Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes. This is the podcast
Speaker 2: that goes above and beyond the topics that you see
Speaker 2: every night on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on
Speaker 2: Comedy Central. Now, this week marks the one year anniversary.
Speaker 2: I don't even like the word anniversary because I don't
Speaker 2: want to keep remembering this thing. But the January sixth
Speaker 2: uprising that went down at the Capitol, the insurrection, A
Speaker 2: bunch of Trump supporters went there and lost their damn
Speaker 2: minds and violently tried to stop the certification of electoral
Speaker 2: votes by storming the Capitol. Even to say it aloud,
Speaker 2: it's surreal. So we have two people with us on
Speaker 2: the program today to help us break this down. The
Speaker 2: first gentleman, he's an Emmy nominated Daily Show contributor, and
Speaker 2: he was there Capitol and he's always there all the time,
Speaker 2: mixing it up with the Trump supporters. And if it's
Speaker 2: anyone that is not a fan of his activities, it
Speaker 2: is his wife and child. He is Jordan Klepper.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was there with miammy nomination where I.
Speaker 2: Should be, Thank you Roy Well. Jordan. Our next guess
Speaker 2: is an Emmy Winner.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, all right, that's why you put it
Speaker 3: in there. That's why you put it in there.
Speaker 4: I was about to hop in when you said Emmy
Speaker 4: nominated and be like wait a second. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: that's Jordan. Oh that's Jordan. Okay, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2: He is the host of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes,
Speaker 2: and the podcast is why is this happening? Emmy Winner Winner,
Speaker 2: Chris Hayes, How you doing good?
Speaker 4: I just am conjuring a very funny notion in my
Speaker 4: head of like Jordan in the midst of the insurrection
Speaker 4: and people like starting to get a little like chesty
Speaker 4: with him being like, I'm I'm Emmy nominated. I just
Speaker 4: I want you to know maybe you should back off
Speaker 4: a little bit because I've got an Emmy nomination.
Speaker 2: Chris. I'd like to start with you, because you get
Speaker 2: to exist in a place that you don't have the
Speaker 2: burden of having to find a punchline in between vomitive
Speaker 2: information to their viewers. The revisions vomit straight's just straight vomit.
Speaker 4: Unlevined by punchlines. Yeah, that's what we're going for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the revision is history that has happened around why
Speaker 2: the insurrection happened, Whether or not we can vilify the insurrection.
Speaker 2: It's because like we're still at a point right now
Speaker 2: where they're still identifying people from the footage. Some have
Speaker 2: gone to jail, some have been convicted, but they're still
Speaker 2: stitching some of this stuff together. I want to play
Speaker 2: a clip real quick of just Republicans flip flopping their positions.
Speaker 2: Let's just start with our elected officials and their opinions
Speaker 2: of the uprising moment. The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's
Speaker 2: attack on Congress by mob ryder.
Speaker 3: We have were so successful under President Trump.
Speaker 5: The last thing we want to do is be fighting
Speaker 5: among ourselves Hopinghey.
Speaker 3: We've had a hell of a journey.
Speaker 6: All I can say is count me out.
Speaker 3: Enough is enough. It's impossible for this party to move
Speaker 3: forward without President Trump being its leader.
Speaker 1: So you think it was an impeachable offectly?
Speaker 3: Oh sure, how do you grade Trump as president?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 1: Listen, overall, I give the president tod and.
Speaker 5: You lost Lindsey Graham. When you lose all these people,
Speaker 5: when Tom Cotton says it's time for you to concede,
Speaker 5: I think that you've got over the top. He couldn't
Speaker 5: even use his own Twitter account because he's been justifiably
Speaker 5: suspended for the last twenty four hours year. It's nothing
Speaker 5: about that speech that was inside phone. The president also
Speaker 5: using the term peacefully go down there. He didn't just
Speaker 5: say go down there and take the capitol over.
Speaker 2: Chris. Yeah, when you hear all of that flip flopping,
Speaker 2: and you see it every day on a regular basis
Speaker 2: as you prep for your Emmy winning program, Chris, are
Speaker 2: we crazy? Just are we crazy for just trying to
Speaker 2: make sure people understand just how heinous this was. Oh,
Speaker 2: it's been.
Speaker 4: It's been a huge focus of the show for the
Speaker 4: past year, precisely because of the revisionist history. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think there's to me, there's there's a few layers
Speaker 4: to it, right. One is it like, particularly in the
Speaker 4: context of the American criminal justice system, the way in
Speaker 4: which policing operates, particularly on people of color, what we've
Speaker 4: seen with George Floyd, Like the idea that people are
Speaker 4: going to turn around and excuse like mob violence after
Speaker 4: all this whipping up of this frenzy about it, you know,
Speaker 4: in the same moment, in the same program, they'll be like, hey,
Speaker 4: check out this smash and grab operation that happened that
Speaker 4: took a bunch of purses. Oh, and also like it
Speaker 4: wasn't that big a deal when they like, you know,
Speaker 4: dragged a cop down the stairs and and and threatened
Speaker 4: his life. So there's that aspect of it, which is
Speaker 4: like the idea that there's no actual standard for behavior,
Speaker 4: that like, if you're on our side, it's fine, and
Speaker 4: if you're on the other side, it's not, which I
Speaker 4: think is like an incredibly Trumpian notion, and I think
Speaker 4: it's a conservative notion before that, and I think you know,
Speaker 4: liberals can fall prey to it too, but it's on
Speaker 4: such display potently here. So there's the sort of excuses
Speaker 4: of minimization. Then there's the just like crazy disinformation of
Speaker 4: like it was the Feds or it was Antifa, like
Speaker 4: trying to come up with these increasingly ludicrous and far
Speaker 4: fetched notions to essentially be exculpatory for what people actually did.
Speaker 4: And then the third aspect of it I think that's
Speaker 4: really important is people want to say, oh, well that
Speaker 4: you know, somebody will say, well, what they did. You know,
Speaker 4: obviously violence is wrong, what they did the capital is wrong.
Speaker 4: But like the one hundred and fifty whatever, fifty members
Speaker 4: of Congress to Republicans, the eight or nine members of
Speaker 4: the Senate that voted against seating the electoral votes, Like,
Speaker 4: the entire project was insidious. The entire project was authoritarian.
Speaker 4: The entire project, whether they were like at the Ellipse
Speaker 4: and they were doing it peacefully or was just Josh Hally.
Speaker 2: Like before they storm out building, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Like the like that is the culmination and that itself
Speaker 4: is in a sort of special place. But the whole
Speaker 4: project was to overturn a democratic election and install an
Speaker 4: authoritarian leader over the will of the people by whatever means.
Speaker 4: Whether that means was Mike Pence ruling in a certain way,
Speaker 4: whether the means was you know, using loopholes in the
Speaker 4: Electoral count Act to get state congregat delegations together to
Speaker 4: deliver the vote, like, whatever it was, the whole project
Speaker 4: was rotten to the core. And you can't just say, well, yes,
Speaker 4: what they did at the Capitol was wrong. The whole
Speaker 4: project was wrong.
Speaker 2: But my thing, though, in a weird way, Klepper, like,
Speaker 2: I understand politicians flip flopping because they have a check
Speaker 2: behind the things that they say. They have a real motivation.
Speaker 2: The voters, on the other hand, who decide to go
Speaker 2: and be a part of this in spite of all
Speaker 2: of the because people love to say, they love to say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm doing my research. What if you had done a
Speaker 2: little bit more research, your stupid ass wouldn't be out here.
Speaker 3: Well, the voters don't have a check and they're probably
Speaker 3: not gonna get one, but they do have an identity.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the thing that I see people
Speaker 3: clinging to. The thing that surprised me most when I
Speaker 3: went to Trump event in Iowa a few months back
Speaker 3: and we brought up January sixth, like there isn't there
Speaker 3: was no coherent narrative as to what had happened on
Speaker 3: January sixth, And some people, yes, what happened was wrong,
Speaker 3: and it was wrong because Antifa were instigators. It was
Speaker 3: wrong because FBI, CIA, NASA and any organization you want
Speaker 3: to throw out there. So people said it wasn't wrong,
Speaker 3: like that Ashley Babbitt was as a hero and there
Speaker 3: should have been more Ashley's out there. Some people declare
Speaker 3: it was nothing happened on the sixth, And to me,
Speaker 3: again that that all has to do with more often
Speaker 3: than that when I would gout in the field and
Speaker 3: talk to folks. You don't need a coherent philosophy behind
Speaker 3: what happened, or even a coherent narrative. You just need
Speaker 3: a foothold to get you to the next, the next thing.
Speaker 3: And at that point it was like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: so much misinformation and bs has been spewed since that that, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you can you can read something about the FBI Antifa.
Speaker 3: You can believe it didn't happen, or you can believe
Speaker 3: it did happen. It should have happened. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: It doesn't all have to fit. It just has to
Speaker 3: get you onto the next thing. And I, for one, though,
Speaker 3: was surprised how quickly that information and that those disjuncted
Speaker 3: narratives came about thanks to online bullshit. They have a
Speaker 3: very interesting take on who was behind the January sixth insurrection.
Speaker 6: Oh, Antifa, like the corrupt FBI, basically rhinos, politicians, the
Speaker 6: deep state, all that, And I don't believe it was
Speaker 6: people like me and people like you see over there
Speaker 6: in that crowd that did it. Who who was bubi
Speaker 6: CI and TIFA were used, other groups like that.
Speaker 3: It seemed like a lot of them were going into
Speaker 3: the Capitol to attack Nancy Pelosi and perhaps hang.
Speaker 6: Woo who which one the one with the bullhorns. He's
Speaker 6: not a Trumpe supporter out care what his resumes is.
Speaker 6: He's not a Trump supporter. In fact, do you remember
Speaker 6: the picture of the plane in Afghanistan with all the
Speaker 6: people running next to it? That was a balloon plane.
Speaker 6: If you look at the pictures of the real plate
Speaker 6: and there's pieces that are missing from the real plan
Speaker 6: to that place.
Speaker 3: So you're saying there's a conspiracy around the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Speaker 6: No, I'm saying that there was one guy there who
Speaker 6: rans the only guy who turned to the camera and
Speaker 6: waved his hands. Do y'all remember that? Everybody remember that
Speaker 6: he's the guy with the horns on his hat.
Speaker 3: He was in Afghanistan?
Speaker 6: Yes, go look at the pictures.
Speaker 3: I think he's in jail right now.
Speaker 2: Did you go for the JFK Junior dead body return
Speaker 2: from the death point?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding? I gotta trust me. I'm my frequent
Speaker 3: flyer miles and that one's on the list. I get more,
Speaker 3: I get more tweets that of like are you coming
Speaker 3: to this? Are you coming it's almost like a relative
Speaker 3: Now people are like, you gotta go down to Dallas.
Speaker 3: You know, your homies are hanging out down by down
Speaker 3: on the grassy knoll. Are you gonna go see that?
Speaker 3: I'm they're waiting for you.
Speaker 4: I do think there's a little bit of a distinction
Speaker 4: because like that that is like the hardest of the hardcore,
Speaker 4: Like that is like that is genuine mass illusion in
Speaker 4: a really acute sense. I think that what's on display
Speaker 4: more broadly among the sort of grassers right is also
Speaker 4: a form of mass illusion, but a little more grounded,
Speaker 4: a little more complex, and a little more like grounded
Speaker 4: and familiar things like it's funny what you're just saying,
Speaker 4: Jordan there, because I've had this experience too. It's the
Speaker 4: mode of operating that you operate in if you're in
Speaker 4: the heat of like a bad fight with a person
Speaker 4: that you love or like a or or an argument
Speaker 4: with someone like whether it's a you know, a sibling
Speaker 4: or a friend or a spouse, where like you're just
Speaker 4: churning through justification, like you're just trying, like you're not
Speaker 4: You're just like I won't concede. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: give in to you. In this moment, it's like it's
Speaker 4: all will You're not like you're not conversing, You're not
Speaker 4: like examining the evidence. I mean, I'm saying this is
Speaker 4: one in like you're in a bad, bad mode of all.
Speaker 3: It's all the toilet seat has been left up, Like okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: but is that is that? Is that all you have
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 2: This is a relationship podcast?
Speaker 4: No, I just think I just think there's like a
Speaker 4: there's a collective defensiveness, which is like you've put me
Speaker 4: on the spot, and I'm not going to concede to
Speaker 4: you putting me on the spot, and whatever it takes
Speaker 4: to to diffuse that actually been here, like whatever I
Speaker 4: have to say to you're talking about like getting to
Speaker 4: that next foothold. It's like it's exactly, it's like I
Speaker 4: don't want to concede because then I'm I'm I'm giving
Speaker 4: away some power to you and I feel already oppressed
Speaker 4: by you. And that, I think is is the kind
Speaker 4: of operational mode of a lot of people in the
Speaker 4: kind of like Maga core where it really isn't coherent.
Speaker 4: Like I mean, my one of my favorite stories is
Speaker 4: like and I'm sure maybe you guys have seen this,
Speaker 4: but it was it was like a few days after
Speaker 4: the the insurrection where there was like a guy who
Speaker 4: was in it who had to go on his Facebook
Speaker 4: page to be like, I see all these people blaming
Speaker 4: Antifa it. I'm telling you I was there, don't it
Speaker 4: wasn't Antifa. We didn't the patriots. Like he's pissed off
Speaker 4: that Andyva's getting the credit for what he did and
Speaker 4: has to go into these like crazy disinformation networks that
Speaker 4: he is embedded in to be like, y'all, hey, I
Speaker 4: was there, we did it. Stop giving them credit for
Speaker 4: what these patriots did. And it was just a perfect
Speaker 4: to me encapsulation of like, they're really your point. To
Speaker 4: get back to your point, Jordan, there is no actual
Speaker 4: coherent story about January sixth. On the right, there's a
Speaker 4: bunch of different stories that are thrown out to move
Speaker 4: on to the next topic, distract or mass exculpate the
Speaker 4: folks involved so that you can get back to the
Speaker 4: real thing, which is that the Libs are oppressing you
Speaker 4: in whatever way.
Speaker 2: And that's what I want to get to after the break,
Speaker 2: because I'm just I'm curious about the MSNBC. Chris Hayes
Speaker 2: news curation process because we're always stuck at the Daily
Speaker 2: Show with do we follow the crazy thing that just
Speaker 2: happened that's being reconstituted as something different, or do we
Speaker 2: follow the new crazy thing that is had hapening or
Speaker 2: is it about to happen? And I'm very curious how
Speaker 2: you decide which ones to bring to light on your show.
Speaker 2: This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back and.
Speaker 3: In doing that, is that how you achieve an Emmy?
Speaker 3: I guess is the other question?
Speaker 4: Well, that's yeah, I mean that's well, that's it. You
Speaker 4: have to sign up for the master class for that.
Speaker 3: That's like, I know everybody's being masterclass.
Speaker 2: Now, how are we doing this? Jordan Klipper, Chris Hase,
Speaker 2: Are we saying heavy jan six? Are we saying j six?
Speaker 2: Do we say never forget? Do we say always forget?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think it's just important to keep saying the date
Speaker 3: because I think five years from now there's a legitimate
Speaker 3: chance we go from January fifth to January seventh on
Speaker 3: the Gregorian calendar, and so whatever you do, just make
Speaker 3: sure you repeat the date so people understand that it
Speaker 3: is a moment in time. Like we just agree a
Speaker 3: moment in time.
Speaker 4: That day never existed. It just didn't happen.
Speaker 3: We can you believe it. We remember the Alamo. Do
Speaker 3: you know what happened at the Alamo? Terrible loss? Yeah,
Speaker 3: poorly plussed Davy Crockett went down, The guy who created
Speaker 3: the bowie knife went down like that's a that's a
Speaker 3: terrible story. We should forget that story. Poor planning on
Speaker 3: America's part. Yep, we remember that January sixth. We could
Speaker 3: take a lot of lessons from that, and we are
Speaker 3: we are, we are trashing it as quick as we can.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest as a black person, I am closely
Speaker 2: monitoring January sixth to make sure that it doesn't bleed
Speaker 2: over into Martin Luther King weekend. It's a little close, dangerous,
Speaker 2: could turn it to a week long celebration. Once it's
Speaker 2: a week long, then it's a whole month, and then
Speaker 2: you got MLK in the middle of resurrection this month
Speaker 2: or whatever the hill the payt patremon So, Chris on
Speaker 2: your program on MSNBC, we just spoke about the misinformation
Speaker 2: and what motivates it, how and what do you decide
Speaker 2: to report on on your show Number one, just on
Speaker 2: some just straight up mental health shit. How do you
Speaker 2: stay calm just in the when you're just reading the headlines?
Speaker 2: How do you remain calm and measured as you deliver
Speaker 2: news that people are going to Dallas to see the
Speaker 2: dead body come out of the ground.
Speaker 3: I mean, is it impossible goal and stay calm Chris,
Speaker 3: because we know you're going to go all in like
Speaker 3: you have to. That's just that's the brand. You've got
Speaker 3: to go all in. And so in the morning, are
Speaker 3: you're like, should I just go half of the way
Speaker 3: in and stay calm or no? This is what the
Speaker 3: people want. Like Melbourne, he can go way in.
Speaker 4: I hate I am generally well, I don't think I'm
Speaker 4: that calm, honestly. I mean I think that I what
Speaker 4: I try to do is I definitely think that I've
Speaker 4: spent a lot more time telling myself the Serenity Prayer
Speaker 4: about like things I can control and things I can't
Speaker 4: the wisdom to know the difference, which is a big
Speaker 4: part of it. Like, I think that there are times
Speaker 4: where because I do have a platform that I'm very
Speaker 4: privileged to have, it feels like that I have more
Speaker 4: causal Like there are definitely times during COVID war. I
Speaker 4: felt like it was my job to like saved the
Speaker 4: country from the mass death of COVID.
Speaker 2: And that's fair, yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, but and but I fail. I mean I didn't.
Speaker 4: It didn't work. I mean, I you know, we we
Speaker 4: I think, and right now I think I feel that
Speaker 4: way about like American democracy the way that I felt
Speaker 4: I think last year around COVID, even though of course
Speaker 4: we're still in the pandemic, but American democracy seems to me,
Speaker 4: like I feel in a similar way of just like
Speaker 4: ringing this alarm bell. That's the thing I have. I
Speaker 4: have the bullhorn, I have the alarm bell, I have
Speaker 4: the platform. We've been very focused on this story, generally,
Speaker 4: the story of American democracy in peril, in a peril
Speaker 4: that it never has really faced in this particular way.
Speaker 4: It's faced peril in many different ways, and wasn't really
Speaker 4: actually a democracy for the you know, the mass vast
Speaker 4: majority of the of the country's existence. So it's not
Speaker 4: like there's some like beautiful helcyon days to look back on.
Speaker 4: But what happened, I mean, this is the thing that
Speaker 4: we focus on, and we focus a lot on January sixth, specifically,
Speaker 4: but more oddly, like the fate of American democracy is
Speaker 4: that it's hard. I think in the same way that
Speaker 4: I think the first days, in the first weeks and
Speaker 4: months of the pandemic were hard. It is hard to
Speaker 4: get your head around the scope and enormity of what
Speaker 4: you're dealing with. But like, if they had pulled it off,
Speaker 4: it really would have been the case that the fundamental
Speaker 4: precept that undergirds this whole thing, which is that the
Speaker 4: people choose their leaders, not the other way around, and
Speaker 4: that a majority of people is what stands in for
Speaker 4: the whole when you're dealing with democratic elections. To cast
Speaker 4: that out, you know, really would have been an enormous
Speaker 4: epocal break with what we've had before, and that threat
Speaker 4: still looms over us.
Speaker 3: Can I ask a question, Chris, like you talk about
Speaker 3: the insurrection was something that had been happening in the
Speaker 3: week beforehand and what was happening behind closed doors? Are
Speaker 3: you at all afraid that in the discussion of this
Speaker 3: and how perhaps the media frames it and also just
Speaker 3: the mindset of those who digest it, we're gonna go
Speaker 3: down this rabbit hole and it's all gonna be about
Speaker 3: whether or not Donald Trump gave the go ahead to
Speaker 3: you go straight ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great point. It's something I'm really trying
Speaker 4: hard to avoid because I think we saw that in
Speaker 4: some ways with what happened with the Russia story, which was.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, we got him, We're gonna get him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also right, but it's also like take a
Speaker 4: step back. It's like they the Russians wanted Donald Trump
Speaker 4: to be president and sought to aid his campaign. The
Speaker 4: campaign privately and publicly welcomed their help, like, and then
Speaker 4: they committed a variety of very serious crimes to sabotage
Speaker 4: his opponent. Those three things we knew from the jump,
Speaker 4: like so, and then you know, and understandably got into
Speaker 4: the motor and then it was like, well they didn't
Speaker 4: find this smoking gun where he you know, called up
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin and said hack Hillary whatever. It's like, well
Speaker 4: he said it on he said it on camera. I mean,
Speaker 4: he said, we are going to go down to the Capitol. Now,
Speaker 4: we literally instructed the crowd, We're going to walk down
Speaker 4: to the capital.
Speaker 5: And we're going to cheer on our brave senators and
Speaker 5: congressmen and women.
Speaker 4: And we're probably not going to be cheering so much
Speaker 4: for some of.
Speaker 5: Them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness.
Speaker 4: You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.
Speaker 4: It was like he'd grabbed them and he bowled them,
Speaker 4: you know, down Pennsylvania Avenue. So I agree that it's
Speaker 4: important to keep what is publicly known is unbelievably damning,
Speaker 4: would disqualify him from ever holding any position of public
Speaker 4: trust ever. And I think there's a plausible criminal case
Speaker 4: to be made against him under federal law. He certainly
Speaker 4: should have been impeached. He certainly should have been disqualified
Speaker 4: from ever holding public office. No, if we learn nothing
Speaker 4: new starting now, And I think your point is well
Speaker 4: taken in something that we really try on the show
Speaker 4: to avoid, which is we're constantly resetting what are the
Speaker 4: publicly known facts and what they say about the danger
Speaker 4: of this individual and the movement that he leads and
Speaker 4: the threat it poses to American democracy, whether or not
Speaker 4: we find out even more damning details, which I suspect
Speaker 4: we will.
Speaker 2: Chris, on your show, Trump loyalists and insurrectionists, You generally,
Speaker 2: for the most part, don't swim in those waters of
Speaker 2: talking to those types of people. Is that, in an
Speaker 2: effort to keep the misinformation to a minimum, and not
Speaker 2: allow people to use your show as a vessel for misinformation,
Speaker 2: like walk me through the strategy in that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean we actually had two of them the
Speaker 4: other night, and it was sort of interesting. We had
Speaker 4: these two folks that were the people that planned the
Speaker 4: Ellipse rally and are now cooperating the January sixth committee,
Speaker 4: mostly because they feel thrown under the bus by Trump,
Speaker 4: not I think for any noble reason above that. But look,
Speaker 4: the problem is, and I learned this. I come back
Speaker 4: to this example all the time, and I think my
Speaker 4: staff is probably tired of hearing about it, but it's
Speaker 4: very formative for me. Like, if you were in the
Speaker 4: left in two thousand and two or two thousand and three,
Speaker 4: and you were in spaces, you're going to anti war protests,
Speaker 4: or you're going to events, you're writing for lefty magazines,
Speaker 4: you were encountering nine to eleven truthers a lot, a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were everywhere.
Speaker 4: They would get up and ask the first question at
Speaker 4: every event, and they and one of the things I
Speaker 4: quickly learned was like you couldn't get into a debate
Speaker 4: or win a debate with them because like there was
Speaker 4: no like they were like, what about this angle of
Speaker 4: this shadow of this If you look at this lamppost
Speaker 4: by the Pentagon, it couldn't have been clipped by this
Speaker 4: wing and this engine. But and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: you're just in this.
Speaker 2: King point of steel that was made in that year
Speaker 2: in the construction.
Speaker 4: And you can't It's the same thing with like I
Speaker 4: think people that adhere to the big lie, you know,
Speaker 4: it's like you can't really engage on those terms and
Speaker 4: get anything useful. Well, the other thing for me, and
Speaker 4: this is different than for Jordan, is like we have
Speaker 4: a live show and we have these time limits and
Speaker 4: so controlling and wrangling, you know, it makes a big difference.
Speaker 3: Like You're like, if I could go.
Speaker 4: And talk to people and then take all that footage
Speaker 4: and figure out what we're going to do with it,
Speaker 4: but I'm there on live TV. And not only that,
Speaker 4: there's a responsibility of that, which is that everything they're
Speaker 4: saying is going out to people, and I'm in some
Speaker 4: ways responsible for that, right, So like so it's just
Speaker 4: a it's a it's it's it's a real heavy burden
Speaker 4: you carry when you put someone on the air about
Speaker 4: what is going to be communicated to your audience.
Speaker 2: So then Jordan, how do you how do you balance
Speaker 2: that because you you do basically yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 2: Let's talk. I've got on my nice warm jacket. Let's
Speaker 2: stand out here outside forever and ever and talk to
Speaker 2: these people like what what are you thinking when you
Speaker 2: go out? What is your objective? Because it clearly can't
Speaker 2: be to change their mind.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think Chris brings up a great
Speaker 3: point is the difference between live TV and something you
Speaker 3: bring back and you edit. Because it is true there
Speaker 3: is stuff that is in the head that is hateful
Speaker 3: or misinformation that we feel we don't add context to
Speaker 3: in our responses, and that is something we feel responsibility
Speaker 3: towards if we put that out. So there's control in
Speaker 3: and edit and we take that all into account. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, we go to these events because one we
Speaker 3: want to know what are people actually talking about on
Speaker 3: the ground, what is getting through, specifically for Trump Prowley's
Speaker 3: what is getting through from from on stage and what
Speaker 3: we hear in New York to the actual people out there,
Speaker 3: and what are we missing when we watch the news
Speaker 3: Because you know, these ZEWS hosts, they think they're so smart.
Speaker 3: They think they got their big Emmy Award winning shows,
Speaker 3: but until they get out there, they don't know what
Speaker 3: it's really like. That's right, But I mean our objective
Speaker 3: is we go out with questions what has seeped in?
Speaker 3: Where are people? What are they thinking? And we just
Speaker 3: go and we start to respond to that.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you a question, Yeah, do they recognize you?
Speaker 4: Do they know who you are?
Speaker 3: It varies. I think it's growing, but there's there's still
Speaker 3: I will say there's still a giant bubble. So more
Speaker 3: often than not, I go to a rally and most
Speaker 3: people don't. They're immediately skeptical because there's a camera and
Speaker 3: so you're a bad guy because you're a camera.
Speaker 4: But also they know they're making you as a member
Speaker 4: of the media, and that is enough in some ways
Speaker 4: to put them in a sort of somewhat skeptical place,
Speaker 4: but not specifically like this is his shtick. He does this,
Speaker 4: he you know he's going to try to trap them exactly.
Speaker 3: They already have their opinion about the media. It's either
Speaker 3: something that stay away, these are the bad guys, or
Speaker 3: these are the bad guys. I'm going to win with them,
Speaker 3: and whether or not I'm on Trevor's show or not
Speaker 3: usually doesn't come into effect, although then there is a
Speaker 3: person who's like, I've seen this guy's videos and we're
Speaker 3: at an event, a school board meeting, and a guy
Speaker 3: charged me because he was like, that's that guy. We
Speaker 3: have to have security come in and stop this guy,
Speaker 3: and there's an altercation there, so like, oh, that's not fun.
Speaker 3: I think it. Also, they don't to be made fun of.
Speaker 3: What I not January six but two each doorhands the
Speaker 3: million Maga March, which was a beautiful march. Their number
Speaker 3: a million. But what people don't often understand there is
Speaker 3: there's probably thirty thousand people there. But these are also
Speaker 3: poorly run events go figure, which means there's two stages
Speaker 3: that are essentially a mile apart with thirty thousand people
Speaker 3: in between, and the sound systems they paid for can
Speaker 3: only you can only about two hundred people can hear
Speaker 3: what's actually going on, So you have essentially twenty nine
Speaker 3: thousand people who are million about and when you're interviewing
Speaker 3: people and perhaps the people are getting upset or somebody's
Speaker 3: like I think I know that guy, Well, then the
Speaker 3: two people who are watching become ten become fifty and
Speaker 3: it becomes dangerous there. So even if you're not immediately recognized,
Speaker 3: we have to be savvy because there is a there
Speaker 3: is a mob mentality when you have a camera.
Speaker 2: Op.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's always something I find like a natural end
Speaker 4: and can sometimes be kind of foreboding about the role
Speaker 4: a camera plays in a crowd and what and what
Speaker 4: it does to help people behave around it independent of
Speaker 4: people's politics or you know, ideological commitments, just generally. I've
Speaker 4: had that experience.
Speaker 3: Well. And also it's they're dressing for it now. You know,
Speaker 3: we make a lot of jokes about the apparel at
Speaker 3: a MAGA rally, and what has become so fascinating is
Speaker 3: people are going there to dress for being on camera,
Speaker 3: for being recognized by Donald Trump or other folks. It's,
Speaker 3: you know, so like they suddenly walk down an aisle
Speaker 3: which is essentially a dressing room and costume department. They
Speaker 3: pick out the most the most extreme points of view
Speaker 3: that are you could fit onto a T shirt. They
Speaker 3: put them on, and what we started noticing too, and
Speaker 3: then they're starting then they have to answer questions about
Speaker 3: the view that they just put on their chest, which
Speaker 3: some of them have that view. Some of them have
Speaker 3: just adopted that view, and now this camera is starting
Speaker 3: to craft a narrative around that person who has this
Speaker 3: thing on their chest that they speak for that maybe
Speaker 3: they just wanted that attention, but they're already now creating
Speaker 3: this narrative, which is which is only grown in the
Speaker 3: last two years.
Speaker 2: Chris, there is definitely a lot of disagreeing on whether
Speaker 2: or not facts are factual. Therefore, journalism, when you report
Speaker 2: the facts, which is your job as a journalist, could
Speaker 2: be seen as an opinion. What say you to people
Speaker 2: who believe that people of your ilk and I'm talking
Speaker 2: just primetime news in general, are based in opinionated journalism
Speaker 2: and not factual journalism. Is there a way to unblur
Speaker 2: the lines where at least, even if we don't agree
Speaker 2: on the solution, can we at least agree on what
Speaker 2: the facts are Or it's just if you're an opinionated
Speaker 2: journalist and if that's what I am to you, that's
Speaker 2: just what it's got to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's it's such a deep question. It's
Speaker 4: hard to talk through it because I've spent probably twenty
Speaker 4: years thinking about various versions of this. All the way
Speaker 4: back to being a philosophy major in undergrad and thinking
Speaker 4: about epistemology and how people form true beliefs. I mean,
Speaker 4: the way that I think about what I do is
Speaker 4: that I have a point of view and a perspective
Speaker 4: and a set of values that I have that I'm
Speaker 4: pretty trans parent about. I really believe in democracy. I
Speaker 4: believe in equality, solidarity, rights and protections, the flourishing of
Speaker 4: people's lives. And I approached the news with those with
Speaker 4: those views. I'm on the left for sure. People know that,
Speaker 4: and that perspective colors what I talk about and what
Speaker 4: I you know, what I don't talk about, and you
Speaker 4: know what I choose to spotlight. We're really rigorous that
Speaker 4: we put things that are true on our show. But
Speaker 4: the thing is that like truth is only I mean,
Speaker 4: there's there's a bunch of different categories, right, So like
Speaker 4: you can communicate untruthful stuff or false and malicious stuff
Speaker 4: without ever telling a single factual lie. You know, then
Speaker 4: there's people who just lie, right, So like oh, the
Speaker 4: an Italian satellite hacked the boating machines to change boats.
Speaker 4: It's just like a lot, it's just like not a
Speaker 4: true statement, and it's preposterously not that. But then you
Speaker 4: know there's a period where where Tucker Carlson was going
Speaker 4: around do this thing where he was taking this open
Speaker 4: source vaccine reporting system where people could anyone could report
Speaker 4: an adverse event after a vaccine and saying, look, twelve
Speaker 4: hundred people died after they got their vaccine, now or
Speaker 4: whatever the number was, Now, that's it was true. I mean, like,
Speaker 4: you know, when you give two hundred million people shots,
Speaker 4: like some set of people are going to you know,
Speaker 4: get hit by a bus, they hit they have cancer
Speaker 4: and the chemote like whatever it is. So you're not
Speaker 4: saying a lie, right, Like it is factually accurate that
Speaker 4: a certain number of people died after they got their
Speaker 4: vaccine shot. When you go on air and you say
Speaker 4: it in that terms, you are implying a causal link
Speaker 4: there that says these vaccines are scary, they're killing people
Speaker 4: and not telling you about it. And so like that
Speaker 4: line between like what's fact, what's opinion, what's perspective? It
Speaker 4: is actually pretty complicated, you know, because like you can
Speaker 4: say a lot of true things. It's like here, here's
Speaker 4: my favorite example, like racist websites. Okay, like like really
Speaker 4: like like if you go to like the world of
Speaker 4: like Stormfront and by the way, which is like very
Speaker 4: adjacent to like a lot of Donald Trump stuff, and
Speaker 4: there are periods during different campaigns and Donald Trump would
Speaker 4: like tweet these out. Like you could run a website
Speaker 4: that only identifies examples of black men assaulting white people
Speaker 4: in a country of three hundred and fifty million and
Speaker 4: just make that all you show, and it could be
Speaker 4: the case that, like it is factually true that in
Speaker 4: each of those instances or each other videos, what you
Speaker 4: are doing is running a white supremacist website, right, And
Speaker 4: you're running a white supremacist website without ever like telling
Speaker 4: a lie in some sort of like sense of like
Speaker 4: these are facts. I'm just showing you the facts of
Speaker 4: all the But that's that's like Nazi propaganda essentially, which
Speaker 4: by the way, they used to actually like run examples
Speaker 4: of Jews committing crimes. So it's like this question of
Speaker 4: what is what is fact opinion, It's like the world
Speaker 4: contain so many facts that in some ways what's more
Speaker 4: insidious than lies, and lies are insidious. We see with
Speaker 4: a big lie is which facts you choose to emphasize,
Speaker 4: which facts you choose to focus on and so much
Speaker 4: destruction and so much ruin can happen based on which
Speaker 4: facts people choose to use their platforms for.
Speaker 3: Amy Winner, Yeah, I'm I'm glad you have that. I
Speaker 3: could feel that Emmy nomination just cracking inside of me.
Speaker 2: I'm like, after the break, I want to I want
Speaker 2: to talk to you all about where we're headed. I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is going to be a new holiday.
Speaker 2: I don't know if our kids are going to start
Speaker 2: getting jan six out of school for their own safety.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I am curious about where we
Speaker 2: go from here and the role that the media plays
Speaker 2: in this. This is beyond the scenes. We'll be right
Speaker 2: back on the big was the biggest failure in reporting
Speaker 2: as it relates to January sixth, let's critique our media
Speaker 2: coworkers here.
Speaker 4: I would say that one thing that happened, and I
Speaker 4: think that I actually think it's been I think the
Speaker 4: reporting in the wake of it's been quite good. I
Speaker 4: think one misapprehension people had when watching it was that
Speaker 4: it was kind of goofy, and I think that was
Speaker 4: because of what the cameras were showing as opposed to
Speaker 4: what they weren't showing. So because you have cameras in
Speaker 4: the galleries, you know, what you saw was like the
Speaker 4: shade the cue shaman comes in and he sits on
Speaker 4: the chair, and it all seems like stunty and weird,
Speaker 4: and they're all like recording themselves. And it's only later
Speaker 4: when you start to get the footage of like the
Speaker 4: cop who's being you know, pressed in the door, and
Speaker 4: Michael Fanone being dragged through, and the body cam footage
Speaker 4: and the assaults and like and then the you know,
Speaker 4: Ashley Babbitt attempting to vault through that broken window and
Speaker 4: the gunshot that that killed her. So I think there
Speaker 4: was a little bit of a misapprehension in the beginning.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably stuck with some people, and in fact,
Speaker 4: some people, I think Tucker Carlson's one example, have tried
Speaker 4: to like keep that going, like, oh, isn't this a
Speaker 4: goofy funny, Like it's ridiculous to be scared of these people?
Speaker 4: What are you talking about? So I think that's a
Speaker 4: misapprehension that was pretty prominent in the beginning, but I
Speaker 4: think has been I think has been turned around. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think most Americans think what happened. There was completely
Speaker 4: messed up. Like, I don't think it's a I don't
Speaker 4: think the problem with January six is that people don't
Speaker 4: get that it was bad.
Speaker 5: Or you know.
Speaker 4: I just think that there's the bigger problem is this
Speaker 4: that fundamentally the Republican Party as an institution is radicalized
Speaker 4: against democracy, and that they have that. There has been
Speaker 4: a slow the institutions of the country have been slow
Speaker 4: to recognize that, and they have faced no political price
Speaker 4: for it among voters.
Speaker 2: You've gone on record and saying that this should have
Speaker 2: been one of the craziest events in the last fifty
Speaker 2: years of history. That Klepper, Why do we care more
Speaker 2: about Kim Kardashian dating Pete Davidson?
Speaker 3: What I mean, what's the attraction?
Speaker 4: But she wore the easies she wore are the easiest
Speaker 4: on the date.
Speaker 2: Come on, that's for your husband, jeezies, to go out
Speaker 2: with the new guy.
Speaker 3: There's so many articles day in and day out of
Speaker 3: why why do we see more outrage towards this thing
Speaker 3: or this thing. I do think there's there's an overrepresentation
Speaker 3: as to how many people are actually actually give a
Speaker 3: shit about democracy, and not in the sense of like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, it's important to important, I'll say that to
Speaker 3: an interview or what have you. But like our interest
Speaker 3: in the political ramifications of what happens day in and
Speaker 3: day out. Most people I talked to there on January sixth,
Speaker 3: again it's are there for the show and are there
Speaker 3: for the identity, And I don't think would even articulate
Speaker 3: seeing government as something that needs to play a role
Speaker 3: in helping them and or helping society. In fact, they've
Speaker 3: been outside of the whole political world for years and
Speaker 3: it wasn't until this new character came in who welcomed
Speaker 3: them in and they felt they could be a part
Speaker 3: of it. But again, it became about winning above restore
Speaker 3: in democracy, creating a working government that could benefit people
Speaker 3: who are in need, protecting people, things of that nature
Speaker 3: like that actually was never an interest to a lot
Speaker 3: of the people we talked about. It really was just
Speaker 3: simply about the game of the gamification of uh, the
Speaker 3: not only the election, but then what happened after that
Speaker 3: and so so nearly Why why why are Americans more
Speaker 3: interested in this and not focused on how democracy is crumbling?
Speaker 3: Because we were never interested in democracy as an idea.
Speaker 3: We were interested at democracy as a bullet to put
Speaker 3: in a gun that we could shoot to win the
Speaker 3: contest of my team beat your team, and and and
Speaker 3: and that's where I'm just like, oh, I don't think
Speaker 3: Americans are that into politics.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: Politics is something to uh uh to utilize government so
Speaker 3: that its role can can help you ultimately that they're
Speaker 3: into games or.
Speaker 4: Like civic work, you know. I mean I think that's
Speaker 4: that you know, it does. It is very identity based.
Speaker 4: And I also think, look, the attentional imperatives here, to
Speaker 4: your point, like, are hard in a million different directions.
Speaker 4: I mean, people getting people's attention about anything, it's hard.
Speaker 4: I mean it's like, you know, we've never had more
Speaker 4: There's never been more things tugging on our attention. There's
Speaker 4: never been things that we needed more focused attention on more.
Speaker 4: And here I'm thinking of the climate challenge, which is like,
Speaker 4: quite literally the the largest challenge that humans have faced
Speaker 4: since we started civilization.
Speaker 2: Technic no other nature bought some Instagram ants and was
Speaker 2: an infrararight eat but continue, sorry didn't.
Speaker 4: Those attentional questions are really hard ones. They are ones
Speaker 4: I struggle with too, and I don't know the answer
Speaker 4: to them. But you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 4: people that are paying a lot of very close attention.
Speaker 4: There are a lot of people who understand what how
Speaker 4: serious things are. And I think, you know, in some ways,
Speaker 4: I think there's an argument made that you've never had
Speaker 4: more discussions about democracy itself as a sort of topic
Speaker 4: of conversation in my political life. You know, where the
Speaker 4: issue about like are we going to maintain democracy? Are
Speaker 4: we going to strengthen democracy? Is like an actual topic
Speaker 4: of conversation That wasn't really the case. I think, like
Speaker 4: ten or twelve or fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Ago, what could we expect when it comes to the
Speaker 2: future of democracy being attack Because the thing that I
Speaker 2: find that's interesting now is that a lot of the
Speaker 2: people that stir at the pot in twenty sixteen have
Speaker 2: been deplatformed. So a lot of the ways that these
Speaker 2: types of people can find each other and the hornet's
Speaker 2: nest can be stirred up is not the same. Trump
Speaker 2: is not on television as much, a lot of his
Speaker 2: cronies are not on television as much, So could they
Speaker 2: still mobilize like this?
Speaker 4: Again, Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: know what the future holds I know that Republicans have
Speaker 4: worked very hard to put people in positions to do
Speaker 4: and pull off what they were not able to do
Speaker 4: and pull off. Last time. You have the Secretary of
Speaker 4: State being primary Georgia. You got the secretary of state
Speaker 4: election in Arizona with sort of like avowed adherence to
Speaker 4: the big Lie pro coup forces. You got a pro
Speaker 4: coup primary challenge of the governor of Georgia. Right, all
Speaker 4: these people essentially, whether they're saying implicitly or in some
Speaker 4: cases explicitly saying like I will do what was not
Speaker 4: done before, which is deliver power into the hands of
Speaker 4: the candidate who lost because I don't recognize legitimacy of
Speaker 4: the majority because they're not my people, right, So I
Speaker 4: really worry about that. And look at one level, like
Speaker 4: there's technical problems here about the way that the law
Speaker 4: works and who's administering elections, But there's sort of a
Speaker 4: deeper problem, Like I think about this old Yogi barral
Speaker 4: line where he says, you know, they should move first
Speaker 4: base closer to home so there aren't so many close
Speaker 4: plays at first, which is like you can't like there's
Speaker 4: no selec, like there's going to be close places at first,
Speaker 4: wherever you put the base right, it's like if you
Speaker 4: have one of two major American coalitions mobile against democracy
Speaker 4: with the belief that the other side is illegitimate by
Speaker 4: definition and cannot legitimately win. Whatever happens technically around election
Speaker 4: law like matters, but ultimately like the threat is that
Speaker 4: that's the deep threat, and that threat is there and growing,
Speaker 4: and so I don't know what it looks like how
Speaker 4: it plays out, but look, elections end when the loser
Speaker 4: acknowledges they're over like as a function, as a functional matter,
Speaker 4: that's the definition of the end of an election. And
Speaker 4: that can't be if there's a side that will never
Speaker 4: acknowledge that, then that we're in totally different territory.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like we're fuck Jordan. I think that's.
Speaker 3: Cooler heads can prevail, then it's going to be all right.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of cooler heads out there.
Speaker 4: You talk to him all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me send you some links. I'll put a
Speaker 3: lot of faith in humanity and our democracy.
Speaker 4: There are cooler heads out there. There are people who
Speaker 4: did the right thing last time. And I think there's
Speaker 4: a lot of people in America who have a deep,
Speaker 4: a deep patriotism and civic a sense of solemn civic duty.
Speaker 4: Who did the right thing the last time around. I
Speaker 4: hope they're there the next time.
Speaker 2: And I also hope that those people are having lots
Speaker 2: of sex and making more people just like them so
Speaker 2: that my child has a decent world. And that's how
Speaker 2: we're going to end this segment.
Speaker 3: You and most podcasts like that, I feel like I've
Speaker 3: heard you. You really go to that well a lot, right,
Speaker 3: Just yeah, you're really wishing let's go too.
Speaker 2: I'm just wishing lessons upon people. So with that, Jordan
Speaker 2: Klepper and Chris Hayes of MSNBC All In with Chris
Speaker 2: Hayes every night on MSNBC. The podcast is Why Is
Speaker 2: This Happening? With Chris Hayes. One is an Emmy winner,
Speaker 2: One is an Indie nominee soon to be an Indie
Speaker 2: winner with all the hard work that he is doing
Speaker 2: out there in the streets. I wish you all a
Speaker 2: happy Do you think we're gonna have retail sales around
Speaker 2: the Resurrection?
Speaker 3: I take that that would be fine. I would I
Speaker 3: would take just maybe.
Speaker 2: I wish you a happy resurrection. Insurrection Insurrection yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about Christmas. Oh okay, I'm a Christian. Thank
Speaker 2: you Jess for going beyond the scenes.
Speaker 4: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 4: searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.
Speaker 4: Ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime
Speaker 4: on Fairmount Plus.
Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast