For his latest “Fingers the Pulse” special on Comedy Central, airing Monday, May 20 at 11:30 p.m. ET, The Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper turns his eye toward Russia. But instead of traveling to Moscow, Klepper focuses on the “Moscow Tools” here in America who—wittingly or not—have been doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding.
To gain insight into what has drawn the MAGA faithful, including Donald Trump himself, to Putin, Klepper sits down with former Trump administration National Security Advisor John Bolton. And, as can be seen in the exclusive clip below, Klepper gets some surprisingly frank answers.
Klepper explained to The Daily Beast that he “wanted to wrap my head around Reagan’s GOP newfound embrace of Putin,” so he decided to sit down with the “most Republican” person he could find.
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Bolton lays the blame almost entirely on his former boss, arguing that Ronald Reagan would be “appalled” by what Trump has done to the Republican Party. Blowing past Klepper’s joke about Reagan “ignoring AIDS,” Bolton expounds on Trump’s “fascination with authoritarian leaders” and why he doesn’t think he’s “smart enough to be a dictator.”
“So is Trump, what’s the term, an idiot?” Klepper asks.
To answer the question, Bolton borrows a phrase from Trump’s short-lived Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who famously called the former president a “fucking moron,” before adding, “That’s pretty much on point.”
Asked by Klepper if a “fucking moron” can “still be a useful idiot,” Bolton replies, “I think the answer to that’s yes, and I think Vladimir Putin understands it.”
“I can’t say I was surprised by Bolton’s answer, but maybe a bit by the directness,” Klepper tells The Daily Beast in retrospect. “I guess you don’t waste time when facing an existential threat of moronic proportions.”
For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper on The Last Laugh podcast.
