innovative that way. And we're innovative in a lot of ways. It's just built into us, I think. And that's a wonderful thing. And it used to be that we were super optimistic. And foreigners would always, you know, we'd go to another country, and they'd make fun of you. You know, like, I mean, even in Japan, they, in a gentle Japanese way, make fun of, you know, when an American person speaks Japanese, it's like, you know, all gung-ho and all enthusiastic. But there was something really beautiful about that at the same time. I see it, I saw it starting to change with the pandemic. And I guess part of it was based on people just believing that they could have whatever they wanted. You know, when we only sort of believed that. And I think we don't quite believe it in that same way anymore. And I think, I don't know what it's like to be a young person who has no chance in buying a house, you know, or can afford to have a baby. And granted, it was easier. And there are a lot of people like that right now. Yeah. But I, I don't know, it makes me sad to see that optimism die. Even if it was misplaced, I think it was, I think it was important to our culture, I think. Well, I'm not an optimist, I'm dying. David Sedaris, the book is The Land and the People, and you can get it wherever you buy your books. It's incredible. Oh, you're so kind. Will you, though, stick around with me? Because we're going to play a little game. Sure. Called The Inside Scoop. Sure. Okay, we'll be back with David Sedaris. And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. David Sedaris is with me. David, I want to get a little bit more personal with you. So we're going to do rapid fire questions, okay? As rapid fire as we can be. All right. If you had to choose just one, a skirt or a tux jacket, which would it be? A tux jacket. Every time? Not every time. It would depend on what I had. I mean, I love a skirt, but you didn't say what kind of skirt. I like a... A skirt that you would wear, not like a mini. Right. No, I like a skirt that goes to the ground, that looks like a witch was burned in it. That's what I like. Oh, fantastic. What is your favorite pair of shoes? My favorite pair of shoes is a pair of size 15 shoes. And I have a seven and a half foot. I was going to say, I saw you walk in. Size 15. And they have a strap in the middle of the shoe, so your heel rests upon it. I see you look like a kid wearing his dad's shoes. Who makes them? A Japanese concern called Kids Love Gay Tea. Or G-A-I-T-E. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. You travel a lot. Top of your bucket list for a place you haven't been. To a place I haven't been. Chad. Oh, OK. You've studied Japanese, Spanish, German. I heard you speak German. French, and Duolingo. What language do you want to learn next? Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, I can speak some in those languages. You know, I would like to be really good. I would like to be able to really speak German. Not just like, I can go to the, where's the bathroom? Right. I have to be in control of the conversation. Right. To have a conversation now. But if you came up to me and if you said, gee, does your extended family believe in leprechauns? I would be like, ah, damn it. Why didn't she ask me? And that's likely something I would ask you, I think, if I walked up to you randomly on the street. What is your favorite reality TV show and why? Love on the Spectrum is the most beautiful show. It is a beautiful show. It's a show, to me, one of the things it's about are really great parents. The parents on that show get a kick out of their kids. You know, you can see it on their faces. You can see how much they, they're not laughing at their kids, but you gotta laugh every now and then. But they, they're amused by their children. And a lot of them are adult children. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, it's one beautiful family after another on that show. Who would you invite to your roast? To my roast? To roast me? To roast you. My brother, Paul. Who would you most like to roast? Who would I most like to roast? J.D. Vance. You went with other comedians to meet Pope Francis. Would you go to the White House to meet President Trump if you got the invite? Well, you know, the thing is, like, I don't, you know, like every now and then you'll think, oh my God, I'm part of the problem, you know? But, I mean, I could write about it. I mean. They don't have all day. Okay. You know what? This is called rapid fire. I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I would, you know what I would do? I would throw myself down the stairs and say, can't go, I broke my leg. David Sedaris. Thank you. Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure. We have an extended cut of Yaz's interview with David Sedaris for NBC News subscribers. You can sign up at nbcnews.com or in the NBC News app. That's going to do it for us at Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Christine Romans filling in for Yasmin Vesugian. We'll be back tomorrow with a special holiday episode for you. Yas spoke with historian Heather Cox Richardson about America 250, how the promise of the Declaration of Independence has held up, and why she's optimistic about the future. So look for that in your feed. And if you like what you heard and you saw, press the subscribe button.