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this is gavin newsom

and this is the daily show's jordan klepper

uh jordan welcome thank you for being on the podcast Thanks for having me.

Jesus.

So what, I mean, we were, you know, we were just commenting, full disclosure, right before you came on the air, just a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, a lot of, you know, people feeling a little more pessimistic.

We talk about doom scrolling, but just this notion of like feeling like things are way out of control, particularly this week.

So many contemporary things to talk about.

And then I want to talk about your career and all the extraordinary things you're doing.

But we'd be remiss if not talking about this week in the United States, what's going on in Texas and redistricting, what's happening in states like California, Illinois, New York as it relates to that subject, but particularly on the issue that really struck a chord with a lot of folks, and that's on stats, on labor stats, on this notion that we can fire the messenger, the issue of truth and trust, and feeling like America, as Tom Freeman wrote today, is being deconstructed.

I mean, where are you as someone that is deeply enmeshed in the body politic and crosses over

into

points of view that are not often shared

and you have a deeper understanding of the world we're living in.

Where are you in terms of this moment we're living in?

Are you pessimistic or more optimist?

Well, I mean, I'm looking for a big enough rock to hide under more often than not.

It's hard to get caught up in the news cycle.

And when I go out there and talk to people as well, well, not only on the road and talk to people of different political stripes, but I do a lot of stand-up and I do a lot of talking with an audience.

And people are scared.

And I get that.

You are not wrong.

It is infuriating to turn on the news and hear that suddenly, you know, reporting the stats and numbers can get you fired.

It's not a terrible surprise.

I will tell you when I'm out in the field and talking with a lot of MAGA supporters and numbers come out.

Everybody sort of has their own statistician at that point.

Everybody has their own guy they can reference.

And in so many ways, I think this Trump administration feels like a reflection of the internet itself.

And this might be the Luddite in me, but it's so easy for us now to go search out the facts that make us feel comfortable and reinforce the worldview that we have.

And the conversations I have with people online, which is the worst place to have conversations with people, are often footnoted with websites and numbers and data that don't check out because that's what you do now.

You a conversation, you find the thing to make you right.

And I'd like to have hope in the higher levels that those conversations are based on fact.

I don't have a lot of that hope.

And so seeing the firing that took place this week is infuriating.

It scares a lot of people in my orbit, but it's not surprising.

It feels like an extension of the internet.

So what, I mean, what do you do in that instance?

I mean, it's interesting when you say it's not surprising, so often I hear that.

And that's infuriating as well, because then it's almost a permission slip that it's sort of acceptable because the nor we've, we've allowed a normalization of deviancy.

And so nothing then becomes surprising.

And then it becomes, we're sort of complicit in it.

All of a sudden, it sort of manifests.

And I think that's the great struggle that we're all having is that we're seeing America in reverse.

We're seeing, you know, we're seeing truth and trust.

We're seeing historical facts being rewritten.

We're seeing the sort of cultural purge happening, the shock and awe overwhelming us.

And the zig and the zag, that is the distractions day in and day out.

So how do you, I mean, it's, I love that you say sort of manifestation of what's online is becoming offline with Trump.

How do you start to navigate that?

I mean, is that the work you're doing to sort of distill the essence of that and using comedy as an entryway to have that conversation?

Or what is your diagnosis beyond that in terms of what you do to address it?

Well, I think we're all living under the fire hose of information and news and chaos.

And some of that can be argued as strategy from a Trump administration.

Some, I think, as an extension of a mindset.

I do think Esmeral Klein made an interesting point recently that was, I think a lot of people give the Trump administration credit for their diversions and their tangents.

And I think there's credence in something like that.

But I think also it's a manifestation of a mindset that he has that is constantly distracted.

And he's been given the ability to be distracted and to lose interest in Elon Musk and to jump into something else.

And so again, it feels like we're living in a world that is a manifestation of his mindset, an internet mindset, a selfish mindset.

And there is this

fire hose of news that is politically advantageous when you want to get your own things across that might not be popular.

From a comedic standpoint, when we show up at work, and we have this fire hose, like our job's not to solve it.

Our job is to find the chaos, see where the bullshit is, try to make some sense of it and some humor of it.

I think

at its clearest and best, satire can boil down a feeling and a moment into something that's digestible and fast.

And so for us, we try to wade through the fire hose, find what is important, and also find what we can stick our POV onto with something that hopefully is funny and connects.

But it's a constant conversation that we're having day in and day out as to like, how do you deal with this?

And what is a distraction?

Again, we are legislating our job is not to fix the solution our job is as a media satire to look at it and find the humor within it uh but we are constantly having to make game time calls as to like are we covering the what happened in the oval office are we covering what's happening with these ice raids um where does humor uh uh have a place where is it best utilized um and and how do we make that work for us and our audience jordan it's interesting you say that because you know it's interesting with the daily show generally and And I, you know, Jon Stewart had sort of peak.

And I remember being really angry.

I honestly, I'm not,

I think I told John this when we sat down.

We did something on the death penalty a few years ago.

And I think I told him, I said, I'm really pissed at you.

You walked away from your show with peak influence where folks were tuning in and particularly young folks, but people like me that were washing in everything going on in cable.

that wanted you to distill the essence using the lens of comedy, but also sort of guide us in a deeper understanding, distill through that wit and witticism and satire where we are and where we need to go.

And I remember he retired right when the beginning of that election.

Like, no, you don't get to go, John.

You have a responsibility.

So I'm interested, you know, people, I think, you know, particularly you, Jordan, we're going to get to you specifically.

I mean, your

improvisational skills, your capacity and sort of legendary capacity to go in and to show empathy and compassion, humanity to people you disagree with, to go to these Trump rallies, to meet with people they still feel a comfort level to you.

That attracts folks that are looking for guidance, looking for direction.

And I wonder, you know, in a world where you're just watching the cable networks and it's just a lot of noise, don't you feel, and I'm curious if you do, but do you feel that comedy and the work you're doing actually is now more important

in terms of providing the way

and not just distilling a moment of understanding, but also providing a light in some direction.

I mean, that's, well,

as a person in the entertainment industry and an actor,

I do have a sense of self-importance that does make me think, yes, I'm more and more important every single day.

Governor Newsome, every single day, I'm more important to the general politic of it all.

Yes, sir.

I mean,

I will say, like,

going back to when I connected to the daily show, I used to watch it in college.

I wasn't interested in politics.

I wasn't connected.

I wasn't locked in.

Quite frankly, I don't know how college students do it today.

Like, I had the luxury of being naive about the world around me and just focusing on improv comedy and drinking a 40-ounce and not throwing up.

Like, that was like my journey as a 21-year-old.

And now, a 21-year-old 21-year-old has to be so connected to the world around them.

But I watched John on the Daily Show and this guy was able to distill ideas quickly.

He wasn't the end of information, but he was a conduit to learning more about something.

And I trusted him.

I didn't think he was bullshitting me.

I think media has bias on it.

Every media has bias on it.

I want every person who watches television to understand what bias is there.

It doesn't mean there's not great people who are trying to tell you the truth as they know it, but like there's bias in the structures and the institutions and the places that tell us the things that we have.

I think what a lot of people get out of the daily show, what I got out of the daily show, was like, I get Jon Stewart.

He's a comedian.

He's trying to tell us something funny.

And I think bullshit is his barometer.

And when he sees something that doesn't sit right with him, he goes at it.

And so you knew his bias.

I think a lot of people, when they watch our stuff, they watch my stuff, they know my bias.

I'm not an unbiased journalist trying to go out there and get what I

want to do is find something funny, find hypocrisy, find irony I care about things I'm progressive in nature and I do my research when I go out there and I think people can connect to me in knowing that about what I'm doing out in the field and quite frankly when I'm doing the man on the street stuff in the field like I have the luxury of not being a journalist in some ways pretending just to be unbiased in their conversations I can have a a goal and a hypocrisy that I'm trying to put forward I can be relentless in the ways in which I go after somebody to try to find that hypocrisy there.

And hopefully I can be also empathetic within that, that not only gets me something revealing about somebody, but also has some sort of connection.

So for me, that's sort of how

I see the work that we do there.

And

the level of import, I think that will be on an audience to decide.

But what I always get from the satirists that I love, quite frankly, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, like the people I grew up with, the people I get to work with, like, is that you understand their bias, you understand their tenacity, and because of that, they can cut to the quick.

And my favorite quote about humor, George Saunders, the author, says, like, humor is what happens when we're told the truth more swiftly and quickly than we're accustomed to.

And I think, like, at its best, like, in those moments where you have a fire hose of Trump BS,

like that quick, crystallized joke or revelation

can articulate through

the chaos.

Love it.

Were you, by the way,

you look at Robin Williams, George Carlin?

I mean, were there folks in the political frame that you, I mean, particularly, I mean, you mentioned obviously Colbert, and we'll get to that in a moment, and John himself, obviously.

But

when you were growing up, when you were that 21-year-old hanging out in college,

were you attracted to political comedy?

Were you impacted to that sort of wit and witticism, that capacity to distill the essence of a moment?

I loved, in college, I found Money Python, which was political in a different sense, I think absurdist political comedy.

And that drew me to the Second City in Chicago, which was political and social satire.

And so once I jumped into the world of like the Second City comedy, I learned about like Nichols and May, who were doing such great political satire in the 50s.

And then Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Tina Faye, the people at Second City, like even if they weren't overtly political at the time, like the stuff, the work they were doing in Chicago

that they would eventually go on and do at SNL and other places, like was all very much commentary on the world around them, even if that's just social dynamics, extending that into political stuff.

Like that to me was like, oh,

the real marrow of this comedy thing is use these tools of absurdism and wit, but go at like articulating these cultural trends.

And so that was sort of always my world.

And then John comes in and Colbert comes in, and I can see like them articulating a worldview and speaking to what people were talking about.

And so I became more and more a political comedian as I became older.

And those people also started to flourish in ways that they hadn't when I was coming up.

What is, I mean, obviously, we'd be remiss if speaking of coming up, we didn't bring up the Colbert issue.

I mean, that kind of took people.

I mean, it took me by complete surprise.

Also pissed me off.

I think it pissed a lot of people off.

And back to sort of how we started this.

I mean, it was alarming beyond words.

I mean, because back to truth and trust.

I mean,

are they letting this guy go and eliminating this show because it costs too much or is it about something else?

And I know it puts you in a tough spot.

So I'm mindful of that, man.

I don't mean to put you on the spot just to Comedy Central, et cetera.

But I mean, how did I'm curious what.

When you first heard that news, where were you?

How did you take it?

And what went through your mind?

What was sort of the initial reaction i was i was i was hosting the daily show that week and we had a we had a big week and we had a a great week of shows and as i walked off on our last show on thursday i got the news that the uh colbert show was ending i have a lot of friends who work over there and stephen is is a family member of the daily show you know he's he

he's he lives in in in lore over there and is was a daily show member for so long so we we we we love steven and yeah immediately it's a it's a gut punch i think like his voice i think is important right now at a time where it feels like a lot of people are stepping down when they could be stepping up stephen colbert is somebody who's stepping up and to see an organization push back on that is alarming i i know there are economic things at play here i think where i get frustrated beyond just not being able to see stephen colbert and quite frankly i think stephen colbert is going to find ways to be part of the conversation for the next few years so i think he's going to be he's going to be around.

I know that for sure.

I think there became such a conversation around the economics of late night and the end of late night.

And I think you can make arguments about like whether or not the advertising structure on linear television works at 1130 slot.

Okay, have that business conversation.

But I think the effect of late night, of a Jon Stewart, of a Stephen Colbert, of a Jimmy Kimmel, like, People are interacting with this content and this information more than they ever have before.

I know with the daily show, our reach online and all the different spaces.

I do stuff at the desk, I do stuff at the field, I do specials that go out across the globe.

They're part of the conversation.

You have the president of the United States who's pissed at the things that are being said on late night.

Like, to me, that is not a reflection of an industry that has no connection.

In fact, it feels like a reflection of an industry that is part of the larger conversation.

And quite frankly, like a couple days later, Stephen's first show back, like John Colbert,

John went on Colbert, so did Oliver, Seth Myers, Jimmy Fallon.

Like

what gave me a sense of pride in this space, where we are seeing institutions and people who have a microphone, we're seeing them take a step back.

I was really proud to see these comedians who are in different networks, different places, have different priorities, like coming together and standing behind Stephen, speaking truth to power, and supporting a guy that they think should have a voice wherever that may be.

And so, that to me was like a little sense of pride.

And also, I really wish they asked me to be a part of that.

It would be, it would have been nice.

I'm in town.

I could have ridden a small part.

Like, I'm, you know, there's, there's an element, it could have been slightly better, but for the most part,

it made me feel a sense of pride for like the late-night comedians who are

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It's interesting, just, you know, sort of breaking down the reach that punches way above its weight outside that time slot.

and how and all of them these mediums and all this capacity to communicate.

And obviously, that's, you know, a big part of what you've been doing.

You're not just doing the correspondent work, you're not just hosting on nights, the daily show, but you obviously have branched out as well.

You do these deeper sort of specials, but you're also doing a bunch of podcasts as well.

Is this, I mean, at the end of the day, is, I mean, no, it seems to me, you haven't seen it on MSNBC.

Everybody that's on MSNBC seems to have a podcast.

Sean Hannity's always had his radio shows for years and years and years.

I mean, the multifaceted nature, no longer linear, as you you say.

What's that landscape look like today?

And what do you sort of, where do you anticipate that going?

I mean, it's wild.

I mean, you're the governor of a state right now.

Yeah.

And you're, we're talking on your podcast.

Yeah, enough sense.

That's, yeah, it's, it is a

late night, you know, host that otherwise I would have to go on your damn show to have a conversation five, six years.

I mean, everything about it, right?

This is, this, this landscape is so strange.

You're like, oh, I guess I also have to have a podcast.

This is, yeah, this is, wow.

I do think from like an entertainment standpoint, you, you have to be able to connect to people where they are.

And so like late night is a great space for that.

You know, what I'm proud of with the daily show is like we have evolved and we've always been able to like.

I can go into the field and doing those pieces connect with people in a different way.

And there's a curiosity with people in their heads about like, what do actually people think out in the middle of America?

And a lot of this content is made on the coasts.

And so for me to be able to go to Florida, to Pennsylvania, wherever, and talk to somebody is compelling in a way that isn't seen on other venues.

And then you have podcasts, and then you have other spaces that really are the way people are starting to get their information and have these conversations.

So it is important for comedians, for politicians, to meet people where they are, to expand what those conversations are.

Quite frankly, what I like about the podcast medium is that it is, it's elongated.

Everything else is shortening and the attention span is shortening and the context shortens.

And that's where I get worried in the comedy space.

I'm sure as well in the political space.

Once you shorten everything to just that clip, you lose the context, you lose the ability to have any kind of depth of conversation or awareness of an issue that has more than one easy digestible side.

And a format like a podcast, at least,

I'm I'm happy to hear that people listen to things for an hour or two hours and digest that and and wherever that space exists I think you have to kind of go to that and and have those conversations you speaking of go-to I mean you in in in your go-to has been I mean your brand it's just next level and I was Man,

I realize I think I watched every damn clip before when I was sort of in anticipation of meeting with you for this.

You've got shit to do.

Governor, you've got shit, but

aren't you trying to double gerrymander California right now?

We're going to get to

what we're doing in reaction to.

Okay, I was going to say, like, instead of my videos, you could take more Republican votes away.

Is that what's happening?

What's going on in Belgium?

We all have capacity to do more and be more.

And that's the spirit of what you've done.

How many damn Trump rallies have you been to?

Have you counted?

Or is it SS?

I've lost count.

It has been, I mean, I started doing it in 2015.

What was it, by the way?

what was the and we'll get to the count in a second but what was the inspiration for that first trump rally oh boy i mean i can't it was i mean i think back in the time it was can you believe it a reality star is running for president we should we should get out there and talk to people before this goes away

before it goes away

you know what was compelling that first rally

what stood out to me like

the first rally, which was very early in Trump announcing his presidency, the conspiracy of the moment, of the Trump moment, was the Barack Obama birth certificate,

which feels like forever ago, but at that time in American history,

to walk up with a camera and a microphone and ask somebody if you think Barack Obama was born in America,

nine out of 10 people would say, of course he was born in America, even if they didn't believe.

that Barack Obama was born in America.

Culturally, that's not only insensitive, it is racist.

And you're not going to say that in front of a camera, in front of a microphone.

It'd be asinine to think that I would get somebody on camera saying, no, Barack Obama is a secret Muslim.

Like, that was the beginning.

And I remember talking to people about that,

and nobody would mention that.

A few months later, that number became, at a MAGA rally, it became six, seven, and 10.

People were unafraid to call Barack Obama a secret Muslim.

You could just feel it.

I was like, oh my God, this was months ago.

This seemed like it was an impossibility.

And not that racism doesn't exist in America, but at least that there was an understanding to hide your racism or an understanding that

was an unpopular, an untoward opinion that maybe you hadn't vetted enough in your mind to actually articulate in front of a stranger.

And yet, the power of that man saying that over and over and over again, it just moved that line in such a dramatic and swift fashion that I've seen happen over and over and over again to this day.

So that was,

and I want to get to the communication because it's interesting.

I mean, you used the frame over and over and over again, this notion of repetition in terms of a communication frame.

But 2015 sort of launched that, the birther issue, which created a lot of your content.

And what, 90, 100 rallies later, probably?

About that.

Yeah, I think that's about 90, 100, yeah.

What, I mean, what is, what's been the through line for you?

What's been the most sort of, you know, as you've sort of reflect on the journey of all these interactions?

And anybody that hasn't taken the time to see these clips really should, because I, you know, I use the word empathy, your ability to engage people and create that space of trust.

And they may be embarrassed at the end of the day.

They may not even be embarrassed because they're situationally unaware.

of the contradictions, which are fascinating.

And I don't know how much editing you do.

We can get to that in a moment, or how many things we don't see, of course, how many tries that complete disasters.

You just go into one but uh seems to me a lot of really good people and it breaks my heart i i i'm i've i feel more empathetic watching your interactions i feel i feel really badly for people that they've been so lied to so misled and they feel they feel you can feel the emotion the anger of being contradicted or themselves contradicting themselves when the facts are presented and the facts then become can't be true because my beliefs are so strong anyway what has been your sort of throughput What have you learned on this over the course of these many, many years, these rallies?

Well, I think you are spot on in that,

you know,

when a lot of people often from the left come up and ask about MAGA rallies, and many people from the left never went to a Trump rally, and I highly recommend it.

What I think is so enjoyable and empathetic about those events is like they're like a parade coming to town.

And when I talk,

even if you aren't on board, you go to the parade coming to town.

And

for the most part, a giant group of those folks are there because they want community, and they get it.

They get it immediately.

And they want meaning.

You have the most powerful person on the freaking planet who's like, this,

you can be a patriot.

You can do this thing.

Stand up.

That is such a, it's such an amazing promise to give to people.

And the desire to have meaning and community in your life is such a universal desire.

It's something that I'm constantly searching for.

And

I feel it there.

and I like it.

I yearn for it.

I'm a Michigan football fan, and I go to the big house and I see the exact same thing happen.

Like it's a trip, it's what we do.

We buy a hat.

There's a reason you put on a hat.

I put on a Michigan hat, they put on a MAGA hat, that red hat.

Because as soon as you put that on, you feel like you're a part of this team.

You see 10,000 other people who share something in common with you.

And that I see, and that I understand, and I yearn for more of that in my own life.

It's the manipulation of that.

These people are all vulnerable and open to this.

And

the lies and the BS that is fed to these folks, I think when I have these conversations with people, more often than not, I'm confronting them with information that is new to them.

They have to articulate their opinion that they've shared with their friends over and over again.

They have to articulate why for the first time in real time.

with me.

And I think that's what you start to realize.

It's like, oh, they haven't stress tested this idea.

In the old days,

you'd you'd have your friends at the bar who don't believe what you believe, and you'd have to tell them why you believe that wild thing.

What facts you have to prove the birtherism lie.

But now,

your six pals that you see, they're not going to press you on it.

The internet that you're on isn't going to press you on it.

The Fox News that you're listening to is just reinforcing it.

And so, when you go out into a field and you talk to me, and I ask you something like that, you assume this has already been stress-tested and perfect.

You haven't even

thought through why you believe it so surely.

And then, when this dumb lanky guy asks you, but why, over and over again, you start to see those cracks.

And for me, that is what is most revelatory: is like you see

you see the propaganda and how it how it seeps its way into people.

You see how identity is something that

forces people to cling on to things, even though they may see the cracks in the logic.

But you also see people

haven't thought through the logistics of that.

They've just trusted.

And I think that's such a

loving attribute for most people to have, this trust that this person who garnered so much fame and attention for his entire career came here and told me it was true.

So why isn't it?

I think that's like on the left, you can kind of forget, it's like what happened on January 6th is crazy.

And I was there.

You were there.

I was there.

But when like the president tells you to do these things, that person is so powerful and to believe in that person.

Like you understand where that comes from.

And it's so infuriating that he has the power and the ability to get those points across.

But I think the humanity in the MAGA supporters that I find is in just the trust and the faith that this community that they've found

couldn't possibly be steered wrong by somebody who's accrued so much power and success.

What, you know, and I want to go back to January 6th, because I don't think people fully appreciate you.

When you say you were there, you were working.

there.

I was working, Governor, working there on January 6th.

Recently, pardoned Jordan Clipper.

Yes, is joining us today on the podcast.

Yes.

You were just there.

It was a peaceful rally.

Peaceful.

It was just a traditional tourist visit.

It was, yeah.

Let me ask you, though, did, I mean, you must have, I mean,

we saw the images of your cameraman kind of getting tripped up, this sort of intentional effort to become a victim, the person that tripped him to say, oh, he ran into me to sort of create these conditions, sort of Erwellian nature of that.

But what did you must have?

There was, I imagine, points where you started to realize, shit, this thing's getting real,

that this is getting a little out of control.

We need to get the hell out of here.

Yeah, it was, I mean, we were, we had been to the Million Maga march a month before, which was the Stop the Steal march.

They said a million.

That was their numbers, but there was 40,000 people there, perhaps.

And it was tense.

And there had been a shift in, like, you know, as contentious as some of the interviews I have can get, for the most part, people want to have a conversation and they don't get testy.

Post that Trump election loss, people were testy and they were frustrated and they were argumentative.

And we had a few situations where security had to step in.

And so for January 6th, we sort of knew people are going to be angry.

And Trump had been telling people, be there, we'll be wild.

When you show up, the mall is full of people wearing very aggressive t-shirts with guns on them.

And when you talk to people, there was nothing but talk about revolution and what have you.

So we were very strategic about where we wanted to be.

And we also quite literally knew the game plan for the crowd was going to be listen to the Trump speech and then move on to the Capitol and stop the vote.

So we positioned ourselves to be there in the front when the vote was taking place.

And we watched Proud Boys march by us and we saw everything happen.

I think from our own perspective,

it was intense.

We didn't think they would get inside.

At some point, you're like, we think this is coming.

So I'm sure there's enough structures in the way to stop this from going as far as some people would like it to be.

And when they broke down those first barriers, what was so fascinating was like the mix.

You had the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, the people who were dressed for war.

They were there, they were up front, and they pushed through and they were attacking.

And then you also had this second wave of MAGA supporters who've been pretending to be dressed for war for years

and dressed like tourists in the Capitol, standing on top of barriers, like echoing movements from war movies to get people up there.

Like that day to me was such,

it's sort of like this Trump administration in general.

Like it was so heartbreaking and sad and absurd at the same time.

I'm interviewing a man on a Segway going up trying to overthrow the government and also people with zip ties.

I interviewed people who I would later find out brought weapons into the Capitol.

And you just, there was real danger and threat and ludicrous absurdity at the same time.

And flashbangs started going off.

People started breaking inside.

And we had a security detail with us that was like, it's time to go.

We don't know what this situation is.

We can't control it.

And we got out of there.

But

it was heartbreaking and ridiculous and everything all

in one.

And in so many ways, predictable.

And I think that's part of what is so gosh darn infuriating.

Was it predictable to you that Trump would find his way back?

I mean, at that moment, you must thought, this is it.

This is over.

Over now.

It's, I mean, he's toast.

yeah i mean it's

this news cycle you know it eats its own tail so quickly but watching

watching republican uh congress folks stand up and talk about january 6th the day after talking lindsey graham articulate being done like

go back and watch those i we i i did recently and i was like wow the certainty the the bipartisan nature of seeing chaos and a reality in front of our own eyes and calling it out.

I mean, it's the most photographed crime in human history.

If we as Americans can't watch that and say, we don't support this, this is the line.

And it felt like there was a moment where that was the narrative and that was...

discussed.

And so, yes, I thought that was the end of the Trump chapter, at least in terms of being president, that

this MAGA movement is still looking for a leader and that won't die out.

I didn't think it would end quite that quick, but the fact that it has resurfaced like this and he's found his way back into office, I don't think I fully saw it coming.

Although, as I started to go back on the trail, the numbers seemed lower, but it didn't seem like it was impossible for it to happen again.

Finding that meaning and community once again.

But you also had to find your way back.

I think the interesting thing about you is it's one thing to go back during COVID.

You got a mask on.

There's some anonymity.

People know you, but don't really know you.

I mean, how in the hell do you show up at a Trump rally nowadays?

I mean, you're too well known.

Sorry, my friend.

You have secure.

I mean, now that security is not just there for a moment like January 6th.

I mean, and you've got, you've got infamous examples of people that will see you, call you out, call you fake news.

The brick suit man, we'll get to him in a minute, among others.

There's sort of these infamous interactions that you've had over the years.

But how is that?

I mean, how is that journey now?

in terms of reeking out or you get to know all these people and they love you like hey jordan good to see you buddy i i I have friends that I see at these rallies now.

I know all of the

t-shirt salesmen.

We're pals.

We see each other every week.

I do have multiple friends who I've talked to over the years that it's nice to reconnect with and see how their thoughts have changed or if they haven't.

And it is remarkable.

Like, sometimes people will seek out to talk to me.

Sometimes people will say, no way.

I think the thing that was both eye-opening and disheartening was I went to CPAC a couple years ago and assumed,

assumed going to CPAC that no one would want to talk to me.

That it's sort of ridiculous that we got credentials to be there, but we'll see who would want to talk to me.

I was a rock star at CPAC.

And for two reasons, there was a line of young Republican Congress hopefuls who wanted to talk to me.

Wow.

were desperate to talk to me.

And literally, you saw it.

I saw Marjorie Taylor Greene walk through the hall with 10 press behind her.

And you see these young congress folks, these hopefuls from the middle of Indiana who are watching her and they're like, oh my God, that's the attention.

What do I need to do?

What do I need to do?

Let me talk to this guy.

Let me talk to this guy.

And so there was the line literally handing my producer cards.

Please talk to me.

I would love to talk to you.

You're just like, oh, these are, and I talked to a few people.

These are moderate, good,

young, nice people running for office, but you see their head shifting where they're like, oh, that's not the game.

The game, I have to be big.

I have to court a fight with this guy.

I got to own the libs.

I have to do this.

And then secondarily, I ran into MAGA fans at CPAC, specifically like this 18 or 19-year-old boy who is a Trump super fan.

And he showed me pictures in his home of Trump cutouts and posters, pictures with Trump.

He loved, his whole identity was Donald Trump.

And he sought me out.

He was like, I want to talk to you.

I want to get pictures.

I asked him point blank.

I was like, you know who I am.

You know what I want to talk about.

You know my point of view.

Why do you want to talk to me?

And he's like, you're part of it.

You're part of the world.

You're one of the bad guys.

Get a picture with me.

And it's, I'm the heel.

Like, like in the UFC world,

these guys, they don't like me, but I'm the bad guy to them in this world.

So they want a picture with it.

And it's a game and it's a performance.

So collect all the characters,

try to get their autographs.

It's just a game to be played.

Jordan, you have no idea how much that resonates with me and how much I appreciate that.

I mean, I have so many similar experiences along those lines.

So, what, I mean, you know,

well, let me go back because I, you know, people are like, what the hell is he talking about with this brick suit, man?

But because I think it goes to the, goes to the essence of what you just described as well, which is your ability to connect with the other side and the challenges that we all have connecting with people that we vehemently disagree with in terms of worldview and points of view.

Just, you know, so many people are just, I don't understand how hot, you know, what's going on with my, it just makes no sense, et cetera.

And you had an interesting, infamous, and, you know, I don't want to belabor it because it's well chronicled, but you had like this three and a half hour conversation with someone that was going after you at one of the Trump rallies.

And the two of you just happened.

to get stuck in an airport, I think in Green Bay, Wisconsin, if my memory serves.

And you guys were stuck together waiting for a damn plane.

Just the luck, you know, what are the chances of this?

And so you had nothing else to do.

So you ended up spending all that time bullshitting back and forth.

What happened?

Yeah, it's we got to know each other as humans and not as performers in front of a medium.

And it was, it was a remarkable day.

Like like you said, he spent

the entire shoot day heckling our camera crew.

And he's sort of an infamous MAGA celebrity that Trump brings on stage because he's dressed like the border wall.

And when I see him at the airport, the last thing I wanted to do was spend three and a half hours talking and fighting with this guy over politics.

But, but it was remarkable in that,

like, I joke that we're away from our mediums, but it is true.

Like, our guards were down.

Like, he's he's not performing for a camera and playing a part of the Brick Suit guy.

That doesn't mean that he's not, he doesn't believe many of the things that he talks about.

I don't think he's insincere in that, but I think he's a larger version of certainty that exists in his heart.

As am I as a person who is in front of the the camera as well.

And with no cameras, no microphones, when we got past, like, is this person recording something to try to make the other person look bad?

Like, then we just started talking about

his certainties around Trump.

I think what was surprising to me, like, he talked about...

Like, again, he is, he is in some ways the manifestation of like a Trump supporter.

But he would articulate to me was that he wears the brick suit because he sees it as a meme and memes are attention getting.

And he wants the attention of a camera and he wants to articulate that MAGA vision because he sees himself as more articulate in the ways of Trump than other people.

And I don't think he's wrong.

I think that's probably a savvy move.

But as we talked beyond the cameras, like he talked about how he didn't think Trump won the last election, which is bonkers not to believe the big lie if you are the big face.

He told me he wished he'd move on.

He had political disagreements with them.

He had more of a libertarian streak and loved to be an online troll.

That seemed to to be most of his personality.

He would be open about that.

Like he loved to go on Reddit boards, stir shit up, and get people upset.

That's sort of what he thought was funny and comedic.

And so like, I got it.

It wasn't my thing.

He was way into history.

He was a smart guy.

This is the thing that I always think about when progressive people, when Democrats come up to me and they want to say, like, oh, all those crazy people you talk to.

Like, I talk to people who believe crazy things.

And you need to understand those are separate things.

And Brick Soup Guy, I don't agree with the things he talks about, but the man who has a handlebar mustache and five bespoke brick suits that he goes up on stage and talks about, you'd like to think he's an idiot and he's not.

He's smart.

He's smart.

And we talked.

We had good conversations.

We found, if not common ground, like we softened on some of the certainties that we had around issues that we were less aware of than perhaps we would perform in front of a camera.

And I say this, the moment that sticks with me is like we got on the the train, the plane, still talking, and

I was in an exit row and was asked if I wanted to took on the responsibilities of being in an exit row.

And I took to him and I mischievously say, I hope this freaks you the fuck out, man.

And he laughs.

And

in retrospect, it's like that, that was, that's it.

Every conversation I have with with so many other people, you don't get to the point where you're actually laughing together because your identity is at stake.

Because any any challenge to your certainty any challenge to a thing you have said is seen as like an existential attack on who you are but I knew who this guy was I spent three and a half hours with him we connected on some stuff and so when I poked him he didn't crumble didn't didn't just explode into just dust he laughed and I laughed back and I'm like oh that's that still exists that exists in America we're not as as polarized as as some people would say that the conversation pulls us that way and it looks that way.

But if you can spend three and a half hours with somebody in a Green Bay airport, you're going to

at least get to the point where you believe the same premise of the joke.

And that, to me, speaks to not separate realities, but at least a generalized understanding.

No,

thank you for sharing that story.

I think it's incredibly important and it's what we need to hear.

right now because i mean i i keep saying it divorce is not an option um and at the end of the day we got to live together across our differences.

And it's exhausting.

I mean, it's just this zero-sum thinking, this notion, you know, that, you know, everybody's just at each other 24-7.

You feel like you're waking up and, you know, people are trying to put a crowbar in the spokes of the wheels of your front tire and trip you up.

And so this notion that we, you know, are all better off, we're all better off.

This notion that we all want to be loved and need to be loved is so foundational.

But at the same time, I imagine for you, it's still a struggle in terms of changing minds.

Because I've seen so many clips with you where you've presented something, you know, just a perfect example.

You had a woman who was very upset, the notion that a woman, I think Kamala Harris at the time,

it may have been Hillary, but I think it was Kamala, was going to be president because she said, as a woman, she says, too many hormones.

She's going to get us into a war.

And your immediate retort is, well, haven't.

all the wars been started by men?

And she paused and still went on.

I mean, you didn't change her mind.

And this notion of changing minds, changing hearts, changing behaviors.

I imagine that's been a struggle for you with all of these interactions.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, I will say the intention of these interactions is not to change.

The intention is like, again, my bias is towards comedy, finding hypocrisy and irony.

And more often than not, it's like

I'm curious as to how far the propaganda has spread and how deep it is inside these people's mindsets.

And so I don't find people's minds being changed, being confronted with information.

And frankly, across the board in my personal life as well, it's like, oh,

this idea that, oh, if I have the information and give this person, that mind will get changed.

I think

one of my favorite interactions was I was talking to a woman during Trump's first impeachment, and she

was talking about how Trump is innocent.

And this was the time when he was blocking testimony from John Bolton, amongst other peoples.

And I said, well, if he was innocent, he wouldn't be blocking people from testifying.

She's like, exactly.

He's innocent.

He wants everybody to speak.

He wants everybody to testify.

And I was like, well, so if he was blocking people, that would be like proof of his guilt.

She was like, of course, of course, but he's not doing that.

And I say, well, he is doing that.

And she takes this really long beat and she thinks about it.

She really hears me.

And then she goes, I don't care.

And that's, I was like, thank you.

Because more often than not, the conversations that I have out there, the politics is the pretense.

It's the fun.

It's the parrying that people have.

This is identity for so many people.

And they will jump into the abortion debate.

And some people believe it vehemently.

But more often than not, it's just the tools you use to play the identity.

And so when it comes to like changing people's minds, changing people's identity is hard.

Once you put on that hat, People see you in that hat.

And it's not just that you can take the hat off because your whole community saw you as the guy with that

and that's a hard thing it's beyond just buying it it's how you are perceived it's how now your families see you it's i i think about like families who have now lived in this this trump era for 12 years

you've lost friendships family members based on it like to change your mind is a big big big ask and so i don't i don't think it happened i don't i don't think it happens with just facts but i do think like

to me what i'm always on and on about is this certainty that we have that I think is so unbecoming.

And

it is a necessary trait in the world of social media and online engagement to be the most certain, loudest version of yourself.

But the only way that I've seen any kind of movement and change or like with the brick suit guy, like a moment or a space for that, it comes with uncertainty that I bring to the table.

And then he can match it.

And so for all of my well-meaning, thoughtful, progressive folks who are like, if I just get the right information and article to give to my cousin, it will be fine.

I'm like, I don't think it's going to do it.

Give it a shot.

But to me, the only softening I've seen is when you enter the conversation with an I don't know or something you are uncertain about, which is a scary place.

The internet doesn't want you to start that way.

But like that invitation has been the only way to get somebody else to at least like like at least bring the barricades down a bit to let some new light in and see.

I love the words you're using.

You talk about meaning, you talk about community and the power of identity and how you shake that identity, but with humility and grace.

And I think it begs the question hardly, you know, the words you would use typically with this topic, but the Epstein issue.

I mean, that invites what to you in this whole conversation.

What does Epstein mean in relationship to everything you've just said?

Well, it's fascinating to watch it play out on the right because it does feel like

it feels like a promise broken right now.

It's

Epstein and this idea of this conspiracy that would come out was something I heard on the trail for the last eight years.

And

I do think to me,

like we've, we talked a little bit about this and some off camera about like, um,

about the difficulty of governing.

And I think so many people, so many people who go to a Trump rally and are there,

are there just for the show and the community, I think part of it's because there's a disconnect between what they see governing as and what politics is.

Like, I think like they have, they feel disconnected from what government can do for them.

And so therefore they might as well have fun with the the game of the politics.

And Trump is like, well, let me just play the politics part.

And when he gets into the governing part, what I'm curious about right now is like, well, there's a connection now.

Now this person actually has the power that you have given them.

Do you like this big, beautiful bill?

Do you like your health care options right now?

Do you like what's happening at the border?

Do you like the information that you're getting or not getting about Jeffrey Epstein?

But Trump has done a good job of living in the chasm between politics and governing.

And so I do think there is a real disconnect with so many people who voted for Trump, not with a true idea that they thought he would change things, but that he was the most interesting version to be in a system that they thought could never change.

So I think we're in that right now.

And the Epstein thing

cracks it a bit.

Because if

you've really bought into this conspiratorial mindset, which a lot of people have, and that these people can deliver this truth to you, it's hard not to see the writing that is on the wall.

Occam's razor is super sharp here about why some of this information might be withheld, why you're not getting all the things you were promised.

And I think we're going to see all the shucking and jiving from the Trump administration trying to get you to focus on something else.

But it is an inherent lie towards the Trump brand that

I don't know what the long-term effects of it will be, but...

But I think his success will be in the fact that

if he's created a populace that is so pessimistic about the effect of the government, then he may win out in this.

But if there's actually some faith left in that these people can do good for you, he's going to have a hard time writing that circle.

Before we close, Nora, I'm interested, you know, I want to connect back to that 18, 19-year-old guy that, you know, just his identity, speaking of identity, was all attached to

Trump, but also to you in some respects.

That's all part of this sort of dialectic and this game as you describe it um and everything's everyone's relationship to one another the good versus the bad the you know the truth all that what you know have you seen just through your journey um you look at young folks and you've you know we've you've done a lot on masculinity you've talked about you know we're we talk so much about telling boys what not to be we don't talk about what they should be

And there's the Andrew Tates of the world that infamously sort of filled that void.

And we've seen that weaponized with Trump, et cetera.

And you see that 18, 19-year-old.

You see your own son.

Where are we in terms of the generational shift on all of this?

Even in the distinction you just made around campaigning versus governing and the relationship to Epstein and that.

But

do you see any generational

changes underway?

Do you see any hope?

in that distinction, young versus old,

new versus, you know, what, what's, what's.

I mean, I do.

I think your podcast with Richard Reeves, I thought, was great.

And I think there's a lot of people talking really in depth about this crisis of masculinity that's happening right now, which I'm seeing echoed in all of the places that I go to.

I did a special recently that was looking at sort of the new MAGA movement.

And

Where I found hope was sort of in a surprising place.

I went to a Turning Points event.

I went to a UFC event.

And I think I was in my mind,

I think especially at like the Turning Points Texas A ⁇ M event, I was expecting maybe the most extreme of the MAGA movement to be to be echoed in these 18-year-olds.

And when I went down there and talked to the students, I think what I was surprised by, they were conservative,

most of them also very, very religious.

But when I talked to them about like topics,

they didn't care about the cultural war stuff.

Now, it doesn't mean Charlie Kirk, who is 100 feet away, who I know you've spoken to as well, he will get on that culture war stuff and he wants to talk about that stuff.

And it doesn't mean that these students won't hear that and won't glom onto it, but it wasn't top of mind for folks.

And

I naively assumed a cruelty that did not exist in the 18-year-olds that I talked to.

I thought when we talked about deportations that they would chomp on the bit.

I thought when we talked about trans athletes or or LGBTQ rights that like a wall would go up or cruelty would emerge.

And frankly, it didn't happen.

The people I talked to were interested in jobs.

They were interested in

the country, patriotic, talking about like defense, security.

But

they didn't care about LGBTQ, not they didn't care about LGBTQ issues as a way to like to fight over or to be upset about.

They wanted people to have equal rights and protections.

And I think it became aware to me.

I was like, I'm projecting a cruelty that exists within this movement, that I think it does exist.

I think the Trump administration thrives on the cruelty and that as a tool to

create obedience.

But when I talk to the youth, they are looking for attention.

and also meaning and community.

And I saw Turning Points as an interesting example of like, oh, they're like, oh, what is this thing over here?

This thing that's popular online?

Oh, online, the place that everybody either becomes an influencer or doesn't.

Like, that's the sphere I want to be a part of.

Let me go pay attention to that.

They weren't interested in the cruelty of that message, but they were interested in the performance of that message.

They were interested in the popularity of that message.

But at their core,

these were nice kids who were still forming their own worldview in a kind space.

And so when I think of that younger generation,

I think there is a kindness there that

is different than the hardened, older MAGA generation that we see right now.

And

I hope there is space for them to

find what they care about and do good in this world and not sort of be manipulated by these older generations who want nothing more than to weaponize these points of view and these malleable minds.

Noran, two final questions.

I want to go back as we began on redistricting for a different reason, perhaps, and some may think, but I want to pick up just what you said you know if someone's listening to this they're saying okay we're now in sort of the mega sphere we're talking about the manosphere um we're in that zegeist but without the situational awareness that a lot of this sort of ideological identity politics this sort of notion of community and meaning also finds its way on the left as well uh not denying uh that What, you know, in terms of that, to the extent that does exist and one has to stipulate it does,

what is the, What have you learned about MAGA?

We talked about repetition.

We talked about that sense of that broader sense of community, what Trump has provided people in that space.

Any prescription for Democrats?

Any prescription for my party that's struggling?

I mean, you know, the Wall Street Journal, Lowest, you know, I mean, you know, there's no doubt.

You look at the polling on the Democratic Party.

Some don't like it referred to as toxic, but it's toxic for a lot of people.

People sort of immediately are moving away from it.

What's your over-under in terms of what we can do differently or better?

Are there lessons that we can learn from the MAGA movement, dare I say, or suggest,

from the experiences you've had in those 100 rallies, 90 to 100 rallies with humility and grace

that I think a party that is out of power needs?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's

There's like there's functional things, which is like meeting people where they are.

And I think like literally we we joke about this, but it is it is podcast, the internet, like, understand the conversations where you need to have those conversations.

I think that's like that's that's baseline.

But a big part of what I see a younger generation connecting to

is authenticity.

And

it feels, it took me a while to see what was authentic about Donald Trump, in so many ways, a very inauthentic human being who's constantly projecting things that are untrue.

But the feeling of Donald Trump is one that I think is received as as authentic for so many people there.

He feels like, if not a truth teller, somebody who says it like it is, who's not beholden to other things.

Again, the veracity of that I don't stand for, but I do see people like, oh, they don't see him as a politician.

The way they connect with him is on an authentic space.

And I do, when I hear the Democratic Party talk about, you know,

who are the next faces and how do we do this?

And I know you're a part of that conversation.

The AOCs are part of the conversation.

In New York, Mamdani is such an interesting part of the conversation right now where that, on a local level, was really fascinating to watch.

Like all the prognosticators said, like, oh, this isn't how New York works.

This isn't how politics works.

But then there's this guy who's like, ah, I want to talk about stuff that I think is important, which is like jobs and people are hurting.

Jobs, people are hurting.

How can we give them something to look forward to?

And I know how to do that in a way that doesn't feel political.

It feels authentic.

And that broke through in a way that I think a lot of New Yorkers are like, huh, everybody told us this wouldn't break through.

I think this next wave of Democratic leadership and this party

needs to one know

people want action and they want people who authentically want to make change.

I don't know how, like, I do think what the Republican Party has done so well is create a party of like pointing at them and they are the problems.

And I think you're seeing now like, what can they solve in governing?

Governing is hard.

I don't need to tell you that.

I understand the difficulties within it all

and how slow it is.

But I think big action by Democrats to really go after those core issues of

health and of jobs by somebody who feels like they're talking man on man with the Democratic populace.

I feel like that's where it's going to live.

And so much of the party I hear talking about like, are we too left?

Are we too moderate?

Are we this way or this way?

I'm like, that gets in the way.

Like,

you need to be a person.

Like right now,

all of these kids, these younger generations, they are staring at phones with a person that they feel connected to who tells them to buy this lipstick.

They tell them to vote this way.

They tell them this is cool or this is not cool.

And they listen.

You need to be an authentic person who can communicate.

And that's why it can look like Bernie Sanders or it could look like AOC, two very different people of different generations, but who feel authentic to an audience.

It's like, I think that message has to feel authentic, be authentic, and be one of like, of change because people, people feel so scared right now and so nervous right now.

Like this idea of who has a vision for change that I can believe and trust.

I think that's what people want.

Everybody.

And even on the right, where it cracks in the MAGA movement, it's like, tell me that you see a way that this can be better and bigger and fairer.

I think that is a populist message that the Dems can own.

I want to end there, but I want to get to redistricting because because the tactics of that and what Donald Trump, I mean, he was on CNBC today and he was asked about the Texas redistricting he said

that

he's earned the right to have those five seats.

I mean, it's analogous to the hour-long phone call with the Secretary of State in Georgia, find me 11,000, however many, 12,000 votes.

Now he says to Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, find me five seats.

And he said, I won Texas overwhelmingly.

So those are my seats.

And in order to make everything else possible to have that conversation about health care and about affordability and about being able to even introduce yourself as the authentic self, when we're rigging a system or changing the game

mid-census in this case, that's pretty damn alarming.

You were there on January 6th.

Now this guy realizes in 18 months he may have some

oversight with a different majority, the Democratic majority in Congress, in the House in particular.

And so he wants to rewrite the rules.

What is your sense of that in relationship to everything else?

And what does it mean to you?

Is it about power, dominance, and aggression?

Is it the brand MAGA?

Is it about strength versus weakness?

You know, sort of that framework?

Is that a paradigm that

you've observed?

Democrats, Republicans, what MAGA, what Trump represents?

What does it redistricting mean at this moment from your perspective?

I mean, honestly, I think this moment is so fascinating.

I'm honored to get to talk to you about it in this time we are in because I'm reading this news right now.

It's such an obvious power grab, and it's scary.

It's authoritarian,

it's anti-democratic.

And to me, where I see it in a MAGA movement is it will be lauded as a success.

I do think we talk about the cruelty that is inherent there, but I think so much a part of this identity is in making other people pay.

That, like, to the victor, go the spoils.

It's, it's, you know, and that's been Trump's brand forever.

Like, it's, it's capitalism 101.

It's like, I get this because I work the hardest.

Screw you, work a little bit harder.

And so I feel like that is like a new framing device for democracy, which

I wish we were able to push back against that.

And so you have what you guys are talking about doing here, too, which

I will say, I have like,

I don't know how to feel about it.

I am so scared as to what Trump is doing and it is so unfair and so undemocratic and just a power grab and on one hand I'm like I want to see I want to see democratic governors and democrats fight back fight fire with fire I think that is what there is a real yearning for and at the same time I am scared to run into like an undemocratic arms race and

And so I don't, I don't know, like,

even walking into this podcast, I'm like, man,

I respect that something that you do well is I think you step up to the plate with Donald Trump and you punch a bully in their chin.

And I think that is a big part of where the Democratic base can find success in this movement.

And yet I worry about like

where are the norms that we have to keep in place and where are the norms that we have to throw out in order to be in a place where norms can exist.

Well said.

I mean, it's, and as someone that supported independent redistricting as an elected official when it first was presented to the voters of California, It took me a little bit to get on the other side of this, but now I'm realizing, to your point, the existential nature of this moment.

And the other side, there are no rules.

They're assassins in this respect, in terms of the approach they take to power and to ultimately control.

And so, you know, we're not only going to fight fire with fire, we're going to punch above our weight.

California is the size of 21 state populations combined.

We have an independent redistricting.

We have not gerrymandered our state.

No state

has more

to give to this contribution of the counteroffensive than the state of California.

So we'll neuter what they're doing in Texas, but we'll one-up that because we'll take some of the more competitive districts and they'll be less competitive as a consequence.

And to your point, it's an arms race.

I'm not naive about that.

But it's also, you know, we're a race to 250.

Next year is the founding, the celebration of the founding fathers and the vision that the founding fathers laid out, the best of Roman Republic, Greek democracy, system of checks and balances, the rule of law, popular sovereignty.

It's all,

all at risk.

And so forgive me for belaboring the point, but I think the point you're making is a difficult one is how you reconcile those two things.

You want to do the right thing.

You want to sort of aspire to

the better angels.

But we also have to be accountable to this moment.

And to be clear, you think we're going to make it to 250?

We have no choice, but of course we're going to.

What the hell?

I don't know.

I'm looking at property in Montreal, just trying to get a sense of like, okay, so you think 250?

I'm just worried about singularity and AI.

So you're, I get all everything, governor, everything.

Oh, my gosh, it's also scary.

Yeah, we didn't even get to AI, thank God, but

enough of the anxiety.

Hey, Jordan, thank you, man.

This was a great, not good, this was a great conversation.

It was.

And you know what?

You know, keep doing what you're doing.

But also,

you know, if

you need another job,

if these sons of bitches figure out a way to cancel the daily show and try to cancel you, you're going to be in the political consulting business soon.

So you're fine, my friend.

Are you offering me one of these Congress seats?

Is that what you're doing?

Is that what it is?

Oh, I know.

That's been your dream in life.

That's been your aspiration.

You do a little improv on the House floor.

Then Then you get gnarly chain.

What's her name?

Marjorie Taylor Greene every day of the week.

I was going to say,

what a lovely workplace to walk into.

Jesus.

And we didn't even get to Matt Gates to be continued.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes.

Well, I got plenty of stories.

So have me on for round two.

This was truly a delight.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

Thanks so much, man.

That was great.

Thank you, bro.

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