'The Daily Show' recap 5/6/13 - The NRA Meeting and Christiane Amanpour

The May 6, 2013 episode of the Daily Show focuses on the NRA annual meeting and international issues with Christiane Amanpour.

The episode begins with Jon Stewart discussing the National Rifle Association (NRA) 142nd annual meeting in Houston, Texas. Stewart focuses on the speeches given by prominent political personalities starting with Senator Ted Cruz (R – Texas). Cruz gave a similar speech to the ones Stewart had covered last week about President Barak Obama and his administration trying to take away American freedom. The other speakers included Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, and a lot of other well-known conservative speakers. They all used the usual conservative talking points other than guns, but eventually all got to guns. They complained about their opponents’ use of emotion and fear and then proceeded to reference the need for guns to protect people’s moms and sisters from sexual assault. Overall, their messages were a bit confused. The government is endangering people, but the good guys after the Boston Marathon bombing were the police, employed by the government. Stewart also discussed how Cruz, as well as the others, seem to be confused about the difference between democracy and tyranny. He gives the example of them filibustering a bill that included background checks, which about 90% of the public and over half of Congress is for, and Stewart explains that this action blocked democracy. When the same thing was done to their bill, however, it was tyranny. Stewart ended the segment by acknowledging that there are different ways to protect people, but Stewart thinks it is best to limit access to guns. Either way, he wants there to be a discussion and for the conservatives to stop saying that background checks are the only thing between people and government sponsored mom rape.

The second and third segments of the episode consists of the interview with Christiane Amampour, an international news anchor from CNN. They begin the interview talking about CNN’s efforts to improve after their recent fumblings. Amanpour seems positive about the network and Stewart clearly hopes she is right. They spent the rest of the interview discussing international issues. They talk about the war in Syria and the U.S. uncertainty about what to do about it. There are more than a million refugees fleeing Syria to a number of countries that may not be able to afford them and this aspect of the war is not getting attention. Amanpour ends the discussion talking about how these issues need to be talked about in factual ways. There is no need for the political ramblings that usually make up the discussion.