Is Politics Funny Anymore?

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Speaker 2 Hi Radio Atlantic listeners, this is Isaac DeVer, staff writer at The Atlantic. This week we thought we'd take a bit of a break and do something fun.

Speaker 2 For this episode, we're talking with comedian Jordan Klepper about the state of political comedy.

Speaker 2 This past weekend was the White House correspondence dinner and it was the first one in years that didn't involve a comedian.

Speaker 2 Instead, historian Ron Cherno spoke and perhaps feeling sympathy for the White House press corps, Cherno only tried his hand at a few jokes. Comedy's been struggling to adjust in the Trump era.

Speaker 2 Are things too serious? Too biased? Too absurd? Is any of it funny anymore? Klepper was a correspondent for The Daily Show for years.

Speaker 2 He briefly hosted a show of his own called The Opposition following Trevor Noah on Comedy Central. And in the mold of Colbert, Klepper played a parody character that went by his own name.

Speaker 2 While Colbert copied Bill O'Reilly, Klepper took on the persona of an Alex Jones-style conspiracy theorist.

Speaker 2 The Opposition ended after one season, but now he has a new show coming out this month called Simply Clepper.

Speaker 2 The new documentary-style series is on the opposite end of the series spectrum. Klepper is his real self, and he's out in the world with people engaged in real fights.

Speaker 2 Veterans using wrestling to battle PTSD, indigenous protesters trying to stop an oil pipeline, and undocumented students trying to get an education.

Speaker 2 I'm really glad to have him here to talk about political comedy at this moment and where we're headed. So, Jordan Klepper, thanks for joining us here on Radio Atlantic.

Speaker 3 Thanks for having me, Isaac.

Speaker 2 So, let's start with an easy question. What is funny anymore when we talk about political humor?

Speaker 3 The truth. The truth is funny?

Speaker 2 The truth is funny.

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, what is funny anymore, I guess, is the large question, right?

Speaker 3 I mean, I think what has always been funny is still funny. We just live in a

Speaker 3 perhaps stranger times that everybody is still, they feel like they're in the dark and

Speaker 3 they're reaching their hands out trying to find where the walls are.

Speaker 3 And so I think we still turn to humor to try to find sometimes a respite, sometimes an escape, and sometimes just a chance to feel like you're not alone in your thoughts.

Speaker 3 And I think in this strange time that we're in, I think comedy sometimes fills that void.

Speaker 2 Is it harder when you're doing this professionally and you're talking about

Speaker 2 whatever joke you may make, you have to think, oh, am I offending one person one way because of their politics, because of their their ethnicity, because of their background, whatever it may be.

Speaker 2 It seems like everybody is just looking for a reason to complain about a joke that someone makes.

Speaker 3 Often,

Speaker 2 when those complaints are made, they are fair and justified. Sometimes it does seem like people are looking for a reason to be offended.

Speaker 3 People often are. I think when you're a comedian, I think you have to own what you say and own your point of view.
We are constantly evolving, and usually that is a good thing.

Speaker 3 And so there are certain things that maybe you would make fun of 20 years ago that you won't make fun of now. And I think that's evidence of progress.

Speaker 2 So what give me an example of that.

Speaker 2 Like 20 years ago, you were not

Speaker 2 20 years ago, you were not a professional comedian. That's frankly.

Speaker 2 I'm still very funny. I'm sure you were the class clown, I would guess.

Speaker 2 But what do you think would have been,

Speaker 2 without getting yourself into trouble here, something that might have been

Speaker 2 seen as funnier than that like you would know right away not make that joke?

Speaker 3 I think that I always laugh at, I was a huge Jim Carrey fan. I love Jim Carrey.
He was the most popular comedian, perhaps, of that generation.

Speaker 3 His first big movie was Ace Ventura, a movie I watched 100 times. The crux of that movie,

Speaker 3 the entire final third hinges on how gross it is for a dude to kiss a dude.

Speaker 3 He vomits. He puts his face into a plunger.
Like, that's the crux of the movie.

Speaker 3 They wrote this movie and they're like, we need some sort of, we need some sort of conflict that will cause this person to go into a suicidal rage. And somebody's like, well, what if the dude's gay?

Speaker 3 And like, that was the joke. And that was something that at the time, I was young at the time, but I didn't bat an eye at that.

Speaker 3 And I think culturally, we weren't comfortable with the idea of homosexuality or seeing that on film. The crying game, I think it was a parody of that at the time.

Speaker 3 And I think a lot about that. Sometimes you go back and you hear early Eddie Murphy Raw or you hear stuff like that that is shocking in this day and age.

Speaker 3 And part of it is like, oh, that was what we were uncomfortable with. And at the time, it was such an easy joke to go to.

Speaker 3 There were so many jokes that were based around the idea of like, oh, if a man is feminine in any way, that is an area that you can head towards. And it's just a treasure trove of humor.

Speaker 3 You can find them. It's cheap.
It's doubly cheap.

Speaker 2 Was it cheap then? I mean, that's the thing.

Speaker 2 Because it's always, comedy is always picking up on what makes people uncomfortable, where the weird things are that are kind of out of sync.

Speaker 3 I don't know. I mean, at the time, it didn't feel cheap.

Speaker 3 Again, I'm what, 14 watching this, and that did feel like a taboo. Comedy is always plain, like, how do we walk up to that line? We usually step over and see how people react.

Speaker 3 And, you know, perhaps that's a reflection of our society, or perhaps it's just us pushing an envelope to get a reaction. I think a lot of that was probably doing both at the time.

Speaker 3 It didn't necessarily feel like an examination of what it meant to be gay.

Speaker 3 And perhaps now our time asks for us to

Speaker 3 examine more

Speaker 3 when we are doing comedy, especially because it seems to have taken on a different role now in this new era under the Trump presidency.

Speaker 3 Again,

Speaker 3 I don't think that's a bad thing. You have more people complaining online, and there's more people that want to take you down.
And we're in like, you know, we're in troll culture.

Speaker 3 So you have to have maybe a thicker skin because you don't leave the crowd behind when you walk out of the club. It's in your pocket the whole day.

Speaker 3 So you have to be still comfortable with what you're saying, but you're going to get more people who are going to try to poke holes at you.

Speaker 2 People talk about that a little bit when you see comedians who are trying to work on their material a little bit. And

Speaker 2 a defense that comes up is, well, this is supposed to be part of the process. You're not supposed to have the cameras on you all the time when you're doing stand-up, right? Which is not your

Speaker 2 medium exactly.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 when there are people who can just pull out their phones and video a set that is being developed or tweet about it, then it goes live right away.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think if you're drawing connections from comedy and just the culture that we're in right now,

Speaker 3 I have friends who are stand-ups who have that frustration. I think like

Speaker 3 it belies a larger truth.

Speaker 3 We're like, we're not really giving space for people to have the conversation, to make mistakes, and figure out how to get on the right side of history or get a little bit better.

Speaker 3 We're like, you either

Speaker 3 You need to get there now. Let's not have the conversation where you may make some missteps.
I think like stand-up comedy, yeah, is based kind of around that. Of like, I'm working through ideas.

Speaker 3 I'm working through my point of view. I'm working through jokes.
I think

Speaker 3 in an ideal world, I like that people do that on stage.

Speaker 3 If we could all get into that room and read the room, if you are stepping over the line, you feel uncomfortable with that point of view, and you can continue that as somewhat of a conversation to craft your piece.

Speaker 3 I think you find something greater. If it's just, I'm going to slap you on the hand and try to get you out.
I just want to hear stuff that makes me feel good.

Speaker 3 Well, then I think you're limiting what that art can do. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It seems like part of the issue then that also comes up is when people say, Can't you take a joke?

Speaker 2 I was joking.

Speaker 2 And we're supposed to sometimes take the comedian's word, whether it's a stand-up comic or something else, that the intention was to make you uncomfortable and to say something.

Speaker 2 And sometimes that defense seems authentic, and sometimes it seems like an

Speaker 2 after-the-fact investment.

Speaker 3 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 3 It's like, yeah, it's like a quick timeout at the end. It's like no take backs.
Well, yeah, I think it's all context, right? A lot of times, can't you take a joke? Oh, you don't know what's funny.

Speaker 3 Oh, the culture's too woke. Sometimes that comes from an inarticulate statement.
I wish we were more open to people having those statements and maybe learning from them.

Speaker 3 You know, if these jokes are coming out in Twitter, what becomes really difficult is, yeah, if I'm familiar with the celebrity who's tweeting, understand their point of view, and I've been watching Ricky Gervais for 15 years and I know his sardonic wit, then I'm going to read it in that way.

Speaker 3 If I'm a comedian who's just getting started and trying to get attention on a platform that speaks in only hyperbole, I'm going to cross those lines and nobody's going to understand context and nobody's going to be interested in context.

Speaker 3 And that's a problem.

Speaker 2 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: The I'm Joking defense is also one that has made its way into politics somewhat, right?

Speaker 2 I remember quite clearly

Speaker 2 last year after the State of the Union, President Trump was frustrated that the Democrats hadn't stood up and applauded for him more.

Speaker 2 He thought that they should have, as in the 2018 State of the Union.

Speaker 2 And he said that they were treasonous.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 afterwards,

Speaker 2 some reporters were asking Sarah Sanders about this when she used to do daily press briefings. And she said, oh, he was joking.
And she's used that before other Trump people.

Speaker 2 When he gets into trouble, treason is an accusation of a capital offense and betraying your country, which is is a little bit much maybe for not standing up and applauding for a political speech.

Speaker 3 It was a good speech. I mean, come on.

Speaker 2 What happens with that when

Speaker 2 it becomes, oh, again, can't you take a joke? It's a joke.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's in the Mueller report now as well, right? It was Russia, if you're listening. Oh, I was joking.
Anybody could see that. Yeah, I mean, he's...

Speaker 3 He's ruining it for comedians out there, not because of the topics. He's doing it because he's using that as a catch-all.
I mean, I think what you are watching is somebody who

Speaker 3 wants to be provocative. It comes from a place of insecurity, which again, I think bad jokes often come from that place as well.

Speaker 3 A lot of times that quick gay joke that you do doesn't necessarily come from a place of homophobia. It might.

Speaker 3 But a lot of times it comes from insecurity because you're in front of a room that and it isn't going as well. So how do you get a reaction, any reaction?

Speaker 3 Because the only thing you're getting right now is judgment.

Speaker 2 It's like a fifth grader telling a fart joke. Exactly.

Speaker 3 I got to believe Donald Trump feels that a lot. He feels insecure.
He's not getting the reaction that he wants, and he knows that he can get that room to react and get his base to react as well.

Speaker 3 And he's found an easy catch-all.

Speaker 3 It's cheap.

Speaker 3 It belittles the discourse and he's going to consistently use it.

Speaker 2 So we had the correspondence dinner, the White House correspondence dinner in Washington, and this year was a big change in it in that every year for the past, I don't know, 30, 40 years, there's been a comedian there.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 for the last two years, and now the third year, President Trump boycotted the dinner.

Speaker 2 And for the first two years of the White House correspondence dinner under Trump, there were comedians.

Speaker 2 Hassan Minaj, your former colleague at the Daily Show, did it in 2017, and Michelle Wolfe did it in 2018. I guess she also, did you overlap at all? I did.

Speaker 2 And so these are two people that you know.

Speaker 2 Those routines came under some fire, especially Michelle Wolfe's last year for going too far.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 3 the whole

Speaker 2 event has been questioned of whether there should be a night where the press gets together with the people that they cover and

Speaker 2 that there is a roasting thing. By the way, this is one of several dinners that happens in Washington.
There are also events like this in other places with other press corps.

Speaker 2 I used to cover politics in New York. There's a New York City version called The Inner Circle.
There's an Albany version of it. This is not a weird thing in itself, but

Speaker 2 the president saying that he won't go to the dinner, that he, for the third year in a row, has staged a counter-rally has led to the White House Correspondents Association essentially pulling back on its way of doing things and saying instead of there being a comedian, it was Ron Chernow, the guy who wrote the book that Hamilton was based on, all their books as well, but that's what he's most famous and I guess most wealthy for now.

Speaker 2 It was not a joke-filled routine.

Speaker 2 Is that a mistake? Is that a mistake, do you think, to pull away from the comedy?

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 3 I mean, again, I think a lot of comedians, I can't speak for all comedians, although I'll try.

Speaker 2 Speak for every comedian on earth.

Speaker 3 Let me do that. I mean, the White House correspondent's dinner, as I've known it, has been what you described, and where you welcome a comedian in to poke fun at the administration and they take it.

Speaker 3 I think there's I understand the criticism but I think you are right they they have these kinds of events do take place.

Speaker 3 I think they usually show the humanity to be able to take a joke to be able to sit in that room there. I think I'd like to live in a culture where that is a reality.

Speaker 3 These last couple of years like I thought Hassan came to the White House correspondence dinner and I think he did an incredible job.

Speaker 3 He's such a thoughtful, interesting guy and I think he does what you can do with comedy, which is you can you can poke fun at the elephant in the room, even if the elephant chose not to be in the room.

Speaker 3 You can also

Speaker 3 poke some fun at the press corps.

Speaker 3 I think he was able to incite some conversation, to be funny, and to be thoughtful at the same time. I think Michelle came in.
I think she did the same.

Speaker 3 I think she was...

Speaker 3 That was what that invitation asked for. If you're a comedian, you get asked to do the White House correspondence dinner.
That's a big deal.

Speaker 2 It's a big platform.

Speaker 3 It's a big platform. And there's certain expectations.
I mean, I remember Hassan working on that when I was at the Daily Show. Like, that's a huge expectation.

Speaker 3 Do you have a history of when Colbert came and did it, and it made news? And I think...

Speaker 2 But the interesting thing about the Colbert one is that it has taken on this legend after the fact.

Speaker 2 But in the room that I wasn't in the room, but it fell completely flat because nobody got that he was doing satire. They thought that he was just praising George Bush and going over the top with it.

Speaker 2 And it was the way that a lot of of

Speaker 2 the early response to Colbert when he was in character fell flat with people because they didn't understand what he was doing.

Speaker 2 After the fact, when people go back and listen to it, they say, oh, it's hilarious.

Speaker 2 But I mean, that shows the trickiness of the room. And it's a terrible venue also.
It's a giant ballroom in the basement of the Hilton.

Speaker 3 It's awful. It's awful.
I was there last year and it was terrible.

Speaker 3 You can't win.

Speaker 3 But I will say, I remember at the time when Colbert did it and the effect afterwards, it was seen as sort of like, this is a comedian who has seen issues with the administration and when given an opportunity to use that to both use his skill set and speak to the issues that he sees.

Speaker 3 And I think that became an expectation. Like if you are a comedian, especially if you're a satirist and if your comedy does touch on culture or politics and you get invited to that room, like...

Speaker 3 You speak to it. And I think like Michelle got invited to that room and of course she's going to speak to it.

Speaker 2 And I think it should should be said,

Speaker 2 the routine that she did at the correspondence dinner is completely in line with her comedy. It was not some extra outrageous thing.
She does outrageous comedy. She says things that are

Speaker 2 what I think most people consider way over the line. Again, for comic effects, she says, I'm joking.
That's part of it. You're supposed to be in on the joke with it.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 some of the reaction afterwards that was, I can't believe that Michelle Wolfe said all these things,

Speaker 2 was a little hard to take seriously, given that that's what she does. As soon as they hired her, I remember thinking, like, okay, this is what it's going to be.

Speaker 3 You know, I mean, I think, honestly, I was in that room, and I think Michelle was brave. She was hilarious.
She was pointed. She didn't pull any punches.
And in that room, walking into that room,

Speaker 3 living with that administration up until that point and taking that platform, I think like

Speaker 3 she got up there.

Speaker 3 She took Sarah Sanders to task for some of the things that Sarah Sanders did. And I think that's fair.
I think if she didn't do that, there would have been criticism on that other side.

Speaker 3 And I think you are right. Like, of course that was going to happen.
It was not only an expectation of any comedian that you bring in, but also that's in line with the work that she has done.

Speaker 3 And so to see that response, to see that get pushed out with the idea of like, that's not what we're about. It's like, that's what you invited in.

Speaker 3 I think that's what you are inviting also potentially that amount of controversy, that amount of attention.

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess that's my point. You can debate whether or not she was funny,

Speaker 2 but whether she was unexpected is not up for debate to me.

Speaker 3 I think that is very true.

Speaker 2 But it gets to a larger point

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 to me I think about a lot, which is are we allowing

Speaker 2 President Trump to redefine where the goalposts are, right?

Speaker 2 Not just in comedy, but in part in comedy. He says the White House Correspondence Dinner shouldn't go on like the way it does.
I'm not going to participate in it.

Speaker 2 And the White House Correspondents Association changes what it does in response.

Speaker 2 It's not funny. I don't think that that's funny.
And the comedy sort of changes around it too.

Speaker 2 But it's in all sorts of other ways, right? Also, we're going through a fight that the White House is now going to have with Congress where he says, we're just not going to comply with subpoenas.

Speaker 2 We're not going to testify. Which is not something that

Speaker 2 most people had considered as a possibility really.

Speaker 2 Although I remember in the fall right before the Democrats won the House, but when it was clear that they were going to have a conversation with Elijah Cummings, the now chair of the Oversight Committee, and I said, what are you going to do if you're the chair?

Speaker 2 And he said, well, we'll subpoena all these things. And I said, what happens if they don't comply? And he said to me, well, you know, we'll get to that.
I don't think that that'll be an issue. And

Speaker 2 it turns out it's an issue.

Speaker 2 But we just, the president, because of the force of his personality and his

Speaker 2 adamance that he is right about things, is able to shift the center of gravity.

Speaker 2 So, what do you do about that?

Speaker 3 You keep fighting.

Speaker 2 I think that's,

Speaker 3 if we're talking in terms of comedians, they see it coming. I think there's criticism of comedians getting political and pushing back.

Speaker 3 I've read it in magazines that are very respectable about the death of comedy because it's getting too political and people are pushing too hard and where are the all the old old jokes that we used to be able to get away from politics.

Speaker 2 You seem to be referring to a piece that ran ahead of the correspondence dinner in The Atlantic by Andy Ferguson.

Speaker 3 I don't know. I just read the piece and I think like, I think there's a lot of interesting comedy is evolving in very specific ways.

Speaker 3 And again, I think there's a lot of discussions you can have within there. What you think is funny, what you think the role of a comedian is, or what have you.
But I do think like...

Speaker 3 Comedians read the room and the room sees that there's somebody who is consistently normalizing these things that feel outrageous. And you are right.

Speaker 3 The goalposts keep changing, the center keeps moving. And if you lie down, it's only going to move farther.
And perhaps that's not the role of the comedian to be an activist in that way.

Speaker 3 But you see where that need to incessantly continue to not let them get their way.

Speaker 3 You see where that comes from. And I think the White House correspondents that are not essentially letting Trump get his way on this.

Speaker 3 It's not the end of the world, but it's not a good sign.

Speaker 2 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And it should be said that

Speaker 2 for all the changes that the Correspondence Association made about the dinner and about the event, still, of course, the president staged another counter-rally

Speaker 2 and then ordered all of his staff to avoid not only the dinner, but any of the secondary events around it.

Speaker 2 So there is a lot of change that happened on the Correspondence Association side, and still zero change that happened from President Trump, which is the way that these things tend to go.

Speaker 2 We're going to take a short break and come back on the other side and talk about Jordan Klepper's career shift over the the last few years himself.

Speaker 2 Stay with us.

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Speaker 2 And we're back with Jordan Klepper.

Speaker 2 The last time we sat down and talked at length was when you were doing your Comedy Central show before,

Speaker 2 which had you in character as a conspiracy theorist, the sort of Alex Jones type.

Speaker 2 That

Speaker 2 seemed like a conversation, when I think back on it, where you were a little bit uncomfortable about whether this is a joke, whether you should be making fun of this.

Speaker 2 Was that a struggle? Am I reading that too much into that?

Speaker 3 Well, I would say, you know, playing a character is in and of itself has its own challenges.

Speaker 3 I think like the things that we were balancing and doing the opposition, one, the difficulty of when you are speaking completely satirical where you are playing a character who is the bad guy. Like

Speaker 3 sometimes the difficult things are filtering earnest opinions in a way where you're essentially dancing in high heels backwards. And so

Speaker 3 in a time where you want to be very clear with what you are saying, that was always a challenge. And to be honest, usually a very fun one.

Speaker 3 And the second part was like, yeah, the community of InfoWars, the conspiracy world, Breitbart at the time, it still exists, but it's very different than where it was a year ago. I think

Speaker 3 we were nervous about that. It went to a very dark place.

Speaker 3 And there were like, obviously, Sandy Hook truthers, things of that nature.

Speaker 3 Stuff would come up where we were lampooning Alex Jones, and you wanted to make sure at that time that we didn't wade into just playing the bad guy, but creating more problems as opposed to more point of view.

Speaker 3 And so

Speaker 3 that was a challenge. I think as we walked in,

Speaker 3 we had to consistently reevaluate if we were walking that line correctly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it seemed like the worry was, are you normalizing that kind of thinking essentially by making fun of it and just saying like, isn't this silly?

Speaker 2 But Alex Jones is mixed up in Sandy Hook

Speaker 2 truther stuff and all sorts of other things too that have,

Speaker 2 I think most people would agree,

Speaker 2 not been positive for society overall.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 Well, and I think like what we found as we worked on the opposition, like, you know, we were using like the mouthpiece of Alex Jones sort of as a starting point of that kind of, that, that point of view and

Speaker 3 that type of aesthetic. I think the conspiracy mindset, though, has taken hold in this country, and that's what we were, that's why we created that show.

Speaker 3 And I think as we kind of started to do episode after episode, we went less into the more evil sides of that, I would say.

Speaker 3 And we went more into the ones that were catching hold publicly, the things that we started to see, like, oh, this thing that's happening in fringe, far-right,

Speaker 3 conspiracy world, it's starting to take hold in Fox world as well.

Speaker 3 How do we combine those two and speak to it?

Speaker 3 And so I think where I felt we were really in a good space and what I'm proud of what we were doing is like, I think we were trying to articulate this mindset and ideology that was taking hold, is taking hold,

Speaker 3 while also trying not to just create something that is so extreme,

Speaker 3 it muddies the water.

Speaker 2 That show ended not on your terms exactly, that Comedy Central decided to end the show,

Speaker 2 but then gave you another show. So that's a good way of going about things.

Speaker 3 It's a weird shift, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 2 If you're going to have your show ended on you, at least get another show from the same channel.

Speaker 2 The new show is very different.

Speaker 2 It is you, it's not you in character.

Speaker 2 It is not you at a desk.

Speaker 2 You're in the field entirely for this.

Speaker 2 And it is not

Speaker 2 just, it's not like an extended version of the daily show type interviews where you just go interview somebody and make fun of them.

Speaker 2 It is

Speaker 2 you really digging in on topics

Speaker 2 that are

Speaker 2 unusual topics, things that I don't think we have seen covered

Speaker 2 really anywhere else.

Speaker 2 The first episode is about a wrestling league for guys with PTSD, which is not something that I knew was a thing.

Speaker 2 There's an episode about this,

Speaker 2 I guess it's the third episode that got you arrested, right?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, that one.

Speaker 2 Which we'll talk about.

Speaker 2 It's about

Speaker 2 an informal university for undocumented immigrants in Georgia and how that works, which, again, not something I was aware existed.

Speaker 2 How has that transition been? Are you more comfortable in this space?

Speaker 3 It's a different space.

Speaker 3 I am more me. And so the larger question, am I I more comfortable being myself? And that I don't have an answer for you.

Speaker 3 This was a really exciting new challenge. I loved being in character, being the Jordan Clepper of the opposition.
It's fun to have that distance and to be the bad guy. I really did like that.

Speaker 3 I do love being in the field. I like interacting with people.
I come from improv. The field is essentially improv.
How do you listen? How do you make something out of this moment?

Speaker 3 And how do you craft story?

Speaker 3 What we were charged with, a conversation with Comedy Central and with ourselves, of like, all right, we're going to do this piece. I want it to be in the field.

Speaker 3 I've done a lot of field pieces before, and with the daily show, there is this distance. There's an ironic distance that you have to play with.
And same thing with the opposition.

Speaker 3 In doing this, the word we kept using was authentic. It was like, if we strip that away, I don't want to just be making jokes, pretending to be the bad guy.
I want to be myself in these situations.

Speaker 3 And it was really tough.

Speaker 3 In some ways, I am much more comfortable out there being myself.

Speaker 3 Where I am uncomfortable is like, I don't have those shortcuts to try to find comedy.

Speaker 2 I mean, and it's not, and I don't mean this

Speaker 2 like it's not funny, not in that you are trying to be funny and failing a lot of time. Most of it, you are not trying to make jokes, right?

Speaker 2 And you're just telling stories that then have

Speaker 2 moments where you crack a joke or there's something ridiculous that you decide to do.

Speaker 2 In the the episode that's about

Speaker 2 the University for the Undocumented Immigrants, part of the humor is when you get arrested and they're waiting for you to come out of jail, they're making fun of how you're going to come out and tell lame jokes again.

Speaker 3 Wow. I mean, I don't know if I, yeah, they were interpreted in a very specific way.

Speaker 3 Well, I think honestly, this has been, I don't want to get too grand about it, but it has been a pretty life-changing experience doing this show because I was stripped away of a lot of different weapons.

Speaker 3 And I think, like, we're like, but it's on Comedy Central, but I want to tell earnest stories with compelling characters and shine a light on some people who are doing some interesting things.

Speaker 3 I was like, so how do I, but why is a comedian the person who's out there doing that? And what we started to really find was like

Speaker 3 we found people who are trying to enact change, whether they're activists or whether they're just trying to fight back against something in their own lives, whether it's against PTSD, whether it's soldiers trying to get back into America, whether it's students who are undocumented who just want an education.

Speaker 3 Like there's activist movements that are out there that are really inspiring. I think I'm a pretty good guy.

Speaker 3 I'm politically active, but I'm not the guy who's on the front lines. I'm behind the desk most of the time.
And I think what we started to find is like, let me embed with these groups.

Speaker 3 And a lot of the humor came out of how earnestly difficult it is to try to change something. And so

Speaker 3 We initially went out with a lot of these stories thinking we're going to maybe do a little bit of stuff that feels more sketchy, a little more daily show, a little bit more of, you know, a comedy in your back pocket.

Speaker 3 I'll play real dumb.

Speaker 3 And just in case it gets too dry, we already have something there.

Speaker 3 What we quickly found out is like, if I really embed with a story with people, like an actual documentary and not just like a one-off six-minute piece, like the humor will come from like me trying to do good or me trying to understand.

Speaker 3 And if I can kind of be open and honest about that, like

Speaker 3 I find myself in positions where I'm getting arrested. I find myself out in a bayou, in a boat in the middle of the morning.
And guess what?

Speaker 3 The humor comes out of the fact that I don't want to be there.

Speaker 3 I am awkward in those situations. And I can

Speaker 3 have jokes with people there. People are like, we are at it.
People want to find humor in these situations.

Speaker 3 But it quickly became a story about my journey to see

Speaker 3 how people,

Speaker 3 to walk along with these people and the fights they were in.

Speaker 2 They're half-hour episodes, which means that there's like 21 minutes of footage. How much roughly time are you spending for each one of those embedded with these people?

Speaker 3 They each depended. So like I'd say like in the daily show world for a six-minute piece sometimes you'd go out and you could get most of it in a day.

Speaker 3 Sometimes you get it two or three bouncing around interview wise.

Speaker 3 What we were really focused on here was like I we tried to find people not just telling us their stories, but events and actions that we could be a part of so we could actually document something and not just retell it.

Speaker 3 So like for the PTSD wrestlers, I think we spent five days down in Texas traveling with them to like their wrestlers who are dealing with PTSD, but they're all they're also going around the Texas circuit.

Speaker 3 So I spent time at their houses. I went to Eddie, who's a wrestler.
He's also doing stand-up comedy. I went to an open mic he was doing in Austin.
We went to multiple shows that they did.

Speaker 3 The same thing with the like undocumented students down in Atlanta. I spent a weekend with them, going to classes with them, spending some time outside of class with them.

Speaker 3 I went back two weekends later to spend more time with them,

Speaker 3 to march with them at the Martin Luther King Day parade. So we tried to be there as much as we could.
And for every episode, I'd say we were closer to a week with the story.

Speaker 2 Picking the topic seems like it's a big part of this. Were there topics that you were presented with where you thought, ah, that's not actually the right way to go?

Speaker 2 We talked about something that you have done.

Speaker 2 Curious

Speaker 2 how you say that's not the right one.

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 we had to learn a whole new way of choosing how to do this. I think

Speaker 3 I learned how to I learned how to do this from Jon Stewart and then learned how to do it with the opposition.

Speaker 3 And what you find is I need stories that have comedic irony and a way in which we can comment onto it and perhaps a thing that we can add to it.

Speaker 3 Those stories we started throwing away because it was like, we're making 22 minutes here. They need to be more compelling and not just ironic twist.
We have the ability to go into some gray areas.

Speaker 3 We initially started to do big topics. I will tell you the beginning of the season, we thought the theme of the season was going to be tribalism.

Speaker 3 I was reading Sebastian Younger's book, Tribes, and we were looking at like, America's, we're split in two, we're so focused on our own groups.

Speaker 3 Let's look at how people define themselves in the groups that they're in. We put up like, what are, what are American, how do Americans define themselves?

Speaker 3 Political party, military affiliation, gender. Let's do stories about that.
As we started to dig in, we realized these weren't stories about the groups they associated with.

Speaker 3 They were stories about the fights that they were fighting and the causes they cared about. And so we're like, oh, I think it's actually more about activism.

Speaker 3 We put up big topics that we were interested in, and then we we just scoured. What are interesting stories? Because it's more doc-based.
I want it to be more about character.

Speaker 3 And so here's an interesting story. People are taking action.
Can I be along with their action? Let's get on the phone. And we have great producers, great researchers.

Speaker 3 So we knew we wanted to do something about the military. We just scoured as many military sources as we could.
And we tried to find, like, who are characters who we can speak to. I know

Speaker 3 for that one, I came in knowing that was a world I didn't know much about. There's probably going to be some humor in the fact that I want to learn.

Speaker 3 Also, if this is a show called Klepper where you're going to follow me as I go out into the world, a question that I have within the military is like,

Speaker 3 I am a civilian. I do have a hard time interacting with veterans.
I think we put them on pedestals and then it's hard for us to interact with them because we don't share their experiences.

Speaker 3 And so it's like.

Speaker 2 A lot of veterans say.

Speaker 2 It needs to be more than just saying thank you for your service, right? And that becomes almost like saying, God bless you after you sneeze, where nobody actually thinks about what it means.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 I mean, that's what they the PTSD vets that we talked to that was very much the case they were like I don't need you to say that I need you to I could use a job right I could use you sitting and talking to me and actually engaging as a human being and we had this conversation with them I was like but you understand where I'm coming from as well like I don't know what you need I know that I I respect what you did I don't think I could do that but I don't know how to engage farther and the luxury of this show is like okay cool we can have that conversation and then we get five more days with you you.

Speaker 3 We're going to get drunk at a bar. I'm going to watch you wrestle.
I'm going to talk to you about what it's like to play a bad guy, something I know a decent amount about.

Speaker 3 And suddenly we're not talking about. You were a pretty good heel.
I was a pretty good heel. But suddenly we're not talking about vets issues.
We're talking just one-on-one.

Speaker 3 And we're breaking that barrier down. And so we were looking for stories like that where I could engage.

Speaker 3 And we threw a lot of them out because they were interesting stories, but there was no reason for me to be there. So we needed to find a big question that we were interested in,

Speaker 3 a cause that we were passionate about, and a way in which I could actually be a part of an action.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 you were arrested in that episode with the University for Undocumented Immigrants because you joined in a protest

Speaker 2 that was at a hearing.

Speaker 2 I guess the charge was trespassing at the end.

Speaker 3 It was

Speaker 3 yes.

Speaker 2 Was that your first criminal charge? That was. Is that going to keep you from getting future employment now that you have arrested?

Speaker 3 Company said they're just going to keep giving me shows. This is what I have to do.
This was part of it. It's like, you know, we're going to give you a show.
You need to get arrested for a good cause.

Speaker 2 So where does it, is this where the future of comedy is heading? We're talking about

Speaker 2 how people think maybe stand-up is different now or political humor is kind of run up against Trump. Is this,

Speaker 2 so much has kind of mushroomed out of the Daily Show.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 so many correspondents from the Daily Show or alums have their own shows. Samantha B, Colbert, Hassan Minaj, John Oliver, you.

Speaker 2 Everybody's doing it in different ways. Michelle Wolfe, did she get another season for her show?

Speaker 3 Did not. Okay, so there you go.
There's a mistake.

Speaker 2 There are now all these different versions of it. Of course, The Daily Show itself was kind of taking weekend update from Saturday Night Live and turning that into a nightly show.

Speaker 2 Is this what political humor becomes now, where

Speaker 2 it's just with a cause behind it? Or

Speaker 2 does it go somewhere else?

Speaker 3 Well, I'll tell you my story within all of this. I feel like

Speaker 3 I've had three very different jobs in the last three years, and I think there's been a weird evolution there. I don't know where political humor will end up.

Speaker 3 Where I have ended up in the last three years is going from being sarcastic and sardonic, playing a dummy, to now being stripped of everything because of the things that we've lived through in these last three years and just looking to connect with people.

Speaker 3 I think I'm a satirist. I'm politically active.
I'm not attempting with this new show to make, like, this is what political comedy looks like.

Speaker 3 I'm like, here's what I know we need, and also what I need:

Speaker 3 I want to go out. I want to see interesting people.
I want to engage with them. I am getting tired of the same old types of jokes.
I'm getting tired.

Speaker 3 The day in and day out of the big guy, the jokes about him

Speaker 3 is exhausting. I think me as a comedian, but also me as a human who just turned 40 and who is looking back and like, I want something that I do.
I want it to matter.

Speaker 3 I don't need somebody to pat me on the back and say that's the most hilarious thing. What I would love to do is like find compelling stories and see like these assumptions that I've had.

Speaker 3 Is there a way in which I can challenge them with more interesting people?

Speaker 3 Again, why Comedy Central would buy that as a premise for a TV show,

Speaker 3 that's a failure on their end. But I do think there is a yearning for something else.
And I think like what is exciting about the media landscape, we are seeing more documentaries.

Speaker 3 We're interacting with things in a way that is so much different than it was five years ago. And so like I think people respond to great characters.

Speaker 3 I think they respond to empathy and they respond to people who care essentially.

Speaker 3 And so I think where I see myself with this next step is trying to be just a little bit more real and putting focus on those other people who are and there's humor in that.

Speaker 3 Where the rest of political comedy goes

Speaker 3 I can't say I know.

Speaker 3 I just had a show that was canceled, so maybe I'm not the best guy to ask, but I know where I'm going.

Speaker 3 And I think where I'm going to go is like, yeah, Donald Trump took every comedic tool away from me. He left me just trying to figure out who the hell I am.
So take me, world.

Speaker 3 This is what you've done to a comedian. You've left him naked getting arrested in the middle of Georgia.

Speaker 2 Literally naked, by the way.

Speaker 3 I was really naked.

Speaker 3 They do strip search you.

Speaker 2 Well, take me, world. I think that's a good place to end.
Jordan Clepper, thanks for joining us on Radio Atlantic.

Speaker 3 Isaac, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 That'll do it for this week of Radio Atlantic.

Speaker 2 Thanks to Kevin Townsend for producing and editing this episode, to our podcast fellow, Patricia Jacob, and to Catherine Wells, the executive producer for Atlantic Podcasts.

Speaker 2 Our theme music is the battle hymn of the Republic, as interpreted by John Baptiste. You can find show notes and past episodes at theatlantic.com slash radio.

Speaker 2 If you like the show, rate and review us in Apple Podcasts and subscribe in your preferred podcast app. Thanks for listening and talk to you next week.

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