Episode 1654 - Jordan Klepper

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Lock the gates!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

It's called WTF.

What's happening out there?

How you holding up?

Freaking out?

Are you freaking out?

Or are you like, yup?

Yep, this is what happens.

What are you doing?

Are you just fucking spiraling into fucking panic and fucking despair?

Yeah, that's reasonable, but

on another level, this is what happens.

This is what happens.

This is

a rite of passage

for authoritarian leaders to just go bomb shit.

I mean, look,

there's no nukes in Iran.

But if you remember,

leading up to the Iraq War, another unjust war, at least there was a process,

months and months of a congressional process

to get

approval, despite it being a bullshit undertaking and a bloody one, there was a process.

This one, the process was, oh, look, he posted on his thing.

That's what authoritarians do.

This is what it is.

It's funny that a lot of the articles and stuff, you know, they don't talk about a constitutional crisis anymore because we've been in one since the beginning of his presidency.

Pretty straightforward.

authoritarian Authoritarian action.

This is the country's baptism into real authoritarianism.

I mean, I've been saying this for months, but it's pretty clear now for you people hanging on to the idea of democratic hope

that that's not where we're at.

And that window is closing.

Because with an action like this, look, I don't know if there will be reprisals.

I don't know what the consequences are.

All I know know is that we have an authoritarian leader who's just going to bomb shit when he wants to.

I would argue that sending the troops into Los Angeles was more upsetting and more foretelling and in plain sight what we're headed towards as a country.

Yeah, you know, just call the troops in to any American city.

Without congressional approval, without the functioning of one of the three branches of government, without any checks or balances, just fucking send the troops in, bomb, bomb the shit out of somebody

with no process,

just a guy and his impulses and the fucking idiots he's surrounded by, the sycophants, the collaborators, the straight-up fascists.

I mean, that's...

I don't want to, you know, I don't want to fuck up anyone's Monday morning, but this is it.

And for all the people that voted for him, just because, I don't know, I get a good feeling.

I like his, I like his spunk.

Yeah, that's a double entendre.

But, you know,

all these people that were just sort of like fighting for their free speech

to say

the R word, the shit on disabilities.

Yeah, well, I hope this works out for you.

All you people that are like, yeah, just, he's got a good,

I like his moxie.

I like that guy.

Well, welcome to

the new military dictatorship that puts a fucking nail in the coffin of democracy for good.

Yeah,

I hope that's what you were hoping for.

And all these anti-woke comics are still doing, you know, like I don't, I see them around, still doing trans jokes.

It's like you won.

The trans people have no right to live the life they want.

In some states, it's legislated.

In others, it's just based in fear.

Same with women.

Anti-woke policy has crumbled any,

destroyed any sort of pathway to

try to give the vulnerable and the marginalized a leg up in the world

under this umbrella of anti-woke, which was the big to-do with all the comics.

I'm anti-woke.

Well, now it's policy.

And thousands of people

are living in pain and fear and unable to live a free life in America and get the care that they need.

Hope those jokes were worth it.

I mean, when do you stop doing the jokes?

I mean, you won.

You broke it.

You broke a lot of people.

When do we stop doing the jokes?

Yeah, all that

DEI stuff, that threatening, horrible sort of idea of trying to make democracy work.

It's all gone.

You did it.

You did it, fellas.

You did it with your, you helped out with those jokes.

It's good, right?

It's great.

Here we are

on the cusp of a military dictatorship with a

rabid

fascist culture war.

Those jokes were worth it, though.

It's going to be great, right?

That you can say those things.

And so many people are compromised compromised and in pain.

Yeah, and all those jokes about immigrants.

Yeah, it's awesome, right?

You guys?

Just seeing people ripped apart,

seeing all that pain caused feels good for you guys, right?

This is what you wanted.

Half the population in fear and in pain and unable to live a free life in America, just so you guys aren't uncomfortable with people that are different from you.

Awesome.

Anyway, good morning.

Good morning.

Today on the show, I talked to Jordan Klepper.

He's the co-host and contributor on The Daily Show.

He's known for his finger on the pulse segments where he goes out in the field.

He's done several TDS present specials for Comedy Central, and his latest is called Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse, MAGA, the Next Generation.

He does a good job with it, and I kind of got into a little bit of a deeper conversation with

him

about what's happening.

And, you know, certainly in light of

this unconstitutional

act of war

by our authoritarian leader.

I don't know if it'll play the same way, but

we talked about it.

Oh, my God.

And then you got this whole Christian nation business.

Can you think of something more boring than that?

Oh, my God.

Christian rock, Christian jazz, Christian movies.

Oh,

all the amazing things about the creativity of the human spirit.

Shut down.

All the beautiful woke stuff

that made culture and creativity interesting

and enlightening

being just shut down.

And again, I just really want to reach out to those anti-woke comics who are at the forefront of pushing this new culture through.

Hope it was worth it.

Now everybody's got to be boring like you, so you're comfortable.

Next week,

Monday's guest is Mariska Hargotay.

She directed a new HBO documentary called My Mom Jane, which is awesome.

It's a spectacular documentary.

You can watch it on Mac starting this Friday, June 27th, and I highly recommend you do.

Then you can hear me and Mariska talk about it next week.

Okay, that's happening.

I went to a screening of the film that I am the star of last night in Memoriam.

I think I've talked a bit about that here.

Sharon Stone was there sitting next to me.

Kit was on the other side.

That was exciting.

But I got to be honest with you.

I hope the film finds a home because it's a very touching film.

And I'm not like the kind of guy.

The projects I'm involved with, oddly,

because you know who I am in terms of how I think and how I feel and the intensity of it and sometimes it's heavy and I just seem to be involved with a couple of projects three actually

maybe four

huh

and my special two five you know a lot of things going on for me at the end of democracy

Not going to personalize it though, you know, comes when it comes, right?

Your moment and

the end of freedom.

But the movie Immemorium, I get very focused on watching myself, and I think I did a pretty good job with this thing, but it's incredibly moving.

I mean, it's a real,

it's funny, but there's that balance of humor and

sort of, I wouldn't say tragedy, but yeah, I mean, but no, life, you know, the painful side of life.

You know, it's a guy who has cancer who decides that he's going to not get treatment so he can try to get into the immemorial montage at the Oscars.

He's an actor that might not have the resume for it.

But through the course of that, he develops a relationship with a daughter that he had no relationship with.

And I got to be honest, the story itself and the fact that I did okay really delivers this very weighty but beautiful story about

being human, about surrendering to love, finding something to live for.

And it's,

I'm not a big, I'm not a guy who talks about storytelling a lot when people sort of say storytelling is what we have and it's what makes us human.

And it turns out

it's kind of true.

You know, the same thing with Stick, you know, whatever you think of that show,

it's got a lot of heart and it's about

a found family of people that have their own problems and their problems together, overcoming obstacles and, you know, through struggle and kindness and moving through

heavy feelings and sadness and trauma and whatever.

But

they're probably kind of needed now.

I find myself watching a lot more movies that

sort of elevate the human spirit, even if they're dark.

I just re-watched Succession.

But there's something to it

because we're certainly not getting reconnected with our humanity by looking at our phone or seeing what's going on in the world.

And many of us don't spend time with other people in terms of really kind of locking in and feeling that.

So sometimes storytelling, if it's done well, is

a way to reconnect with your humanness and humanity in general.

And I'm doing the bad guys.

You know, that's a cartoon.

And that's

fun for the kids.

And the Bruce Springsteen movie,

which is about an artistic journey

through personal darkness.

And

then my special in August, which

runs the full spectrum of political, personal

elevation of

the human spirit over trauma and grief.

Yeah, I mean, this is what I have, and this is what I'm taking in, and I guess it's okay.

Well, I hope you're hanging in there, and

I think you'll enjoy this talk with Jordan.

I mean, it's pretty upbeat, but pretty heavy.

His latest TDS present special, MAGA, The Next Generation, is available on Paramount Plus, Comedy Central, and on YouTube.

And this is me talking and meeting for the first time Jordan Klepper.

You know, I'm getting a lot of congrats on,

you know, a good run.

Right.

But we live in a culture where nobody quits anything if they can keep going.

Like, because I have to wrestle with this thing.

I mean, I think we've done great work, but there is something about stopping that's rather dramatic.

Yeah.

And but it's a genuine congrats on a good run.

It's a genuine congrats.

Yeah.

It is.

It is funny, even walking up here.

Yes, it's like, I don't want to treat this like it's a funeral.

Yeah, there's something that's dying.

I heard you say, like, it's okay to end things.

Yeah.

When you announced it,

I come from the Chicago world, and one of the wisest Chicago improvisers, Noah Gregoropoulos, used to talk about in terms of relationships.

He was like, there's too much drama put on the end of a relationship and it being seen in a negative light.

And he refused to look at those.

He was like, these things end.

They're beautiful parts of your life.

Why can't we celebrate those elements within that?

Sure.

And that's the pitch you have for the person you've just hurt.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So this is, I'm trying to be kind to you here, Mark.

You end in failure.

The fact that you don't have a podcast means you're no longer culturally relevant.

And so congratulations on your death in the industry.

I appreciate that.

And all those thousands and thousands of people that relied on me twice a week to keep them afloat are now going to resent me.

Yeah.

And think I'm an asshole for walking out on them.

You left them.

Where will they get content now, Mark?

Well,

that is the primary burden of it.

Is that, you know, 80%, you know, look, I'm okay.

We've interviewed everybody.

Everybody, and also there's, we live in a

culture of yammering and there's just it's just non-stop fucking talking everywhere.

It's just crazy.

It's crazy.

Like, I don't know what my algorithm does, but, you know, within a few reels, it's like three to four white dudes behind mics talking about, you know, shitting their pants as adults

and laughing about, you know, cum and this, that, and the other thing.

Yeah.

Well, that's where we live.

It's just an entire entire country full of amateur afternoon drive-time radio jocks.

Yeah.

Do you feel responsible for making it look so easy?

Actually,

if I'm being even more...

I don't want to be probing.

This is

your world.

As you slowly die in this industry.

Yeah, I trust your instincts.

So you go ahead and probe.

Well, I feel like a lot of people are talking about you ending,

and they are pointing out your natural curiosity.

Yeah.

That

by all accounts, you're not going into this.

You didn't go into this as a way, as a platform.

You went into it as a curiosity to find out things about people.

And also to

kind of re-introduce myself into the world

or maybe even for the first time.

Yeah, it was a personal kind of

desperation, even to connect.

It was no way to make money.

So, but yeah, I mean, and then follow-up question is, where are you going to put that curiosity now?

Well, that, and also, how do you see, how do you see that?

Did that evolve?

Did it devolve?

For me?

For the

media industry?

Well, I mean, yeah, I think it obviously evolved, but not unlike anything.

It's almost like, what's a good analogy?

It's like, how do you

like the introduction of photography?

You know, at the beginning of photography, it was clunky.

You know,

the exposure took a long time and, you know, a lot of, but there was only a few people doing it, right?

And then at some point it's, it's declared on, and it's arguable, an art, right?

So you have art photography and you have documentary photography, and there are, there's a criteria and a context through which to appreciate that in art history.

So at the point where everyone can own a fucking camera, how do you maintain the context of what is good and what is art if everyone can fucking do it?

And on that level, how do you protect the bar from lowering to a point where everyone just gets used to a certain thing that kind of goes in and triggers a little feeling or this, that, and the other thing?

So in a world where everyone's got a fucking camera and everyone's got a fucking microphone,

the argument there would be like, we did this great work.

There's no reason we can go on.

I mean, the medium has shifted.

The finances have shifted.

But I possess what I possess.

My producer possesses what he possesses.

But there comes a point where there's diminishing returns in terms of

relevance, uniqueness.

I think it'll always be unique.

And also the fact that it's not easy.

And we put a lot into it.

And my producer works in a very specific way.

And we do audio and we really craft these things.

And

at some point, after 16 years, as a good example,

someone's going to go, I think I'm done.

There's a big chunk of life here.

And we've got this great catalog, and we did some amazing things, and we spawned.

I think

what became, I think, my major contribution is a certain style of honest engagement.

On the other side of that, we've unleashed an evil on the world.

Yeah, I think if I look at this like social media,

you're sort of the Arab Spring of social media.

You came along at the point where it's like, oh, this can be used for good as a way to further humanity.

And now we have whatever X has become as a way to take down and topple government.

That's right.

And also, arguably, you know, Arab Spring, not a success, really.

I guess, yeah, if we're going to take the metaphor all the way, like, congratulations.

You did what you could.

You did what you could.

It's interesting.

We'll talk about it in the history books, perhaps not kindly.

That's the other thing.

I mean, what is, you know, when all these people, you know, especially progressives

who talk about that, well, history will show.

It's like, not if it gets hijacked hijacked and rewritten.

You got to talk to the people writing the history.

That's right.

Yeah.

And there's only, there's some people are really talking about changing the books and figuring out how to dwarf that mystery.

Exactly.

Every time I hear that, like the history books, well, I'm like, which books are you talking about?

The ones that are going to be rewritten or diminished or disappeared?

Yeah.

The new history.

Yeah, the new history.

Talk to the Native Americans.

Yeah.

How has that history been?

So are it well articulated over the course of the last hundred years?

Well, yeah, and just the fact that you're not teaching black history in schools.

Yeah.

But you you know, on the argument of DEI.

I mean, it's, it's, it's too crazy.

Before, in terms of like all of it happening at once, like I did a bit in my special, it's like, what do we, how do you even protest?

Do you just make a sign that says, please just stop?

This is crazy.

Slow down.

Please.

Please, okay.

I just woke up.

Can we all just take a breather?

Please?

Count to 10 and then have a response?

Oh, my God.

But I guess that's part of the whole plan.

But I don't know what's going on at the Daily Show in terms of how this is discussed.

You know,

at what point do we stop talking about this as sort of a two-party democratic problem and just address the fact that there's an authoritarian coup happening and culture is becoming fascist?

When does that language change?

Like, when do we call it what we say as we say?

I mean, I think at the Daily Show, we'd like to think we're doing that.

Yeah.

I mean, we're always struggling with the fact that our job is to find whatever comedy we can around that.

Sure.

And it's a fire hose of information.

Right.

I think the struggle I sometimes have when we approach it is like the game plan, the authoritarian game plan is the fire hose of bullshit.

The let's do all this to distract you from the dark shit that's happening underneath it, right?

Like we can have an Elon fight that's happening and not talk about the big, beautiful build and what it's pulling away from.

Yeah, and also, but like, why doesn't why don't you have a segment every

week on what Russ Vought is doing?

Well, we got to sell Pepsi, you know, Mark.

Let me tell you, as much as people love good Russ Vought content,

it's cable TV.

You got advertising.

I mean, I do think from a creative standpoint, that is, beyond the advertising element, is a question we have every freaking week.

Like, we can put together the saddest, darkest fucking show you could possibly imagine almost every single day.

And it's curious now because the setup we have, we have like John on Monday and then one of us takes the rest of the week.

You kind of are working in concert with like, you know, curating the vibe of a week.

It's not all just about the yucks or the darkness, but it's like, John, we're making

an argument on Monday.

Let's have like an editorial argument.

Yeah.

And then let's go more news of the day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

We'll see potential second acts that have deeper dives and arguments.

Right.

But also, sometimes we've had two big days that have gone way in on Elon.

That's talked about U.S.

AID and how they've ripped and people are dying.

And that's hard on an audience.

We still got an audience there who's telling us how they feel.

This audience feels they're raw.

No, I know.

I was performing on the road for a year and a half and

I went out of my way.

Because it did feel like community service after a certain point because all you can do is contextualize.

There's no, you know, you can't be up there going, well, here are the solutions.

I mean, you can blame the Democrats, you can blame whatever, but this is a full court press of authoritarian bullshit that's very well orchestrated.

And it's being done very intentionally.

And so little of it has to do with Trump because he's a dumb shit.

He's a bulldozer and they're just walking.

That's right.

But he's like, you know, he's a new kind of puppet.

He's a puppet in the sense that like he, all he wants to do, I think, ultimately is be the only important person in the world and have all the money.

And they're just going to let him do that.

And he'll and then give him the, here, say this.

You know, do the, these are the executive orders.

Like those, like there's hundreds of executive orders.

You think he even knows?

No.

No.

When you're dealing with a situation where you can't provide a solution, you can't provide a way of looking at it that is educational and enlightening and funny, you know, but it really becomes this sort of

this thing where it's sort of like,

like there are moments where I'm like, you know, I don't think these snark bullets are going to really pierce the problem.

Right.

You know, it doesn't normalize it.

It does give people a little breathing room and enforces a point of view.

But ultimately, we've got to get them out in the streets.

Well, I don't.

I think, yeah, like people approaching it like, is this the solution?

Do you have the solution?

The answer to that is no, we do not.

It's not an activist show.

We don't provide solutions.

We provide comedy and context through our own outrage and bullshit detection.

And information.

And information, right?

Ways in which to draw attention towards stuff.

I got to do specials on

Russian interference in the election, what was happening in Estonia, in a world where not a lot of people are talking about Estonian politics or Hungarian politics.

I don't think they're talking about much of anything.

And I think

they're totally reactive day to day on this or that.

And what was interesting about the new special, I think it's the newest one, the MAGA Next Generation.

Well, you know, like I really wasn't hip to Charlie Kirk.

I mean, I kind of knew the name,

but after I watched it, my phone must have been listening.

So now I'm getting a lot of Charlie Kirk.

Yeah, you're welcome.

But, I mean, when you see that side's youth, you know, versus

whatever the left youth movement is, which is mostly

focused on Palestine.

But do you, because my girlfriend was like, you know, eventually they'll grow out of it.

Like when you see, when you're watching these two young women who are sort of shallowly kind of

regurgitating talking points,

do you think that like maybe it's a phase or that the fix is in?

Well, I think I think there's a potential for it to be a phase.

I think I have true empathy for those 22-year-olds, those 18-year-olds.

I see myself in that.

I think they are shallowly just repeating the things they've heard.

Now, where I get worried is the 30-year-olds who are preying on the 20-year-olds.

It is the Charlie Kirk.

Charlie Kirk comes to a campus and you remember what it's like on a campus.

People are excited.

They're looking for

energy, for vibes.

Community and purpose.

For community.

They want community and purpose.

It's what I still want.

I still am fucking searching for every single day.

On a campus,

Charlie Kirk shows up and it's a scene.

And what he has beyond it being a scene and a community and purpose, he's got free shit that he's handing out to people.

He's got hats, and suddenly you put that on and you control somebody or at at least look like you're part of a group.

He's online.

These kids have seen him constantly.

He's in their feed.

His bid is fighting kids.

Debating.

Yeah.

His bid is debating kids on campus.

He gets plenty of clicks for that.

People are showing up to his events because, one, they want to see this thing they've seen online or they want to engage with him.

I think a little bit of the trick that he pulled is you have a lot of conservatives showing up.

You have a lot of moderates who just want to show up and see what the thing is.

Then you've got a handful of liberals who show up who want want to fight him.

Now, what I got is a lot of young, somewhat naive, conservative kids

who were shocked at what they saw.

They were like, I've heard about the illogical, angry, hysterical left, and I didn't believe it until I saw it here.

I'm like, oh, this is part of the trick.

It's not only Charlie Kirk trying to sell you the MAGA spirits.

He's also trying to put on a show and succor young left-wing kids to come up, yell at him, where he can calmly act like the adult in the room and put on a show of left-wing hysteria for these other minds who are watching that and walk away thinking, I don't know, it seems like the more rational, level-headed person is this 30-year-old who's being funded by a bunch of old millionaires to give these talking points.

To radicalize college campuses.

Yeah.

And I think that's where I see that taking hold because these kids, I don't see them drawn inherently to a MAGA ideology or a right-wing ideology.

I see them drawn to whatever fucking works.

And in the attention economy, they're giving a pathway.

It's a devious one, and I'm pretty cynical about what it is, but it's effective in this space.

The left has a harder time negotiating that space.

And not that they should come at it from a point of like propaganda or winning over these minds, but they should be able to articulate what is compelling about a vision.

Because inherently, Charlie Kirk ain't the coolest thing on a fucking college campus.

Well, no, it's like, you know, and I see all these people,

Republican youth, or the new punk rock, or we're going to make it hot.

I'm like, good luck.

You know, meanwhile, you've got all these 30-year-old

right-wing guys, you know, doing jaw exercises and getting Turkish hair surgery or shaving their eyebrows off.

I'm like, that's hot.

That'll give you game.

Yeah, there's such an insecure masculinity that's on the right that has been lifted up.

It's wild in that it is insecure.

And the

solution that they're providing

lifestyle solutions they're providing to sort of ease that insecurity makes them you know bigger clowns yeah and and it's not going to serve them unless they really are able to brainwash all women completely yes exactly and they're working on that i mean i don't know how the trad wife business is selling i don't do you have you looked into that i i don't i if if you if you have any i mean i would invest in it right now it feels like i'd put money on it right now because of that well i they i went to texas a m and there definitely was a there's a christian element to that school and they they talk about traditional values The thing that I find that I can relate to from it, if not traditional values, like

there was a study about what algorithms were feeding kids, and a lot of it was Andrew Tate and far-right uber masculinity stuff.

This Dublin study that, like, what if we create a generic 16-year-old?

Yeah.

What do we sell him?

And they sell all this toxic masculinity.

But the other thing that they were selling were things like neo-Stoicism.

Oh, yeah, I know a guy that's into that.

See,

I'm one of the guys who are somewhat into stoicism.

Ryan Holiday, smart guy in stoicism, he articulates Seneca, Marcus Aurelius.

And at its core, what he's articulating is like a pretty moral blueprint for how to succeed, self-improvement, if you will.

And I think like selling self-improvement to young kids is something that they will fucking buy.

Now, some of that is tied to these old weird traditional values.

It's interesting because it used to be, you know,

I think there was a time where youth culture did not need self-improvement.

That it was like music, exploration, you know, finding things that were kind of would turn you on in terms of like literature or art or, you know, there was a freedom of mind.

But now I guess they're all floating and, you know, all the music is kind of the same.

And now these guys come on campus with an ideology.

They're like, I can talk these things.

And, you know, I just, every day I think about what made me what I was in terms of what my brain is and what was appealing to me.

And I was growing up in sort of the crashing wave of the 60s and mid-70s.

And it was all about like, you know, kind of blow your mind with shit that is given to us by, you know, inspired weirdos.

Yeah.

And now they're just trying to, you know, diminish all the weirdos and make freaks.

Yeah.

I mean, you probably.

Weirdos are better than freaks.

Weirdos are definitely better than freaks.

Yeah.

You probably also had the invitation to spend more time with your own thoughts and other folks.

I think like these.

You didn't have phones.

You didn't have phones.

And I hate to be that guy.

But like, I remember when I was doing a show, like, when I was hosting a show, I got so caught up in like waking up and immediately looking at my phone, looking at the news.

And I was like,

I have no...

I'm letting somebody else's opinion get in before I even have my own.

And I'm like, I know better.

I'm smart enough not to do this.

But if I'm 18, like to not have a moment of silence to figure out what the fuck I care about,

that's a dangerous space.

It is.

And so this is good.

So So there's no hope, really.

There's really no hope.

Come on, find the weirdos.

You know what?

You bring up, I mean, I know how much you love music.

Like,

there's this conversation around, like, where are these folks on the left?

Who are these masculine men on the left that kids can look up to?

And I think there are compelling, interesting figures there.

I think, do you know the bad idols?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bad idols.

Like, I think

there's a punk rock element that still exists that is still progressive, kind, masculine, violent, sincere, like

gender all over the place in a way that is compelling, young, I think evocative for young kids that the left still doesn't see as like an extension of them.

But I think that they're like when we talk about this, and I said it on stage to a degree, there is no organized left.

Yes.

There's no foundational ideology that there is, but the, and you know, Bernie speaks it.

That's it.

Yeah.

I mean, if you can teach kids how to care about other people and create a living wage and health care for everyone,

that is the practical left.

All the other stuff around the left are boutique issues that make people feel better about themselves.

Yeah.

Right?

Spot on.

So

without the organization, there's no, you know, people,

not sadly, I mean, people who are who are

lefty or Democrats or whatever, a lot of us are just sort of like, we kind of just want to live our lives.

We're okay.

We can make decisions for ourselves and we care about other people.

We take care of what we can.

We send some money to whoever.

And, you know, we hope it doesn't get too shitty because then, you know, our grandpas are going to have to go protest like they did in the 60s.

Yeah.

Because I'm not going out there.

No, I'm too fucking tired.

So, like, you know, when we talk about this idea that there is some answer to them, I mean, we tried that with Air America.

You can't, you know, it's, there should be a whole series of jokes around like, okay, there are three leftists sitting in a room and there's one problem.

You know, like,

right?

So, so that you can't wrangle that shit because, you know, within seconds, it just becomes

an insulated arguing culture.

Yeah.

But debate is supposed to be part of it.

Debate is supposed to be a part of it.

But whatever Charlie Kirk's doing on campus is not the nature of debate.

That's a trick.

And all these kids are, I see, I saw Cedar go at him.

And he did a good job because they're relatively uninformed and if they are informed it's with you know completely ideologically bent

mostly with enough information that that is correct but the core of it is usually not yes but and you but debate is a part of it but the problem is the way we ingest this debate is all performance.

And it's what I'm doing out there.

I'm not trying to change people's minds.

I'm trying to find hypocrisy and comedy and bullshit that is out there.

But I think like what you see, what Charlie Kirk is doing, what even some of the podcasts that are attempting to put two sides against one another, like inherently the medium is performance.

And the only way that you get engagement is to win, not to find some.

I did a podcast with Governor John Kasich where he tried to find middle ground.

Nobody gave a shit about that podcast.

There's nothing there that works within that medium.

And so

I think debate has always been a part of what the Democrats want.

It's what healthy discourse has.

But there's no place for that

in an online world that I think is a problem.

But also in a black and white world.

Yes.

That there's winners and losers and that's it.

You know, the public discourse is broken down.

And what determines what a winning is and what it isn't is a whole other thing.

But like the more we talk about it, I just realize that

if you can convince enough kids that that weirdos are not to be tolerated, then where do you go from there?

And I just feel like we're on the precipice of

stifling, you know,

immigrant voices, marginalized voices, you know, art in general as being relevant.

That, you know, it just we're going to end up in this very sort of narrow space, this very myopic, you know, it just feels like whatever freedom of speech that all these fucking, you know, libertarian douchebags were yelling about was just the ability to tell everyone else to shut the fuck up and scare them into doing it.

Yeah.

They don't even know they're servicing that.

Anyway,

it's good, man.

I would say where I do find a little bit of hope is

all of these things scare me.

And we joke about there being no hope.

And I am not a hopeful person.

But with these kids that I talked to,

the cruelty wasn't there.

My prejudiced mind walked into a college campus thinking like all of these talking points from the right will be there, as well as the cruelest elements of the MAGA talking points.

And that wasn't there.

I would ask them about gay rights.

I'd ask them about

immigration and what have you, and they never took the bait.

Now, that doesn't mean they won't take the bait.

That doesn't mean they're a year and a half from taking the bait.

But I was like, oh, this is such a learned behavior that isn't there in that 18-year-old kid.

There is a sweetness and a kindness who's drawn towards the attention and the talking points right now, but they're not necessarily drawn to the cruelty yet.

And that gave me a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope that cruelty is not embedded into these kids.

Yeah, I was working on this joke that it's not, it can never, I don't even know how to say it about

when you have this division that there's it's a small leap from fuck all of them to kill all of them.

All it requires is permission.

And, you know, and a presidential pardon is a pretty good incentive.

Sorry, it's not funny.

It's not, it's, but it's real, Mark.

It's important.

This is what.

So you're quitting podcasting to go back into comedy?

Is that right?

Jesus.

No, I never left comedy.

Well, it feels like maybe stick this, maybe keep this podcast thing for a little while.

Well, we'll see where I show up.

You know, it's just a matter of

there is part of me that feels that there is an essential part of the conversation that I could fill, but

to be responsible for that and also then to, you know, we've been very careful to keep it

emotional and personal and about people

striving to do creative things and trying to sort of figure out how to live and react in this world.

But once you enter the political conversation, then

you can't get out.

And I don't know if it really means

enough to just become that.

Because that's even more limiting.

The one thing I can say about the way we did it was that it was all a possibility.

But once you start, there's no way.

And I did political talk for a year and a half, two years.

There's no way that you can not be a puppet to the talking points.

There's just no way.

Whatever you think you're thinking on your own, you're not.

It's part of whatever that agenda is.

And you can't get out from under it, no matter how much of an independent thinker you are, because you're servicing that.

And I'm not saying it's not righteous.

Yeah.

But is it what you want to sacrifice your life for?

Mark, you're saying I have no opportunities outside of this political space.

Is that what you're, you brought me all the way out here to tell me that you're not going to be able to do that?

I thought you, didn't you?

Weren't you into clowning?

Improv.

Improv, Mark.

Improv.

You didn't go to the Barnum and Bailey School for clowning?

It's close.

It's called the Improv Olympic, and we pretend to ride elephants.

There's no actual elephants there.

But wait,

where'd you come from?

What is Klepper?

What is that?

Well, like that far back?

Yeah, and it's an interesting name.

I think it's Dutch.

Look at you, Dutch.

I know, right?

A lakey Dutch.

I got some Dutch, I got some Irish, I got some German in there.

So it's all that, so you're real Midwest?

Yeah,

I'm a Michigan kid and then goes through Chicago and then moves to New York about 15 years ago.

So you come from the Scandinavian farmers that they tried to get to farm that horrible land up there?

Yeah, basically.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a land of farmers and carpenters.

Yeah.

I got some Quakers all the way down.

Oh, wow.

I thought I was a direct descendant of the guy who started the Quakers, George Fox.

Yeah, are you?

There's a lot.

Well, there's a lot of George Foxes in my family, and that's what I was always told.

And then I did some research, and he never had kids.

So that kind of snips it in the butt.

The religious leader with no kids, that's a guy with vision.

If only they all thought that way.

It stops here.

I can get behind that.

Honestly, the Quakers got a lot of good ideas.

Yeah, that's what I hear.

They do.

Most of their ideas is you figure out your own ideas.

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

That's a good idea.

I think Quakerism, it's sort of like Western Buddhism.

You just go into a room and you sit there for a while, and if you have something important to say, you share it.

Yeah.

And see how that goes.

Good luck.

Maybe we show up for a protest every now and then.

Well, now, but even that concept's gone sour with social media.

Oh, yeah.

This is just a never-ending sharing and looking for a fight.

Looking for a fight.

But do you have actual Dutch relatives?

Not that I have a connection to.

I think we've been here for a couple hundred years.

And so I have a little bit of Irish and English folks who are there.

Oh, they came through Michigan or Chicago?

They came through, yeah.

I think they all, basically all ended up in southwest Michigan,

which is sort of where the Klepper Klan has existed.

So you got some Dutch.

Are they still there?

Yeah, most of them are there.

So how's Michigan doing when you go?

Michigan, I still got a lot of love.

I'm from Kalamazoo.

I mean, Michigan is an interesting, weird purple state.

Guitars.

There's guitars.

Gibson.

That's

Kalamazoo, man.

Oh, my gosh.

Guitars.

Derek Jeter.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, good.

They got a Gibson factory downtown.

Still?

Well, they still have the old,

there's an old pillar that

they're trying to turn into a hard rock cafe.

So I think that most of the acoustics were made in Kalamazoo.

And then I think the electrics, I know there's a Nashville factory.

Yes.

I think a company came in, maybe Heritage Guitars, came into Kalamazoo to try to kind of bring some of that energy back.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

There's a lot of Gibson pride in Kalamazoo.

Well, there should be.

There's

not a lot of music culture in Kalamazoo anymore.

No.

Outside the Verve pipe.

We still talk about the Verve Pipe.

Oh, they were good.

They were good.

I grew up working the taste of Kalamazoo because my uncle ran it.

And we had always met bands come through.

And the Verve Pipe came through every year.

And they played that song Freshman every year.

Yeah.

Every year.

Every year.

This is before it even became a hit.

And then it became a hit.

Then they came back and kept playing it every year.

But you felt part of it.

I'm part of it.

Yeah.

I love it.

They were nice enough to come.

They were nice enough to come for one of me.

I grew up and then I listened to that song as an adult.

I realized it's about abortion, I believe.

Really?

Yeah.

So who knew?

Yeah.

I thought I had a catchy.

Which side of it?

I think, oh boy, I think a fairly nuanced college perspective around abortion.

Like, you know, like abortion, my girl, like, my girl went through some tragedy, but I'm here to support her.

And I look back on that with a little bit of malaise and melancholy.

Oh, okay.

So they stayed out of the fray.

I think so.

There's not a lot of money.

If you're writing songs, if you're just writing abortion songs as a Kalamazoo band,

that's a real type,

no, no, pro-abortion anthems out of Kalamazoo.

It's hard.

It's good work if you can get it.

But were you aware of politics growing up?

Somewhat.

Parents are like,

I would say moderate to right growing up.

What do they do?

My dad's a brick salesman.

Bricks.

Bricks.

Like all kinds?

Like all kinds.

Like he was essentially, he was on the road, traveling all throughout the middle.

Selling bricks.

Selling bricks.

Selling bricks.

So he had a few samples in the truck?

Always had some samples in the back.

You got to have a truck, right?

Well,

he would always, he's a car guy.

Yeah.

He would get the company car.

Yeah.

He would take care of it like nobody's business.

Yeah.

And then like buy it back from the company because it was better than it was when they gave him a car.

Because he got attached to it.

Oh, yeah.

He was always like working that ankle.

Well, that's Michigan.

That's Michigan for you.

We drove around selling bricks.

Like what?

Do you know the difference between bricks?

Do I know?

Yeah.

Barely.

I know cheap bricks and expensive bricks.

What makes a difference?

Well, I think you go to big cities now and they're just fronts, essentially.

Sure.

Well, that's right.

There's no real masonry.

Yeah.

The Masonic Brotherhood that actually built buildings, not as many anymore.

Not at all.

It's kind of crazy when you see brick buildings and you're like, wow.

Yeah.

That took some work.

They're incredible.

Yeah.

And they stick around.

Yeah.

And now they build stuff and they put just these fronts on

stones or bricks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's just like shitty drywall behind that.

Yeah.

Or whatever.

But your dad was working with the real buildings.

My dad

was a brick man, traveled all around.

I remember that we had bad bricks in my house for the floor.

And the way that you can tell a bad brick is when they yellow in the center

after you treat them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you just knew it was like, oh, this is a shitty floor, right?

This is shitty bricks.

We went cheap on the bricks, and now we've got these yellow centers.

Pay money, it'll stick around.

So he's a brick guy.

He was a brick guy.

He retired.

He worked that for many, many years.

And like all businesses, they get smaller and smaller and get sold up the ladder to some big corporations.

They start pushing people out.

And then the bricks start coming from China and it's over.

And suddenly you got China bricks.

What are you going to do with that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you got to come.

You got to do it.

Yeah.

And with nothing, like my mother's boyfriend was like in the textile business.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Like, right, but he was an old man, but he still was in the game, kind of.

But, you know, you can't get, you know, you can't, when you can't pitch like the cotton mill here in the States and, you know, come from New Hampshire or whatever.

Yeah.

And you just kind of got disillusioned with all Chinese fabrics.

I mean, I watched my dad sort of,

as he aged into the brick building, just in the last few years, I mean, it's the story all across America is like everybody's,

they sell to a foreign entity.

Everybody's spending less.

They want cheaper answers.

And then the brick salesman who, like, my dad is a charismatic, thoughtful, smart guy, sold bricks because he could drive six hours to the middle of Wisconsin.

He knew the distributors, and they were friends with Mark, and they would buy brick from Mark.

And then the company eventually is like, well, what if we get a 22-year-old, pay him nothing, but give him a car, and then he doesn't have to make connections with these other people.

He could all do it online.

Just drop it off.

Right.

Yeah.

And you're just like, yeah, this is this is sort of how every industry is evolving.

Well, that's what we lose.

And I think that's why people are upset I'm quitting the podcast because we lose the human connection.

100%.

And that's the big problem with everybody.

Even when I was touring, you get these room full of like-minded people, but they're not a community.

They're just at home on their phones freaking out with the rest of them.

And then all of a sudden there's 900 of them in a room and they're like, oh, there's more of us.

You know, it's a big

have you noticed it.

I feel like I've noticed a shift in audiences feeling just surprised to be around so many other people who are excited in the same way.

Yeah, no, it's the best.

Yeah.

And I'm also finding that, like, you know,

staying true to

the sort of like,

you know, like what is happening is a fucking shit show nightmare, that most people are aware of that.

You know what I mean?

They They get the premise.

Well, no, they laugh nervously.

Because

that's my biggest fear is that regular people, maybe many who didn't even vote, who don't even have a horse in the game, are just on a base level scared to fucking even engage and get into the conversation.

So when you say something that lets a little steam out, they're like, oh shit, you're like, it's a great thing, but it's also a bad indicator.

It's interesting.

My shows, I kind of shifted.

I got out of the stand-up game late.

I sort of shifted from doing a more traditional stand-up set to just,

I would have such a split audience of people who are like, we are just here to talk politics.

We're so fucking scared and nervous.

To other people who are like, don't fucking talk politics.

Sure.

Just give us stand-up stuff.

And I found it really hard to sort of navigate like what this material was or where to start.

I just presented as sections.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm not.

I don't think I'm fluent enough or have as many sections.

So I just sort of was like, I'm going to weave together a, this show is like weaving together, essentially just a, a narrative political show for people who are, who are in it to be like, let's give this audience the most full show we could do there.

Sure.

Like I try, like it was a, for me in, in doing the politics that'll be on my new special, like I realized what I realized is that it's hard to talk truthfully about politics in a non-snarky way with the right amount of menace and intensity without it being slightly self-righteous.

So I really, in the couple of weeks before I shot my special, I'm like, you got to try to do this material from a human place as opposed to like, you know, like, well, this is it, man.

You know, like, I try to just take it down a notch.

So, you know, you're, you're showing you don't have answers.

And it was very helpful observation.

I opened up on tour a little bit last year, like, just, I was like, let's do less crowd work, more like Q ⁇ A.

Yeah.

I had like 45 minutes of stuff.

And I was like, people want to talk afterwards.

And I was shocked by the questions that were at.

I was sort of expecting like, you know, politics questions mixed with like entertainment, fun questions.

No, they were going right for policy?

Right for policy, specific policy.

Like people wanted answers.

They wanted help.

They wanted strategy.

Like across the board, I was like, I got stories about meeting Paul McCartney.

Do you want to know how tall Jon Stewart is?

I got nothing.

I got stuff to chat about.

They didn't want any of that.

There's no NDA on Stewart's height?

No.

I mean, he is.

The guy is so fucking short.

I mean, he's so tiny.

tiny.

He's like, what is he 5'7?

Yeah, boy, on a really, really

good day.

Yeah.

So, but, yeah, well, that's interesting because that means that there is a lack of representation.

Yeah.

That, you know, that's a congressman's job.

That 100% is.

And that's interesting that they're like, you know, this guy's on TV.

He seems to know.

You know,

they don't have the connection to their representatives.

No, they don't know.

There's no there's no place for them to dump this outrage and or ask those questions.

Or to get their representatives to take a stand.

I mean, that's sort of the way it was supposed to work.

Now, it's like, let's get the clown to do it.

Again, improv, Mark.

I'm an improviser, not a clown.

It's a very different thing.

Clowns use props.

We pretend to use props.

Very different.

Okay, I get it.

I get it.

I think we're all,

I include myself in the clown.

Oh, okay, okay.

The metaphorical clown.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's like Neil Brennan did that great joke about just about politics and where we're at now.

It's like, let's see what the clown has to say.

When did that happen?

Oh no, it was a mass shooting.

Let's turn on the clowns.

They have a perspective on this.

I have a perspective on this.

So you went to college for theater?

No.

I went to college.

I got a math scholarship.

And this was the Texas A ⁇ M?

No.

Oh, for, no, I went to college in Kalamazoo.

Oh, okay, okay.

Texas A ⁇ M is where I traveled to for the special.

Oh, okay, right.

That's where it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You didn't go there.

I didn't go there.

No, God bless.

I didn't even know Texas existed when I was 18.

Well, that's the interesting thing in relating to what you said earlier, just

before I forget it, is that the Christian element of the right

is

still, it's relatively subversive in a way.

I think there's not as many kids on board with the full Christian push as they are with the thrill of being able to shut down a liberal.

Yes.

Right.

But there is

the people that are guiding the authoritarian momentum is a Christian, their Christian ideal.

Well, and that was interesting with the Charlie Kirk of it all.

Again, text A and M, take it with the Grand A Saltsbury specific school.

Yeah.

Probably one of the most Christian schools in America.

But when you talk to the people who were coming from that perspective,

they were not MAGA folks.

They were Charlie Kirk folks.

And they saw him as a good Christian boy who could articulate the Lord's words.

And so that's where Trump has those folks out there.

It was like, oh, you can,

I can bring up all of the things that Trump does that are un-Christian in nature.

Well, it's the flawed messenger framing.

Yes.

I think they've finally gotten behind that as like, oh, but it's what he gets done.

Right.

And what he enables us to do.

Yes.

Oddly, that was the same relationship they had with Satan.

You just make a deal.

Just make it, we make a simple deal and everything's fine, right?

There's no repercussions.

We can get what we want to get done if we make a deal with this guy who's going to destroy everything.

But it kind of fits our story.

The guy's got to come back.

I think they maybe skipped over that part.

Yeah.

I don't know.

So, okay, so you go to Kalamazoo.

I go to Kalamazoo.

I go as a math kid, and I find improv comedy and become kind of obsessed with that.

Are you good at math?

Yeah,

I was a...

At what level?

A level seven?

Oh, wow.

Yeah, pretty good.

Yeah, I'm a level seven math wizard.

You know, like physics?

I did physics, but I got like when I essentially got a scholarship to go to Kalamazoo College for math and realized like, I'm the kind of kid who is, who's really good at math in high school because I could put in the work.

Yeah.

And I was a smart kid.

And then I go to college and there's like eight math majors.

Yeah.

And I just saw the difference between like a real person who's good at math, who it comes to them like, like a savant is good at music.

Yeah.

It happens with math.

And I was like, oh, I'm a kid who worked really hard at math.

Yeah, and that's not going to care for me.

I'm like, I could be, I could get a B minus here.

But these kids, they ace it with the A.

And that's because you're in theoretical math once you get into college.

And everything is theory.

And I'm like weeping, looking at this, like, I can't learn this.

it's like, if you don't have the gift, you'd have the gift.

I didn't have it.

Yeah.

And then they're like, oh, do you want to do improv comedy?

That thing you saw in Whose Line Is It Anyway?

I'm like, yeah, I think, let me try this.

I couldn't get through.

Algebra is where I stop.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, somehow or another, I pulled it out for geometry because there were pictures.

But the numbers and letters, no good for me.

And when I'd see, like, you know, guys with physics textbooks, I would just look at those textbooks and be like, what the fuck is in there?

It's dark.

The deeper you go in there, it's dark.

It's not sexy.

They brought in, they could sense at my college that like people weren't super excited about their mathematical future.

So

they knew that

everybody who was studying math was like, we know that people say when you have a math major, all you can do is teach math.

And that's not true.

There's one other profession.

And they brought in an actuarial scientist, which is somebody who like figures out when you're going to die and then bases your insurance rates off of that.

There you go.

That was their sexy sell, right?

You could have been a member of the dark side early on.

Right off the bat.

I could have been making cash at 22, figuring out when my parents were going to pass away.

And denying them coverage.

Exactly.

That was their big sell.

I was like, oh, it's not just teaching.

It's this guy.

And you can imagine that guy, not the most compelling human.

Not an improv guy.

Not an improv guy.

The improv are like, hey, whatever you want to fucking do, that's cool, man.

I was like, this is great.

You're not going to judge me.

There's no wrong answer.

So did you do it in college?

I did.

They had a group?

They had a group called Monkapult.

And I, yeah, I fucking loved it.

Long-standing group?

At that point, like four or five years.

I feel like improv is kind of becoming cool on college campuses.

Maybe cool as a stretch.

But

for my mindset, it is true.

Like, I was a nerd who,

you know, was all about what are the seven things I need to do to be successful, to get into college, to do these things, to be a math major.

And then suddenly this improv world is like, use it in part of your brain, man.

Be creative.

What do you feel?

What do you care about?

Go after that.

And it was great.

And Kalmazoo is right by Chicago, where Improv Olympic is, second city.

And so I started going there on weekends

out to watch, started to perform a little bit.

And then as I graduate, I'm like, I like this more than anything else.

And how'd the brick salesman take it?

You know what?

Fucking great.

Yeah.

I mean, I look back on it and I am judgmental of how unjudgmental my parents were about it.

What'd your mom do?

My mom,

she worked from, she was a stay-at-home mom.

She worked in a prison to begin with, then stayed at home with us, and then she worked in multiple high schools as a secretary.

And she was also a salesman.

She sold baskets.

She's a jack of all trades.

So fucking funny.

I get any sense of humor I get from her and my sarcasm from my dad.

And as soon as I was like, I'm going to go to Chicago and I'm going to do improv and I'm going to be a public school substitute teacher, and I got this math major there, they loved it.

Oh, yeah.

They would drive to see shows and I wish I had like stories of fighting against my parents' supporting.

There you go.

I don't.

I don't.

They were remarkably supportive.

What is the, you know, sometimes I do a little research.

What's the Tim Allen connection?

Oh, great.

So just a little here.

Tim is my mom's cousin and my dad's colleague.

First college college roommate.

First cousin.

Really?

Yeah, dad's college roommate in Central Michigan University.

No kidding.

So like

my dad would come home with Tim and a bag of blow and a bag of blow.

I mean, those stories came out after I became a full adult.

It was just fun, fun Uncle Tim who was on-home improvement.

Wait a minute, what did he get arrested for?

That was after college, though, I think.

That was after college.

Yeah, my dad, that timeline is hazy when you talk to my father about what he knew post-college.

But

I think that arrest was in Kalamazoo.

It was in the airport in my hometown.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so

Tim went through some shit.

Yeah, yeah.

But he was,

that's how my parents

affected.

So he was around the family.

Around them.

I would see Tim at Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

We'd see him at Lions Games.

He'd come back to Detroit.

And then he got home improvement and the Santa Claus.

And I was a kid at that point.

And it was amazing seeing somebody you knew.

I'm sure you watched that.

That must have been somewhat inspiring in terms of.

For sure.

It's interesting thinking back.

Like, I don't think I

still the idea of being, finding success or being on TV was very far away from me.

Yeah.

But like to see Tim do that, I think improv, I went into a totally different, improv is such a different world than Tim's stand-up world.

Sure.

He was a real road dog for a long time.

He was.

Yeah.

And so like when I would talk to him about it, when I was getting into it,

we had a different vocabulary.

Sure.

Like I, he, he was like, you can come out and watch what it's like on a film set.

And so I did that for like a weekend, one of his movies, and it was amazing.

But he was sort of like, hey, you know, I can tell you how to do it in the stand-up world.

He was like, if you want to maybe be like an assistant, like you can come out and do this.

And I was like, you know what?

I want to be an improv guy.

This is the thing that I love.

So what do you say to that?

He was like, all right.

I don't think he got it.

It was a different generation.

Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't until after that generation where people started being delivered into the comedy industry from Chicago and from UCB and stuff.

You know, well, I guess that's not true.

Groundlings.

And then there was the original bunch from SNL were definitely improv people.

Yeah.

It's always been there.

But stand-ups are just these lone wolf weirdos that don't fit in with other people so the last thing they want to do is collaborate on something funny until they until they need writers well that's what is funny i like you know i love my chicago time i was there for nine years and i like we like crafted a uh i crafted a two-person sketch show with a writing partner of mine who's still working a bunch steve walteen and we brought it out to la like it was a it had like nine sketches that wove some themes into it very chicago for better or worse like herald like heraldy stuff but it was like it it was like a thematic sketch show that we came out.

We did it here at

the

Improv Olympic when it was here.

And Tim came out to it, really grateful that he did.

And talking to him afterwards, he saw it as almost like each sketch as like a pitch for a TV idea.

And I think we were so confused by that.

I look back and I'm like, I totally get it now.

At the time as a Chicago guy, I was like, did you understand the themes?

Yeah.

Masculinity and all this kind of stuff.

And he's like, oh, here's out of these nine pitches, I like these two.

There's something here and something there.

And that was just totally like a different language.

Well, that's helpful, though.

It very much was.

I look back, I'm like, Tim was spot on.

He knew how to work at L.A.

Chicago.

Nobody in Chicago had any idea how to get jobs out here.

Well, that's the funny thing about Chicago is that because improv as an art form exists primarily in that city.

So you've got these holdouts who are like,

don't sell out.

The real art is here.

It's the discovery, right?

Yeah, it's all about the process.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And I think at that time, like the only jobs you could see people people getting were on SNL.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And that, and that didn't, I mean, I feel, you know, old here in that there weren't, there weren't videos online.

People weren't uploading sketches there.

So it's all about whether Lorne Michaels came through once.

Sure.

Once a year, he'd check out one show, and then he might pick one of those people to be on.

Did you audition?

I auditioned in Chicago.

I never got the New York call.

Right, right.

So you're there for nine years?

Nine years.

And then you go to New York?

Yeah.

And but by that time, you're pretty proficient improviser.

But did you, you know, what, I mean, what do you take from improv, like in retrospect?

Like, I mean, I sell a couple little things that get me to New York.

And then, I mean, as far as what I take from it.

What was the lesson?

I mean, I think the stuff I do on the street is all improv.

Sure.

I think, and when I get to the daily show, I realize there's two types of comedy writers at the daily show.

There's the improvisers and the stand-ups.

But for the daily show, when you're writing the show, the first half of the day is improv mine, second half is stand-up mine.

It's all brainstorm.

It's all yes to everything.

It's don't judge.

Just as many ideas as we can.

And then the second half is like, all right, let's get this fucking good.

Let's polish.

Let's play it off of each other.

Tag it up.

Yeah.

And so I think that was really helpful for me from a creative perspective.

But in taking hits,

as a comic, you kind of know

you're going to tank.

But at least when you tank an improv, someone's going to pick up the slack.

I think, yeah, improvisers are much more social

folks.

It's like, oh, I got four other people I'm bombing up here with.

Like, we sync together.

So, like, you have

in Chicago, you're up, you know, you're up 15 times a week, just sinking, sinking, and loving, and thinking, and brainstorming.

And I guess it's easier to take the hit when you got a bunch of other people.

Oh, 100%.

Except for the one guy who's going, you fucked us, Jordan.

Yeah.

I mean, that guy.

But then you kick that guy out and it's just all love.

He didn't understand us.

He didn't understand.

No, you create your own cocoon.

That guy went into stand-up.

He did.

He did very well, much faster.

Now,

do you, you and Tim talk politics now?

We do a little bit.

I don't see Tim a ton.

But yeah, we.

That must be interesting.

It's fascinating.

Yeah.

I mean, Tim is a great guy.

I love Tim.

Yeah.

You know, I see he's like, he's like a libertarian contrarian who loves to give you shit.

He loves to stir up things.

And so we will get into it.

We don't see eye to eye,

but I've talked to a lot of folks like Cousin Tim.

Well, that's the weird thing about these.

You know, he may not have been one, but there's a lot of these sort of

old Democrats who became more libertarian once they got money, and then they just like to shit talk.

But there's a quite a problem with that, though.

You know, like, because Mammoth's a good example.

Sure.

You know, where you're like, is this a performance piece, you fuck?

Or is this like who you are?

And, but what you start to realize about a lot of these people, you know, especially the ones who are in politics, and especially the ones

like Mark Rubio or any of these these senators who once had some sort of integrity, is that I guess once you make the change

to feel empowered with the ideological point of view that's going to enable you to survive, that out of shame, you literally kill the old voice that you once had, and you no longer know that that was foundational to you.

I mean, I think that's beautifully said.

Yeah.

I mean, I think you craft your own narrative out of the thing that you found that works for you.

Yeah.

And the other thing is just like, but it also speaks to, you know, what are the, what, and I think there was a, that was the jarring thing about the magnificent, horrendous defeat was that there was no real guiding principles that were being, you know, maintained by

these civic employees or elected officials.

It was just really survival and

shifting blame and trying to figure out how to stay in power.

So

there's no real democratic principles anymore.

No.

There's a couple of guys in the Senate that are still, I think, believe it.

And I think that's one of the things

to credit and not completely diminish people who are still looking to a two-party solution for what's happening is that I think that if they, and I think John is this, I think if you believe in it, in democracy,

that you need to keep speaking the language of it as a means to finding a solution.

Yeah.

And I guess it's good that there's still a few people with principles out there.

I think they're there.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry, I got back into the not fun part.

No,

there's hope in there.

That's what I hear a lot about.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, I've got to meet, I've got to meet a lot of governors.

Well, they're usually the best ones.

And I think that that was something that finally hit me where I'm like, oh, the senators and the congress folks, and there's some thoughtful, thoughtful, interesting ones who really are fighting.

It's not their job to run a city.

Exactly.

Yeah.

They can be, they can politic.

Yeah.

In fact, if you're not in power, you better just fucking politic because that's all you got.

Yeah.

But if you're a governor, you got to make a fucking state work.

You got to listen to both sides.

You got to make sure the roads work.

Mayors and governors.

Mayors and governors.

And that's why I was like, oh, like Wesmore, Gretchen Whitmer.

Like, I was like, oh, yeah, you have to get shit done.

And there's such a disconnect with like the, what, with politics and governing.

And,

you know, I think governing is such such a different thing than politics.

Yeah, because

it is like, this is where you got to put, you know,

boots on the ground and fucking, you know, talk to people who don't have the same political ideology as you, but have needs and are in trouble and go like, well, let's see if we can make this work.

Yeah.

And they're grateful and then they go back and vote for the monster.

Exactly.

They don't learn, but that's what fucking governing is.

And now you don't have a job and then you have to turn on the politicking again.

Yeah, yeah.

But then you do have a job, you have to get shit done.

Yeah, it's crazy.

So your manager is Kirsten Ames?

Yes.

You know Kirsten back in the day.

We started together.

I think that

she got her footing.

She produced my first big one-man show.

She was at the West Beth Theater, and then she got into management.

Yeah, I think she gives me some love for getting her into the game a bit.

But it's way back, man.

Yeah.

She's great, and she still runs her own shop.

She totally does.

That's the best.

She's added Fred Hashigan on it, who's uh another manager of mine but yeah kirsten kirsten came through chicago back in the day i've been working with her for i mean god what 17 years no kidding yeah so she doing my improv shows i was doing a i was doing a parody late night show back in the day yeah in in chicago where we'd get we'd get people come in i would play a character i would host a show it got weird it was fun it was a bit experimental and she was like all right i can i can work with this

you know we're like oh my god yeah how do we make this happen she's like we got to get get out of Chicago.

Yeah, yeah.

But I can point you in some directions.

Right.

And that's when you went to New York?

I got cast in a little pilot, didn't go anywhere.

Then I sold a pilot, wasn't very good, didn't go anywhere.

But then I was out there just hustling to.

To network or Comedy Central?

Comedy Central.

I sold a pilot,

a scripted pilot to them right when I moved there.

So what was the evolution?

So you were working out at UCB in New York?

Yeah, that was sort of my home base.

I was teaching and I was doing shows.

Okay.

And then I was getting little writing, there was like little writing jobs for like VH1, MTV, reality TV,

little acting jobs here and there.

Yeah.

Constantly pitching, kind of making your own shit.

And then Oliver leaves the daily show.

And that's one of those jobs that comes around every like three years.

Not very often.

And they saw some of the

pieces I was doing, some of the videos I put out.

I did some stuff with my wife, who also we met in Chicago, also comedian, and we were doing web series together.

And and they saw that and they invited me and my wife to to put some stuff on tape okay enter into that process okay

we do that

that becomes its own thing too they it goes through many rounds they asked for my wife and me to go on tape yeah we get to the final round and they invite myself and my wife to come in and audition with John yeah with Nate Brigatzi as well was there

and audition with John it went it was one of those things that like at that point I've been doing it for 15 years.

Yeah.

And I never feel good at those things.

Yeah.

That one I did.

I walked away.

I was like, oh, you know what?

That one I did.

You did the best you could.

You did the best you could.

You're like, that was all right.

That was all right.

Also, like, what you feel, and I look back in retrospect with it, it's like that audition is, can you do this job?

But also, are you not an asshole?

Are you easy to work with?

Can you generate?

That's where improv comes in.

Because what John does is he, you meet him, and we go in cold and we just start like playing around with the script.

Yeah.

Which for me, I was like, oh, thank God, I have permission to like act.

I'm not funny with a script.

I'm funny off a script.

I can find it elsewhere.

And that was my sweet spot.

And so it works.

Yeah.

My wife gets the phone call from Kirsten Ames, who says, you didn't get the job.

Jordan didn't.

She hands me the phone.

I'm ecstatic.

She's brokenhearted.

And that becomes the struggle of marriage.

That is exactly what.

Yeah.

For the rest of your life.

Is that that day?

That will define you.

100%.

At least for the next three or four years, that becomes the thing that is difficult to deal with day in and day out about work.

It's okay now?

It's okay now.

You got kids?

One kid.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little four and a half year old.

And now, like, the, so you get in, you're a correspondent.

Yeah.

And now, like, when John leaves, which was, that happened after.

Yeah, so I was with John for about a year and a half, and he leaves.

And so the scramble to...

Man the ship happens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're in the running?

At that point, I'm,

I'd love to think I'm in the running, but I know I'm a pretty young guy and low on that totem pole.

Yeah, but where is it at now?

What is the plan?

I think the plan, we, the plan, as far as we know, is this rotation.

And it works.

I fucking like it.

And how's the audience?

How are the numbers?

The numbers are great.

Yeah?

The numbers are great.

Oh, good.

That's what they tell us, I think.

Yeah.

I would say from a work standpoint.

In cable and in network, you can still get numbers.

Exactly.

So I think like the daily show, you know, for what it's worth, like all of the weird change, we've had, the strike, COVID, Trevor leaving, the hunt for new hosts, John coming back, this rotation, like what that sort of built out in the Daily Show was like we now know how to work different hosts and keep sort of

a similar point of view for the show, but with different host perspectives.

The digital stuff kind of exploded.

So it's like, all right, if you're not doing the stuff on the show here, you can kind of do this stuff.

You can do long-form specials.

And you're not getting burned out.

I think of it now, like john comes in one beautiful day a week yeah i think he likes that

workload yeah and i i love hosting but it's it's exhausting so to do it for a week and then take a couple weeks off go on the road travel a little bit and come back is

i think it's keeping people fresh and keeping the show kind of

uh able to surprise each other a little bit well that's good it actually makes sense where you you know to be sort of um

what's the word i want like you know when you have one host that all the weights on they're they're afraid to even take time off.

Yeah.

You know, because, you know, the whole,

the ship will sink or whatever.

So if you can get something like this where, you know, people either they get to like different guys or they're, they like that it switches up and or they like everybody.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely a way to avoid burnout.

I think that's and keep variety going.

I think that's helpful for us.

Yeah.

Also, as somebody, I like being in the field.

Yeah.

Like I hosted a show before this run here

and it wore me out and I could barely get out in the the field.

And so, like, the ability to do a little bit of both

keeps you sharp.

Yeah.

Well, you're doing good work.

I like the new one.

That's the MAGA next generation.

I appreciate it.

It was enlightening.

Now I got to fucking reckon with Charlie Kirk.

I'm sorry I fucked up your algorithm.

Well,

what is that guy's background?

Is he a true believer or is he a grifter?

He dropped out of college.

I think he is a believer in the MAGA movement, but I think in all things, Trump, he has found a blueprint for success, financially,

personal success.

And he stayed on it.

He provided some cover for Don Jr.,

helping bring a lot of this MAGA to campuses.

And it was a small operation for a while.

And then the big Whigs gave him a ton of money, hundreds of millions of bucks.

And that's his thing now.

And I think he's...

Youth outreach.

Youth outreach.

He's willing to to go to those campuses and talk to those guys and play the internet game.

So I think he has found a lot of success.

And I mean, you see this on all levels when you go to a rally, when you go to these events, like all the different people who have figured out ways to financially make this work for them.

Even at the lowest level, it's the people who are showing up again and again, selling t-shirts or again and again, getting 150 likes on the little.

Twitch stream that they're doing.

But there's an ecosystem around the whole MAGA universe

where everybody knows how to get their kids.

You got a Grifter King.

You got a Grifter King.

As your model.

Exactly.

All right.

Good talking to you, man.

You too.

Thanks, Barbara.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

You can watch MAGA the Next Generation on Paramount Plus, Comedy Central, and YouTube.

Hang out for a minute, will you, people?

Hey, folks, you can catch up on 16 years of WTF by getting every episode ad-free with a WTF Plus subscription.

Go check out ones from our early years, like episode 358 with Mel Brooks from 2013.

The producers with the play, that was big.

That was surprising, huh?

For you?

Yeah.

You had no idea, right?

No, you know, I was having fun.

Really just having, I didn't, I, you know, I had no idea it would be a hit.

Yeah.

I thought, well, maybe he'll run for it.

It'll be fun.

It'll be fun.

Yeah.

And yeah, you know, what do you live for?

Yeah.

You know, you live occasionally, you live for a grilled cheese sandwich and fun.

Yep.

You know?

That's a good one.

That's Mel Brooks from episode 358.

To sign up for WTF Plus, go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

I seem to be doing my interpretations of

songs that I feel appropriate for the moment.

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