Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host of the week, Desi Lydic, welcomed Michigan State Senator and U.S. Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow to Tuesday’s show to discuss her book Hate Won’t Win. Both host and guest lamented that “hate is having a moment” after the 2024 election as McMorrow tried to sanitize her record that led her to become famous in the first place.
Lydic wondered, “So, your book is titled Hate Won’t Win. I'm just curious, considering the last election result, are you planning a follow-up book called Okay, Best 2 out of 3?”
McMorrow replied by calling Elon Musk a Nazi and suggested actually analyzing the arm gesture in question to determine whether it actually was a Nazi salute is a waste of time:
Yeah, I think it is safe to say that hate is having a moment. But the title, to me, is a call to action. It is a choice that each and every single one of us have an opportunity to make every day about when Elon Musk goes out there and does what is surely a Nazi salute, and we all know it. Instead of getting angry and spiraling and going online and looking up think pieces about whether or not his hand was raised to just the right angle or not.
After some crosstalk, McMorrow continued and urged people to get involved in Democratic Party politics, "But, when those things happen, and there are a lot of things that happen, the plan of the Trump Administration is to do so many disgusting and horrible things every single day that we shut down and feel powerless. And what if, instead, we put our phones down, and we did one thing? Maybe we reached out to one neighbor. Maybe we found out where there's a Democratic club that meets in my town, and actually showed up and took a step, just like running, every single day, we take another step and then another step, and long term, if we all do that, hate’s not going to win."
Lydic then put the ball on the tee again by alluding to a speech McMorrow gave where she tried to appoint herself as one of the country’s leaders of the religious left, “This title, Hate Won't Win, came from a really powerful moment from a speech that you made on the floor of your State Senate in Michigan. Talk about that moment where you not only found your voice but also realized the power that it had.”
McMorrow recalled, “So, I woke up one morning on a regular day, and there was a screenshot of an email on Twitter, and it was an email that was sent out by one of my Republican colleagues, mind you, not someone I was running against. Just somebody in a different part of the state that I served with, fundraising for herself. And in the email, she accused me by name of wanting to groom and sexualize kindergartners and wanting 8-year-olds to believe they are responsible for slavery. And that's a dark day.”
She also claimed, "I realized that I feel horrendous, but I'm not actually the one under attack. So, what if I actually respond? You know, I was raised to believe that bullies just crave attention. Let's not give it to them. But clearly, that hasn't worked. It hasn't stopped them. They are winning. Hate is having a moment. So, I wrote down about myself and my mom and that I was raised in the Catholic Church and what Christianity meant to me. It meant not putting ‘Christian’ in your Twitter bio and using that as a shield to attack and marginalize already marginalized people."
Back in June 2022, McMorrow responded to a tweet reporting that a Texas state representative was seeking to pass a bill that would ban minors at drag shows by tweeting, “First it was CRT. Then it was trans kids playing sports. Now it’s…drag?”
If you don’t want kids being taught that America is an irredeemably racist country or that a man who declares himself to be a woman really is a woman, then, according to Desi Lydic and Mallory McMorrow, you’re just hateful.
Here is a transcript for the April 8 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
4/8/2025
11:23 PM ET
DESI LYDIC: So, your book is titled Hate Won’t Win. I'm just curious, considering the last election result, are you planning a follow-up book called Okay, Best 2 out of 3?
MALLORY MCMORROW: Yeah, I think it is safe to say that hate is having a moment. But the title, to me, is a call to action. It is a choice that each and every single one of us have an opportunity to make every day about when Elon Musk goes out there and does what is surely a Nazi salute, and we all know it. Instead of getting angry and spiraling and going online and looking up think pieces about whether or not his hand was raised to just the right angle or not—
LYDIC: You are saying we should not do that?
MCMORROW: We should not do that.
[crosstalk]
LYDIC: Don't spiral, you said? Okay, got it.
MCMORROW: Yeah, yeah. Doom scrolling, not good. Not advised.
LYDIC: Doom scrolling: not good. Got it. Okay.
MCMORROW: But, when those things happen, and there are a lot of things that happen, the plan of the Trump Administration is to do so many disgusting and horrible things every single day that we shut down and feel powerless. And what if, instead, we put our phones down, and we did one thing?
Maybe we reached out to one neighbor. Maybe we found out where there's a Democratic club that meets in my town, and actually showed up and took a step, just like running, every single day, we take another step and then another step, and long term, if we all do that, hate’s not going to win.
LYDIC: Excellent advice. This title, Hate Won't Win, came from a really powerful moment from a speech that you made on the floor of your State Senate in Michigan. Talk about that moment where you not only found your voice but realized the power that it had.
MCMORROW: So, I woke up one morning on a regular day, and there was a screenshot of an email on Twitter, and it was an email that was sent out by one of my Republican colleagues, mind you, not someone I was running against. Just somebody in a different part of the state that I served with, fundraising for herself. And in the email, she accused me by name of wanting to groom and sexualize kindergartners and wanting 8-year-olds to believe they are responsible for slavery. And that's a dark day.
LYDIC: Yeah.
MCMORROW: Just not a good workday, certainly. I was spiraling all day, trying to figure out what to do and my friends were worried about me. But I realized that I feel horrendous, but I'm not actually the one under attack. So, what if I actually respond? You know, I was raised to believe that bullies just crave attention. Let's not give it to them. But clearly, that hasn't worked. It hasn't stopped them. They are winning. Hate is having a moment.
So, I wrote down about myself and my mom and that I was raised in the Catholic Church and what Christianity meant to me. It meant not putting "Christian" in your Twitter bio and using that as a shield to attack and marginalize already marginalized people.
And I was very intentional, thinking about 99 percent of people. In the end of that speech, I said, people who are different are not the reason why your health care costs are too high or why teachers are leaving the profession. And wanted to take my own story back. And that speech immediately went viral. Tens of millions of people saw it. I got a phone call from the president and I missed it. It went to voicemail. He left me a message. It was deeply embarrassing.
