The Daily Show’s most valuable player is finally ready for his big moment behind the desk. It’s been more than nine years since Jordan Klepper became a correspondent on the late-night comedy show and since then has become a cultural force in his own right for his life-risking forays into MAGA world.
In this bonus episode, Klepper returns to The Last Laugh podcast for a third time to preview his week as guest host of The Daily Show, starting next Monday, April 17. He shares his plans for the big chair, admits how hard it’s going to be to follow fellow correspondent Roy Wood Jr., and reveals what he would say if Comedy Central wanted to make him the show’s permanent host.
As we’re speaking, The Daily Show is on its second hiatus week since a slew of mega-guest hosts started filling in following Trevor Noah’s abrupt exit late last year. When I suggest to Klepper that perhaps the schedule was planned that way to help out whatever poor soul had to follow the inimitable Wood, the comedian replies, “Wow! He didn’t do that well! Yes, he’s talented and funny, but, I mean… yes that’s exactly what it was.”
“We’ll pretend that it’s because Jesus Christ died and then came back a few days later,” Klepper continues, joking, “The Daily Show has been a Christian-run organization since the beginning. Jon Stewart was like, this is the No. 1 thing for us, so we took the week off and we’re jumping back up next week.”
Klepper says he hasn’t received any advice from Stewart, Noah or any of the other comedians who have hosted over the past couple of months. “Trevor didn’t leave that show because he wanted to go away and give more advice as to how to do that show,” he says with a laugh. “He wanted to leave that show in the rearview and never talk to anyone again.”
The week off gave Klepper the opportunity to do what he does best and travel the country to film several field pieces that will air during his week as host. And he’s also trying to force himself to have a good time.
“It’s so easy to hold these things so tight and to try to perfect every moment of this big week coming up,” he says. “The thing that is resonating with me, and what I’m trying to do, is just to play and have fun. You’ve got to enjoy it. Who knows how many times you’re going to get to do something like this? Sit at that desk and enjoy every second of it.”
Below is an edited excerpt from our conversation. You can listen to the whole thing right now by subscribing to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.
A big part of the job is reacting to what’s happening in the news that day. But you said you are prepping stuff, and you’re obviously known for pre-taping your field pieces at the rallies. Are you already working on stuff like that for next week?
Yes. I’ve got some surprises. I went to the world’s largest gun show!
That’s terrifying.
It’s terrifying and, sadly, gun culture is not going away. It’s been in the news every week for as long as I can remember. And so there was a terrible shooting and the world’s largest gun show was happening—11 acres of guns. And I was like, I want to do a piece there, let’s dive in, let’s talk to people, let’s do some man-on-the-streets about our gun culture and our obsession with the AR-15. And so we’re prepping a piece for that right now. I flew to Michigan a couple of days ago to talk to Governor Whitmer at my hometown brewery. We poured beers at Bell’s Brewery and talked about how they’re working in Michigan on gun safety measures, and we talked about how she ran on abortion as a winning issue in a place like Michigan, and we talked about the Michigan Wolverines, everything close to my heart. We have another couple of big guests who we haven’t announced who are going to be on the show. I want to go out into the world. I want to cover this gun issue because it’s a cancer on our country and every day there’s a terrible, terrible news story, so let’s try to dig into this a little bit more in a way that I don’t usually get to do. Let’s talk to these movers and shakers in politics. So, yeah, honestly, it’s been a blast. It’s a packed week of shows. And it’s me going out into the world for a lot of pieces, and having sit-downs with important people and people involved in culture. I want to pack the second acts of shows this week with those kinds of conversations.
And then the first act is probably whatever is happening in the news. I know John Leguizamo was hosting when the Trump indictment news broke and he was very excited about that. Are there things you're hoping for, any predictions, anything you really want to happen next week?
You know, a presidential indictment, I’m never gonna take it off the table. There’s like a baker’s dozen in the works right now, so that can pop at any time. I know there’s the Dominion lawsuit that’s going on. Trump and Pence are going to be hanging out at the NRA convention this weekend, I’m sure nothing will happen there... If you noticed in the last few years of the American news cycle, there are rarely dull days, so I’m not expecting it to be a quiet week.
Of course, talking about the indictment, most recently you engaged with the circus outside the courthouse during the Trump arraignment.
Well, I finally got to chat with George Santos, which has been on my dream board for quite some time. Volleyball star, important leader, Supreme Court justice, I believe? So I wanted to get a chance to sit down with him. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people there, but at least he showed up to that circus to make it even more of a circus. And it was a wild time. I was just so happy it was in my home city and I could actually go to a Trump event 20 minutes from home, it was such an easy commute.
Now, did you see any officers of the court crying or telling Trump how sorry they were, anything like that?
It seems as if that existed outside of the purview of cameras, which is odd because every camera on the east coast was positioned outside that building. What happened inside, I don’t know. Trump seems like a pretty trusty narrator, so I don’t know if he’s giving us any reason not to believe his take on things.
You obviously have a lot of insight into the minds of the Trump supporters at this point. How do you think the indictment is going to impact that support? Do you think it’s going to help or hurt? What are you seeing out there?
They don’t care. If you’re a MAGA supporter, you don’t care. It’ll be woven into the grand narrative of Trump as king and he is persecuted. He will use the victim card and he will also attempt to use the card that says this makes him stronger. So they tend to be contrary cards, but they’re all going to be played. I don’t think this helps the middle of the road, people who are on the fence about Donald Trump, which is perhaps an ever-dwindling population. But in reality, somebody being arrested for breaking the law and perhaps indicted for multiple things in the next coming months—who knows—I don’t see that as politically advantageous. But for core MAGA-heads, it doesn’t hurt him at all. It gives them something to rally around.
Have you gotten the chance to interact with any DeSantis fans out there?
You know, what I have not noticed is Trump fans disowning DeSantis yet. When I talk to the MAGA crowd it’s interesting, because Trump tries to paint this picture of DeSantis, his competitor, in a very negative light. And I found that that message has not stuck yet with Trump supporters. They’re not ready to throw him under the bus. And I went to Nikki Haley’s launch party, if you will. Everybody who was anybody who had nothing to do in Charleston between the hours of noon and one was there. The DeSantis supporters who were there were excited about people outside of Trump being on the ticket, but I don’t think I found a soul who is tired of the MAGA message or Trump himself. And so I’m really not seeing distance or space put between the MAGA supporter and the DeSantis supporter. It feels like Trump’s the No. 1. And until DeSantis really makes him the enemy, or takes a position that is outside of Trump’s shadow, and stands up to Donald Trump, I don’t see there being a viable secondary option outside of Donald Trump right now. People are not running against him yet, and if you’re not going to run against him, he’s probably going to be your guy.
So we’re just gonna see the same thing again where no one’s really willing to go after him and he just rides to the top again?
That seems to be the evolution of it, as of now, until somebody stands up to him. I mean, DeSantis is just praying that the man gets locked away. And even then that’s not going to stop him from running. So yeah, I guess you have to grow a backbone if you want to stand up to Donald Trump. You know what? You don’t even have to grow a backbone. In the GOP, it’s a mild, mild backbone. It can be the wobbliest little thing, you just have to utter some of the basic things that people in the middle of the country and in the middle of the political spectrum are dying for you to say. You have to honor them and be prepared for somebody to criticize you from the Donald Trump perspective. And if you can’t do even that bare minimum, guess what? He’s still going to be the face of your party.
Going back to The Daily Show, you were the only correspondent, I believe, who was under both Jon and Trevor. Was there any talk of taking over the main seat, at any point, on a permanent basis?
I talked about it all the time, constantly, to whoever would listen.
No one would listen?
I’d say, hey, guys, I’ve been here the longest. I’m exhausted being out there on the road, put me in, coach, I’m right here! [Laughs] I think they decided to go with this rotating host thing, which is really fun to see people do. But functionally, yeah, I’ve been there for a very long time, I’ve been a fan of that show, I love that show. It’s actually been really exciting to watch other people be at the helm of that show. It’s sort of a testament to the writers and the staff of The Daily Show that the essence of the show has still maintained, even with new personalities, a new perspective. So that's actually been a really surprising, exciting thing to watch over the last few months. It’s really a dream come true to get to sit at that desk, even if it’s just for a week, and be the host. If they want me to go longer, I’ll take a phone call.
Yeah, I was wondering about that. Because you’ve hosted your own show, The Opposition, you’ve become hugely successful with these field pieces, but there’s still something about being the host that really appeals to you?
Of course. I love that show, I love that position. I’m very lucky in that I’ve gotten to work with great hosts. I’ve gotten to do a lot of things on that show, in the studio, outside the studio. And I think that's actually been exciting, too, in the last couple of months, watching how nimble it can be, playing with a format that maybe at times we’ve we thought was so sacrosanct that you couldn’t change it. Yeah, I would love to love to be a part of what the next iteration of that show is.
I think in some ways the guest hosts have been so successful that now there’s this idea out there that they could kind of just keep doing this forever. There was a New York Times article about it by Jason Zinoman that sort of compared it to SNL, where there's a guest host every week, and instead of doing one SNL episode they’re doing four episodes of The Daily Show every week.
Does he have any expertise on how difficult that fucking is?
Yeah, I would think that people who work there might have something to say about that.
Yeah, great article, that would be cool. I joke, I kid, I don’t know, I have no idea, I have no connection to the final decision as to what the show will become. As a fan of that show, I have been pleasantly surprised by how dynamic and surprising it’s been. I love watching Sarah Silverman get up there. She makes me laugh so hard and seeing her be a part of this institution is really cool. Watching my buddy Roy Wood Jr. up there and getting a chance to bounce off of him, I love it. I think there is something to it in a way that I wouldn’t have said there would be a couple months ago. I do think late-night is going to have to look different in the next few years. And maybe that means hosts that rotate, maybe it means multiple hosts. I don’t know what it is, but it’s probably going to have a different feel and energy to it. And so we’re in an exciting part right now where we’re trying a couple of different things out, we’re letting different opinions come in, we’re seeing how an audience responds to hearing information filtered through The Daily Show lens, through other voices, which actually I think is more refreshing than we thought it would be. What happens next? I don’t know, but I think The Daily Show’s got a good shot at figuring out what the best fit is.
You’ve been doing this for quite a long time now. Do you feel like you’re going to just keep going out and confronting these Trump fans as long as The Daily Show lets you? How are you feeling about this roller coaster that you can’t get off?
You know, it’d be really nice if there was just an easy job in an air-conditioned studio where I can just sit there and talk about the news. For an old man like me, just give this guy a seat to rest his weary legs. I will follow the story wherever it goes. I’ve often said—and we’ve talked about it—I love getting out there, and as long as the world collects around issues and topics, around politics and people, I want to be there talking to them. I want it to evolve as well. I think part of what I wanted to prove with this week is like, guess what? You can go out and do a story, bring it back and sit at the desk and talk about the story. I think one of the things I was most proud of was, two weeks ago, there were a lot of late-night shows covering such a historic moment of Donald Trump being indicted. There’s only one late-night show that had somebody talking to George Santos out in front, who then comes back, edits a piece, and then by six o’clock when the show is taped, sits at the desk and talks with Roy about what he saw downtown. I think that’s dynamic.
That must have been your quickest turnaround yet.
We turned it around in a couple of hours, and you can do that kind of stuff. And I think the shows have to evolve in a way where they are doing that type of thing. I’m excited that we’re trying these types of things and evolving with the conversation. Because you have to.
Listen to the episode now and subscribe to ‘The Last Laugh’ on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.
