Original subtitles

-[crowd chanting] -[theme music playing]

[siren wailing]

[audience cheering]

Thank you so much!

Thank you. Oh, my God! Welcome to Patriot Act.

I'm Hasan Minhaj. Thank you. We're back!

Oh, my God. Thank you. Aw, man. It's so good to be back.

Thank you!

Look, so many of you guys were hitting me up.

"When is Patriot Act coming back?

I need to learn about acid bubbles in Singapore

with 17 different scatter plots, please."

Now, don't worry, we'll get to that.

But tonight, I want to talk about the Amazon.

The one that's losing half its assets, but not to divorce.

When I was growing up,

I heard a lot about how the Amazon rain forest needed saving.

This is the rain forest in 1900,

and this is the rain forest today.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle] Who caused all this damage to the rain forest?

Unfortunately, people did.

♪ The rain forest The tropical rain forest ♪

♪ Unfortunately, some don't understand ♪

♪ Like people coming in And clearing the land ♪

♪ Tragically this devastation Doesn't have to happen ♪

♪ That's why I'm on the mic here rappin' ♪

For the record,

I am absolutely fine destroying the rain forest

as long as that guy lives there.

Look, I always thought that was the weirdest PSA I had ever seen,

until I saw the one with Kevin Spacey.

[Kevin Spacey] I am the rain forest.

I watched them grow up here.

They'd left, but they always come back.

Yes, they always come back.

That PSA aged so poorly,

Kevin Spacey doesn't even think it's hot anymore.

I know.

Hey, you didn't think you'd see him on Netflix again, did you?

They didn't even re-shoot with Christopher Plummer.

You had no idea.

Now, the reason you probably stopped seeing PSAs

about the Amazon and saving the rain forest

is because we actually started saving the rain forest.

Between 2004 and 2012, deforestation plunged 84%.

Yes. It's shocking. Humans actually stepped up and did the right thing.

But let's not give ourselves too much credit.

We didn't save the rain forest as much as we didn't fully kill it,

but just like Nazis and high-waisted jeans,

deforestation is making a comeback.

[woman] In the last year alone, Amazon deforestation has jumped 13.7%,

a loss of nearly 1.2 billion trees.

Now, deforestation rates are on the rise,

and this couldn't be happening at a worse time for the planet

because when it comes to climate change, we are, and I cannot stress this enough...

fucked.

Dire new warnings about the effects of climate change.

Intense heat, waves, storms.

[man] Deadly wildfires, droughts.

Ocean dead zones.

People are dying. They are dying.

You know Fox is gonna use that against her.

They'll be like, "Oh, really? You're talking about death,

even though you're still alive. Such a hypocrite.

Really, AOC?"

Now, look, we have to stop messing with the rain forest.

The Amazon is home to 10% of all species on Earth.

It absorbs 25% of the carbon emissions captured by the world's forests.

The Amazon also produces massive amounts of oxygen and water vapor,

which serves as the Earth cooling system,

which is why the Amazon is often called...

The lungs of the Earth.

The lungs of the Earth.

The lungs of the Earth.

I don't know if you know this, but every part of Earth

is actually a body part.

The Amazon is the lungs. Canada is the forehead.

Iceland is the third nipple. Malta's the skin tag.

England is the birthmark. Italy is not the foot.

Australia is the foot.

Italy's the bladder. Germany's the benign tumor.

North Korea's the malignant tumor.

Argentina is the sinus, and Fiji is the prostate.

Going there is simply the greatest pleasure

you will ever experience.

The Amazon touches nine different countries,

but to really understand why deforestation is on the rise,

we have to look at the country responsible for most of it.

Brazil.

Now, there are a lot of great things about Brazil.

Carnival, Neymar, some percentage of Hailey Baldwin

and the Brazilian wax, which is another kind of deforestation.

But it's also very painful. Over the last five decades,

almost 20% of the Amazon has been destroyed.

Even though Brazil has laws to protect the environment,

those laws aren't always enforced because of insane amounts of political

and corporate greed, and I know as an American,

we should probably shut the fuck up when it comes to the moral high ground.

Americans lecturing Brazil about corruption

is like Steve Bannon launching a skin care line.

It's just like take care of...

your own shit before you...

dive into the whole face...

thing.

But corruption in Brazil is truly on a whole other level.

Brazil's last three presidents were steeped in scandals.

Dilma Rousseff impeached for financial misconduct.

Michel Temer charged with corruption.

And Lula da Silva currently in jail or stealing DVDs from a Redbox.

I'm just kidding, corruption.

And we haven't even gotten to Brazil's massive bribery

and money laundering scandal called Operation Car Wash.

Now I'll let Fareed Zakaria, aka the original brown John Oliver, explain.

The biggest corruption scandal ever anywhere in the world,

$788 million in bribes to various officials,

five former Brazilian presidents, nearly one out of three cabinet ministers

and almost one out of three senators have been indicted or investigated.

This is the country the world is relying on to protect the Amazon.

Thank God America doesn't have that responsibility.

Can you imagine if we were in charge of the Amazon?

We would probably tear it down and build a headquarters for Amazon.

You just see a bunch of howler monkeys

driving UPS trucks with Kindles in their hands.

Now, unfortunately, things are going to get a lot worse

because of Brazil's current president, Jair Bolsonaro.

He's a former army captain who answers the question,

'What if Carl Sagan wasn't properly embalmed?"

And he's made it very clear

where he stands on the environment.

[woman] Mr. Bolsonaro campaigned to make Brazil great again,

to kick-start it's struggling economy.

And he sees the Amazon as Brazil's cash cow.

He may open up vast sections of the Amazon rain forest to mining.

He said he's gonna pardon people who have been fined for deforestation.

After all, Brazil does not owe the world anything

when it comes to environmental protection.

"We don't owe the world anything" sounds like the chorus to an Eminem song.

Bolsonaro's stance on the environment doesn't even scratch the surface

of his insanity.

I'm in favor of torture, you know this, and the people are in favor of it, too.

If it's up to me...

every citizen will have a firearm in their home.

If your son starts to become like that, a little gay,

you take a whip and you change his behavior.

So now I'm a rapist?

I'm a rapist now? I would never rape you because you don't deserve it.

Jesus.

Bolsonaro sounds like every last comment before someone is blocked on Twitter.

This is why he's often referred to as the "Trump of the Tropics."

So think of Trump, but with even more tiki torches.

Bolsonaro also loves Twitter, and his tweets are insane.

The president, who tweeted a video apparently filmed at a carnival event,

showing one man urinating on another man in a sexual act.

On the plus side,

at least Brazil's seen their president's pee tape.

Now, eventually, "Golden Shower President" started trending online.

Bolsonaro then tweeted out, "What is a golden shower?"

I love how there isn't a Portuguese word for golden shower.

Like, you ever been to another country and then you watch TV and they're like...

[speaks gibberish] "Macaulay Culkin."

You're like, "Something's happening with Macaulay Culkin."

Now, as dangerous as Bolsonaro's policies are for the Amazon,

that danger is fundamentally being driven by agribusiness,

which is the industry that produces the food that we eat.

Agribusiness accounts for almost a quarter of Brazil's economy

and is one of the biggest drivers of illegal deforestation.

Brazil is the world's largest exporter of sugar, coffee, soybeans, orange juice

and most importantly, beef.

[woman] The Amazon is home to millions of species,

and the biggest threat to the rain forest itself is this one.

[moos]

Cattle ranching is responsible for up to 80% of deforestation.

To turn the rain forest into grassland, they don't just cut it down.

They burn it down.

It's all about creating a new pastures.

The Amazon rain forest is being burned down and destroyed.

[man] Elizeu takes pictures of the tragedy

in order to tell the authorities what's going on here.

Anything that can still move tries to escape the inferno.

[audience groans]

No, don't worry. That rat goes on to become a chef in Paris.

It's beautiful.

Brazil's beef industry is a huge driver of Amazon deforestation.

And it's dominated by a single company called JBS.

They're the largest meat processing company in the world.

Last year, JBS made $46 billion.

That's a double what McDonald's made.

Even more surprising, Brazil only accounts for 24% of their revenue.

Their US division generates 76%.

That's 35.2 billion.

That's right, America. Once again, we are fucking shit up.

Look, if it's terrible, we're probably in the mix.

We're like the raisins of international relations.

Like, the rest of the world is like, "We fucking hate raisins."

And we're like, "Raisins are essential to democracy.

Raisins have to be in everything, raisins need to be in Afghanistan

for three plus decades."

JBS also happens to be one of the most corrupt companies in the world,

which isn't shocking because for a long time,

it was run by Joesley and Wesley Batista.

The Batista brothers. Now, come on.

Their names are Joesley and Wesley.

They look like dudes on a yacht Liam Neeson has to rescue girls from.

The Batista brothers are possibly two of the most corrupt people on Earth,

and they have history with the Bolsonaro administration.

Bolsonaro's current chief of staff has admitted to taking money from JBS,

and in the past, the woman who is now Bolsonaro's minister of agriculture

gave JBS tax breaks while also doing personal business with them.

The fact that senior members of the Bolsonaro administration

are closely linked to JBS is a huge liability

because the last president that got entangled with the Batista Brothers

was Michel Temer, and it ended horribly.

[woman] Joesley Batista, owner of JBS,

had recorded the president Michel Temer in an embarrassing conversation.

[woman 2] In exchange for no jail time, Joesley Batista strikes a deal,

providing information about bribing 1,829 Brazilian politicians.

The Batista brothers admitted to bribing almost 2,000 politicians,

spent roughly $150 million just in bribes

and agreed to pay a fine of $3.2 billion,

which is almost how much Facebook has to pay for destroying democracy.

Shouldn't it be, like, more?

It should definitely be more. JBS' business practices continue

to do environmental damage.

They have been accused of buying cattle from illegally deforested land

in the Amazon, even though they deny it and investigators recently arrested

Joesley Batista again

for allegedly bribing officials at Brazil's agriculture Ministry,

If that doesn't make you sick, their beef just might.

JBS bribed Brazilian food inspectors to give passing grades to spoiled meat.

And on the US side,

their meat isn't any better.

A massive ground beef recall is now expanding.

The USDA says the Brazilian company, JBS is now recalling

more than 12 million pounds of ground beef shipped to stores across the US.

This past year,

JBS beef and chicken from the US were found to have been contaminated

with hard plastic, rubber and e-coli.

All of which generally cost extra at Chipotle.

But even before that,

the US had banned all Brazilian beef imports, including JBS, indefinitely.

Do you know how bad your meat has to be for Americans to notice?

We thought Super Size Me was just a normal movie.

No lessons.

It actually just made us hungrier.

The Amazon has never been more vulnerable.

Between political corruption, Bolsonaro's pro-business agenda

and the incentives of agribusiness,

the Amazon is going to keep burning.

But there is some hope. The strongest blockade

against deforestation isn't more regulation or enforcement or fines,

it's people.

[woman] The Javari Valley Indigenous Reserve...

[bird cawing]

eight million hectares of Brazilian Amazon, the size of Austria.

It's home to the largest number of non-contacted tribes in the world,

photographed only rarely from the air.

There are nearly a million indigenous people in Brazil,

and almost half of them live in the rain forest.

Research shows that when indigenous people

have legal and physical protection,

so does the rain forest. Now, I know this looks like a map

of the only school of vaccinated kids in Orange County, but...

it's actually a time-lapse of deforestation.

The red is loggers and ranchers, and that part right there

is protected indigenous land, and the only reason they stop

is because these tribes are not fucking around.

[man] The Guajajara Indians armed and in full camouflage,

crouch down for an ambush.

These vigilante patrols began six years ago

as a way to battle the region's powerful logging mafia.

They call themselves The Guardians of the Forest.

The Guajajara are one of 305 tribes that have official demarcated land

that is legally protected by Brazil's Constitution,

but it is still a war for them.

And look, I know. Deforestation has been on the rise

well before Bolsonaro, but no modern Brazilian president

has ever been this hostile toward the indigenous.

There's not going to be a centimeter of land

demarcated for indigenous reservations.

You said recently that if it depended on you,

the Indians wouldn't have even one...

-Centimeter. -centimeter of land.

Centimeter, I said it wrong. Not even one millimeter.

I don't know, racism sounds weird to me when you use the metric system.

I mean, if they're like, "Build the wall, one kilometer at a time."

I'd be like, I don't...

I don't get it.

Bolsonaro is not just dog whistling to his base.

He is barking through a megaphone.

On the night of Bolsonaro's election in October,

a hospital and a school on an indigenous reserve

were fire-bombed and land invasion, when loggers and ranchers

take indigenous land, that has increased 150%.

[woman] Protected areas borders are a thorn in the side of many farmers.

They want their cattle to be able to penetrate the reserve.

First of all, I believe in God and then in the words of our President Bolsonaro.

He promised we would soon be able to enter the reserve.

The department in charge of overseeing indigenous lands

is an agency called Funai.

On Bolsonaro's first day in office, he took that function away from Funai

and gave it to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Remember? The same government agency that JBS paid off for years.

And even now, Brazil's Agriculture Minister

wants to open indigenous land to commercial farming,

but indigenous tribes are fighting back to defend their land,

and no one has brought more attention to the movement in recent years

than Sônia Guajajara. She's a prominent activist

for indigenous rights and was the first indigenous woman

in Brazil's history to run for vice president.

So I sat down with Sônia and her translator

to talk about her fight to protect the Amazon.

Here in America, we've already destroyed all of our forests,

and we raise millions of cows.

So do we sound like assholes when we say, "Hey, Brazil.

Don't cut down your trees and don't raise cows"?

Now, maybe you have to compensate for what was done here.

Because when you cut your forests, it doesn't harm only you.

If you cut it in one place, it harms the entire world.

But you're saying we're assholes?

You are saying it, and I'm affirming it.

It's true.

Look, we're assholes, all right?

I admit it. America, we're assholes.

We still haven't given Captain America a promotion.

I mean...

What does a guy have to do to become Major America?

Now, for Sônia and her tribe,

protecting their homeland gets more urgent every day.

Deforestation, apart from it ending nature and the environment,

it provokes a gigantic conflict

between indigenous people and non-indigenous people.

We already had several cases of indigenous people,

guardians of the land, that were assassinated

simply because they were defending their land.

Last month, tribes from around Brazil gathered in the capital

for an annual march to protect indigenous rights

and take on Bolsonaro's policies.

Bolsonaro has escalated the fight against the indigenous,

but in many ways, he's just adding to a dark chapter of Brazil's history.

519 years after the Portuguese set foot in Brazil, it's the same fight.

On one side, are the people who live on the land

and want to protect it.

And on the other side are the people who see the Amazon

as a resource to exploit.

In Sônia's lifetime alone, over 1,400 people

have been murdered in Brazil because of land disputes,

but she isn't backing down.

Sônia doesn't just take on Bolsonaro in real life,

she trolls him online, too.

How did you get into the meme game?

Let me guess, it was your son.

Of course. My son has a big influence.

I've seen a lot of your memes.

You have the classic Pinocchio Bolsonaro meme,

you have the golden showers dog peeing in Bolsonaro's mouth meme,

-Sí. -and then, of course, you've got this one.

I honestly don't know what's happening here.

So I wanted to help you with your memes.

Is that okay?

Claro.

Okay. So, let me know what you think of these.

This says, "When you're Bolsonaro and you haven't displaced

an indigenous person in eight minutes."

This is Bolsonaro, and he's getting one of those huge veins in his head.

Where he's like...

It's like if he doesn't say anything about indigenous people,

he looks constipated.

I suppose he really would be like that

because he talks about indigenous people every day.

How about this one?

"You can't be jailed for corruption

if climate change wipes out all the people."

This one's not funny.

It's all good. This doesn't work. The meme game is a volume business.

Everything's not gonna hit. You've seen the girlfriend meme, right?

This is the Amazon rain forest.

This guy here, that's the agribusiness lobby being like, "Oh, damn!"

Okay? And this is oxygen,

and oxygen's like, "Hello. We're together."

So what?

What do you think of the meme?

I don't like this one.

All right. How about this?

This is Bolsonaro, he's like, really staring at the Amazon.

Super creepy.

And the girlfriends like, "God, you're such a dick."

Sônia, you posted a photo of a dog peeing in Bolsonaro's mouth,

I think these are good, but they not working for me.

All right, Sônia may not like my memes but...

I don't know. I wanted to take a page out of her playbook.

I wanted to find a way

to troll Bolsonaro and help at the same time.

So we thought, "Why not buy a website?"

Obviously, goldenshower.com was long gone.

Goldenshowerpresident.com was also taken,

probably by Michael Cohen.

But we were able to get...

goldenshowerpresidente.com

Like, how did Bolsonaro's digital team not beat us to this?

It's just been there the whole time. If you go to goldenshowerpresidente.com,

you can donate to organizations that help protect the Amazon and its people.

Remember, it's goldenshowerpresidente,

The "e" is very important,

because we're trying to help the rain forest, not get you fired.

I wish I could tell you we're done talking about violent autocrats,

but I can't.

Autocrats are like romaine lettuce.

They're everywhere and every so often, they go on a killing spree,

which is why I want to spend a little time focusing on the Philippines,

because Indians and Filipinos, we're pretty much the same.

I'm serious, we're like this.

We love family, religion, transition lenses,

giving our kids bowl cuts, and we are both brought to you by Kaiser Permanente.

Tomorrow, the Philippines are holding their midterm elections,

and you know how in America, politics is like sports?

It's all about match ups. Trump versus Hillary,

Pete versus Beto,

Biden versus woman's shoulders.

In the Philippines, it's the same thing, except their politicians

literally play basketball against each other.

[man] Number 21, Director Bonny Bangladdie.

Number 17, City Prosecutor Romulon Tagaligud.

Number 19, Director Homer Arenzo.

Boy, is this the Philippines

or the 24 Hour Fitness in San Jose?

Because I have definitely played with goggles guy. His name is Alfonso.

He never passes the ball, and he can't go left.

Now, normally, midterms act as a check on the president's power.

But there is nothing normal about President Rodrigo Duterte.

Hitler massacred three million Jews.

There is three million drug addicts.

I'd be happy to slaughter them.

If you are corrupt,

I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila,

and I will throw you out.

Are there women? Are they holding guns?

Shoot them in the vagina.

Fuck you.

Okay, that doesn't sound like a president.

That sounds like someone who stole your parking spot at Costco.

You'd be like, "Hey, man, you're in my spot."

He's like, "Fuck you."

In the last three years,

Duterte has presided over a brutal drug war,

cracking down on shabu or crystal meth,

and let's just say, his tactics are pretty extreme.

My campaign against drugs will not stop

until the last pusher

and the last drug lord are...

[imitates knife slashing]

Oh, my God.

He beheads drug dealers like a Looney Tunes Isis video?

Why does he sound like Donald Duck joined the Islamic State?

Just... [imitates knife slashing]

Now estimates vary,

but according to the Philippine Commission on Human Rights,

since Duterte took office in 2016,

the death toll from extrajudicial killing could be as high...

as 27,000. That is horrific.

Here in America, we don't kill our drug dealers, okay?

We have the decency to name museums after them.

The human cost of Duterte's war is appalling,

and suspected drug dealers aren't the only victims.

Other Filipinos are getting caught in the crossfire.

Over a thousand civilians

were killed in the Philippines in 2018, more than Iraq,

Somalia or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It's been called the worst human rights crisis

in the Philippines in almost 50 years.

Here's what's even more shocking.

As the body count rises, so does Duterte's popularity

according to a recent poll, Duterte's approval rating

is as high as 81%.

Probably because he killed the other 19%.

But a lot of Filipinos

support Duterte because he cuts taxes, provides free college tuition

and invests in infrastructure.

Even if people are being rounded up and killed without trial,

they'll be like, "Hey, at least he's tough on crime."

And tomorrow, more candidates like Duterte are poised to win.

Twelve senate seats are up for grabs,

and seven of the most popular candidates are backed by Duterte.

So, let's look at a starting lineup. First off, we have Imee Marcos,

the daughter of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the Philippines

as a brutal dictator for two decades.

During that time, her dad allegedly embezzled

$5 to $10 billion.

And her mom used some of that money to buy 3,000 pairs of shoes.

Now, I don't know why the people think that's such a big deal.

That's a healthy collection.

You have the Jordan 11s, but not the 12s? You gotta have the whole collection.

But Imee Marcos has dad's dictator DNA.

In a default judgment, a US court said that in 1977,

Imee Marcos had a college student tortured and killed

for asking her a question at a public forum,

you know, just a politician with literal skeletons in her closet.

Also running for senate is Bong Go, who's Duterte's special assistant.

Bong Go is known for one thing.

[woman] Go is known as the national photobomber

because of his reputation for taking selfie-style photos

during Duterte's most historic moments.

Bong Go. Quit being that thirsty friend.

Ask people if they want to be in the picture.

You're like Filipino Cory Booker.

Look at all the selfies.

Trudeau, Obama, Trump and a mannequin at H&M.

Bong Go was like, "Come on, let's take a picture."

Then Duterte put his arm around the mannequin.

He just naturally gravitates towards the nearest dead body.

Now, Bong Go also has his own line of sneakers

called "Bong Go 3-Point King."

It's straight up big baller Bong Go brand, cuatro Bs.

Can you imagine if our presidential sidekicks had signature shoes?

No one is rocking Air Kushner's except for Netanyahu.

Now, another favorite for senate is Bato dela Rosa,

the former head of Duterte's Philippine National Police.

[man] Another night and another killing

in the Philippine government's war on drugs.

Ronald Bato dela Rosa, nicknamed "The Rock,"

was chief of police during the killings.

He's widely regarded as the architect of the controversial drug war operations.

Yeah, he's the brilliant architect behind the drug war

so he's basically the Frank Lloyd Wright of killing everyone,

everywhere, all the time.

These are the candidates

expected to gain power tomorrow, which would mean

voters are co-signing Duterte's bloody drug war

through 2022, and this deadly crackdown isn't just brutal,

it's ineffective.

It hasn't stopped the flow of drugs.

In many neighborhoods,

crystal meth is actually getting cheaper and more accessible.

Duterte's war hasn't addressed the root of the problem.

Duterte has exaggerated the drug problem in the Philippines

to justify an inhumane war, one that doesn't even address

what experts say is the main cause of drug use:

Poverty, which afflicts more than 20% of the population.

Instead, his aggressive drug war has mainly targeted the urban poor.

Critics say the war on drugs has mostly hit

small-time users and dealers, while the kingpins are still at large.

But Duterte's administration doesn't seem to care about the human cost.

You don't sound terribly compassionate to people who might be poor and innocent.

Why is a victim less credible than a police officer?

There may be people who have been killed in the process.

In other words, those are collateral damages.

I mean, really, they're shooting each other.

Suddenly, a passerby, an innocent one, poor one, dies.

I don't think you can blame that to the police.

He's like, "Hey, you can't make an omelette

without shooting a few eggs execution style.

Comes with the territory." Now, some Filipinos

are standing up to Duterte, people like journalist Maria Ressa.

I've been arrested twice in five weeks, detained once.

And the only thing I've done, my only crime is to be a journalist,

to speak truth to power.

But it can't just be a journalists.

The Philippines need politicians courageous enough

to stand up to Duterte, like Senator Leila de Lima.

She has spoken out against Duterte's drug war.

So, Duterte threw her in jail.

They think they can silence me.

They think I will stop fighting what I believe in,

for truth and justice, for the daily killings.

It is an honor for me to go to prison for what I believe in.

Senator de Lima was locked up for two years before she got a trial.

Tomorrow's midterm election isn't likely to change much,

which is upsetting.

I told you, I feel a deep connection to Filipinos.

I love transition lenses, bowl cuts and Jollibee, but this...

[imitates knife slashing]

That's not the answer.

-[audience cheering] -[theme music playing]