Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to The Daily Show Ears edition. This
Speaker 2: is Ian Berger, supervising producer for The Daily Show. We're
Speaker 2: here with Daily Show contributor fresh off a trip to Estonia,
Speaker 2: right near the Russian border, Jordan Klepper.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Thank you, Jordan.
Speaker 2: We're talking about your special. It's called Jordan Klepper Fingers
Speaker 2: the Pulse Moscow Tools, which is available to stream on
Speaker 2: Paramount Plus, the Daily Show's YouTube channel and video on demand. Jordan,
Speaker 2: what was it like making this special?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm gonna say it's our special.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We've done four specials now, a lot of.
Speaker 4: Specials, and they're all special.
Speaker 5: They are all specials. This one was, Honestly, I really
Speaker 5: liked the process of making this special. I think we're
Speaker 5: we're finding an interesting rhythm of like this one. This one,
Speaker 5: we were discovering something on the road. We go out
Speaker 5: in the road, we do the Fingers of the Pulse pieces.
Speaker 5: We're discuss seen in discovering a shift in the narrative
Speaker 5: around Russia, and suddenly people on the road are embracing
Speaker 5: Vladimir Putin. They're talking about how beautiful Moscow looks, and
Speaker 5: it feels like a one to eighty from Ronald Reagan's.
Speaker 2: Dop Absolutely, and I think obviously we kind of encounter
Speaker 2: some of this and you read about this stuff in
Speaker 2: the news, and so you start down this path and
Speaker 2: we're like, we're gonna go out into these rallies and
Speaker 2: see if this is actually what they're talking about. And honestly,
Speaker 2: the very first interview at the very first rally we
Speaker 2: did in rainy, freezing Green Bay, that woman was like,
Speaker 2: I love watching Vladimir Putin videos, Like right off the
Speaker 2: bat home run.
Speaker 3: Putin is a thatw leader runs this country. Here's a
Speaker 3: respectful person's worst country. What do you like about Vladimir Putin?
Speaker 3: The way is Lena's country is off for freedom. I
Speaker 3: used to watch the videos fishing, horseback riding back.
Speaker 1: In the day.
Speaker 3: You do just for fun. You watch Putin horseback riding videos.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who's a better leader, Vladimir Putin or Joe Biden Putin?
Speaker 3: She said, just to calm her down.
Speaker 5: If watching Vladimir Putin fish and ride shirtless on a
Speaker 5: horse was like watching cute cat videos for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were surprised. It was amazing. Like once it's
Speaker 2: kind of like you start off with that and you realize, well,
Speaker 2: this is actually a story.
Speaker 3: Yep. Well even I remember we were starting to ask
Speaker 3: people too.
Speaker 5: There was a stat that came out that said the
Speaker 5: MAGA voter base thinks Joe Biden is more than fifty
Speaker 5: percent thinks Vladimir Putin is a better president than Joe Biden,
Speaker 5: which seemed like a big number. But as we started
Speaker 5: asking people about this, I think, I think, gosh darn,
Speaker 5: every single person at this event had no problem lauding
Speaker 5: Vladimir Putin, especially when put up against Joe Biden. And
Speaker 5: so this is where we started to say, like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is this is a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for us and for you, And like, what
Speaker 2: I think we're trying to discover was there is this
Speaker 2: shift that happened in this part because traditionally the Republicans
Speaker 2: are not a party that seems to be so cool
Speaker 2: with Russia.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that seemed to be kind of their their whole
Speaker 5: calling card for a little while.
Speaker 2: Right when I was a kid, that was the thing
Speaker 2: that was Reagan's thing, and that was what they're very
Speaker 2: proud of. But it seems to have changed. So to
Speaker 2: explore that change, what are some other things you wanted
Speaker 2: to do in this special and people you wanted to
Speaker 2: talk to.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: I think a large question that bubbled up quickly as
Speaker 5: we started to look into this was is this a
Speaker 5: special about Russian misinformation? Yes, but it's very much a
Speaker 5: special about American gullibility of like are we these useful idiots?
Speaker 5: Which is a term Vladimir Lenin supposedly coined about American journalists,
Speaker 5: that they were useful idiots, that they could be fed
Speaker 5: Russian propaganda and utilize it and put it out there
Speaker 5: for Russia's benefit. And so we wanted to look at
Speaker 5: the American useful idiots, both those in power and those
Speaker 5: in power who speak to the people out at the rallies.
Speaker 5: But it was also bringing up a secondary question that
Speaker 5: was worth exploring for us, which is beyond are we
Speaker 5: naive and just embracing Russian misinformation that has.
Speaker 3: Fed to us?
Speaker 5: Or is there a big part of the Republican Party
Speaker 5: right now that truly pines for Vladimir Putin's Russia that
Speaker 5: really wants an autocracy and the anti wokeness and the
Speaker 5: anti LGBTQ community that Putin promises. I think that's a bigger,
Speaker 5: scarier question that the Republican Party is reckoning with right now,
Speaker 5: and so we wanted to jump in and talk to
Speaker 5: people kind of surrounding those questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of the first interviews we did was
Speaker 2: actually with a well known Republican who's not someone you
Speaker 2: would often sit down and talk to, but had kind
Speaker 2: of the opposite view of how we should be approaching Russia.
Speaker 2: That was John Bolton. You want to tell us about that.
Speaker 5: We sat down with the messager John Bolton, and I
Speaker 5: think we talked, especially offline, about this of like, this
Speaker 5: story is so wild and bonkers and important existentially that
Speaker 5: we find ourselves at a special like this talking to
Speaker 5: John Bolton and talking to an Estonian prime minister about
Speaker 5: the same thing. And John Bolton a part of three
Speaker 5: Republican administrations. He was right there with Donald Trump, and
Speaker 5: as we've talked about, he's a guy who saw this
Speaker 5: up close, so much so that now he rails against it.
Speaker 5: He speaks out against the dangers of Donald Trump and
Speaker 5: his Putin fandom. And so we thought it was in
Speaker 5: if we're going to talk to a Republican about the
Speaker 5: change in the GOP, we might as well talk to
Speaker 5: the most Republican Republican we could find, and that was
Speaker 5: John Bolden, who's been in the room and has some
Speaker 5: opinions about that.
Speaker 6: It's just antithetical not just to the philosophical beliefs of
Speaker 6: Ronald Reagan, but to the positive attitude about America and
Speaker 6: its prospects.
Speaker 5: So Reagan wakes up and he's shocked, right, And he's
Speaker 5: also like, what is this internet thing? Maybe we should
Speaker 5: send Stephen Saghal over there to kick Putin's ass. Wait a minute,
Speaker 5: Steven sagh already lives there. This is all too confusing.
Speaker 5: Let's just go back to ignoring aids.
Speaker 6: I think he'd be stunned that the Republican Party had
Speaker 6: anything to do with Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: What is Trump's infatuation with Putin?
Speaker 6: Well? I think he has a fascination with authoritarian leaders generally.
Speaker 6: I think Trump would like to be a big guy,
Speaker 6: but I don't think he's enough to be a dictator.
Speaker 3: So is Trump what's the term an idiot? Well?
Speaker 6: I think Rex Tillerson had the iconic two word description
Speaker 6: of Trump, the first word I won't repeat even on
Speaker 6: your show, the second of which was moron.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll throw it in there.
Speaker 5: That's that's pretty much on point, Yes, Maura, Right, can
Speaker 5: a moron still be a useful idiot?
Speaker 6: I think the answer to that yes, And I think
Speaker 6: Vladimir Putin understands it.
Speaker 2: And it was a good interview and it was friendly,
Speaker 2: which I think a lot of people might think was
Speaker 2: weird for us, and it's unexpected, Like this is not
Speaker 2: a story where we're going out to freed John Bolden
Speaker 2: for being kind of a warhawk. This is a story
Speaker 2: about's happening in the Republican Party now that he witnessed
Speaker 2: first hand, which I think is kind of like what
Speaker 2: we wanted out of him.
Speaker 5: And yeah, god, I mean, we did have some conversations
Speaker 5: in the room about the Iraq War and if some
Speaker 5: of his his pushing for American overseas interventionism, if that
Speaker 5: causes and has some effects with people today being skittish
Speaker 5: about funding our military.
Speaker 3: We talked a little bit about that.
Speaker 5: But I think when we're putting this piece together, when
Speaker 5: we were talking about what the overall arc was, it
Speaker 5: was about looking forward as to like, who, what do
Speaker 5: we need to know about Donald Trump and his feelings
Speaker 5: towards Ladimir Putin and more so also this party that
Speaker 5: he heads right now. Why has it moved in this direction?
Speaker 5: And Bolton was was remarkably enlightening about all of that.
Speaker 2: And obviously Bolton can speak to kind of global threats
Speaker 2: that Russia poses that maybe well, certainly Donald Trump wasn't comprehending.
Speaker 2: He kind of talked to that and the need for alliances.
Speaker 2: This is somebody who you know, kind of is a
Speaker 2: big proponent of NATO, and I think was kind of
Speaker 2: shocked that Donald Trump either didn't understand NATO or was
Speaker 2: opposed to it.
Speaker 3: I mean, still, it's still crazy to think about. The
Speaker 3: news moves so fast.
Speaker 5: But John Bolton, Trump Administration National Security advisor, I believe correct.
Speaker 5: When we ask him if he's a smart guy. He
Speaker 5: points to Rex Tillerson, who said he was a fucking moron,
Speaker 5: and Bolton says, he's a fucking moron. This person who
Speaker 5: is running this is third time running to be president.
Speaker 5: He's leading in all the polls like everybody around him.
Speaker 5: When asked if he knows what's going on in the world,
Speaker 5: says no, he's a fucking moron. He doesn't comprehend allyships,
Speaker 5: he doesn't understand the benefits of NATO, he has no
Speaker 5: understanding of history, he's just somebody who likes to be
Speaker 5: complimented and worries just about himself. It's still it's still
Speaker 5: incredible that that information is out there, and we haven't
Speaker 5: moved on from that story once we learned about it.
Speaker 5: We're still in the weeds of it all.
Speaker 2: And yeah, there's too much of that unfortunately. So that's
Speaker 2: that feels like old news. It's old.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Donald or Donald Trump's a fucking moron who
Speaker 5: doesn't understand international alliances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what else is new? Anyway, He's up nine points
Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: He might be threatened whatever. So at one point John Bolton,
Speaker 2: in our discussions about Trump and putin, Bolton said he
Speaker 2: thought Trump was too stupid to be a strong man.
Speaker 2: What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree?
Speaker 5: I again, I'm I'm always a little bit of gas
Speaker 5: that that's what you think of the leader of the
Speaker 5: free world. To be clear, he's not going to vote
Speaker 5: against in the next election. Too stupid to be a
Speaker 5: strong man, So you're voting for Joe Biden. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: vote for a third party candidate. Thanks, John Way, to
Speaker 5: put your country ahead of a party, I suppose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shocking shocking.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think trum Trump feels like he's trying
Speaker 5: to be a strong man. I think I think what
Speaker 5: I hear in a comment like that is I don't
Speaker 5: see Trump. Trump doesn't seem to think too many steps ahead.
Speaker 5: When I hear the stories of Latimer Putin, I'm hearing
Speaker 5: stories of somebody who is has a lot of tactics,
Speaker 5: is doing things that people don't understand behind closed doors,
Speaker 5: finding creative ways in which to hold on to power.
Speaker 3: I don't believe Donald.
Speaker 5: Trump is finding creative ways to do but I think
Speaker 5: he might stumble into a strong man in the stupidest
Speaker 5: possible way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: Well, we went to Hungary. Obviously we looked at Victor Orban.
Speaker 2: A lot of people at that time described Victor Orban
Speaker 2: as like a more competent Trump. He's a lawyer, he
Speaker 2: knows how to like pull pull the levers. So I
Speaker 2: feel like it's similar. So moving on next, we talked
Speaker 2: to reporter writer Julia Yaffi, who has obviously a lot
Speaker 2: of knowledge about Russia. She's from border raised in Russia.
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that interview. What were you expecting,
Speaker 2: what could she illuminate.
Speaker 5: Here's something that we get to do in specials that
Speaker 5: we don't get to do and figures the pulse pieces
Speaker 5: is we found this. The Washington Post posted this, these
Speaker 5: documents from the Kremlin, essentially talking points about the ways
Speaker 5: in which they wanted to influence American culture, talking points
Speaker 5: they wanted to amplify.
Speaker 3: In the American media.
Speaker 5: And what's remarkable is the things that Russia is pushing
Speaker 5: are the things that we're hearing out at Trump rallies.
Speaker 5: And so we thought it was an opportunity to do
Speaker 5: something we hadn't done before, which is like, let's walk
Speaker 5: through this. We can show how Russian propaganda has made
Speaker 5: its way into the fields of Pennsylvania and Green Bay.
Speaker 5: So let's bring in Julia Yaffi, who is wonderful and
Speaker 5: has talked about as a really complete understanding of America's
Speaker 5: relationship with Russia, I what it's to actually like in
Speaker 5: Moscow today, And she was able to kind of walk
Speaker 5: us through the information that the Kremlin is propagating in
Speaker 5: the US.
Speaker 1: The best political influence campaigns are the ones where you
Speaker 1: don't invent anything. You just take the facts on the
Speaker 1: ground and you amplify them, right, And so what you
Speaker 1: see these fake accounts amplifying are arguments that I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've heard on the trail and at these rallies, which
Speaker 1: is that Democrats are globalists who care more about Ukraine
Speaker 1: than about the southern border. It's Russia's good and Ukraine
Speaker 1: has corrupt.
Speaker 3: It is corruption.
Speaker 7: They're taking a advantage of a situation where what they created.
Speaker 4: It's by this.
Speaker 6: They're pumping money over there and we know what's coming
Speaker 6: back to politicians' pockets here.
Speaker 1: Now it goes into the means of spreading this information.
Speaker 3: How they're gonna do it, Well, you're going to use.
Speaker 1: Social media, but it says the only place where they
Speaker 1: can spread this information without any censorship is I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you guess.
Speaker 3: Where can they get the vitamins? Where are you selling
Speaker 3: T shirts? I'm red pill can Oh, so you've read
Speaker 3: pill caid.
Speaker 1: Social The most useful of the idiots can be found on.
Speaker 3: Truth social or owning it.
Speaker 5: And I will say that was something that like we
Speaker 5: did our interview with Julia and we talked about many
Speaker 5: many things, and even before we just before we wrapped,
Speaker 5: she kind of wanted to say, like, hey, can I
Speaker 5: say something?
Speaker 2: And that's always a good time when whenever you're doing
Speaker 2: an interview and they're like one more thing. For the
Speaker 2: most part, you're like, oh, this is what they're passionate about.
Speaker 3: Yes, it does.
Speaker 5: It doesn't mean the interview or is missing something and
Speaker 5: left something on the table. It's definitely not not it. No, No,
Speaker 5: definitely not a sign.
Speaker 2: You didn't just take the boxes for your jokes and
Speaker 2: try to move.
Speaker 5: That's not exactly no, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 5: It's a sign of a good interview. I leave space
Speaker 5: for somebody to add on to it.
Speaker 2: I understand what's important about this story, though, Please tell
Speaker 2: me what I miss?
Speaker 3: Oh what is it?
Speaker 5: No, she kind of she took a moment to clarify,
Speaker 5: especially like, hey, I don't think people actually when we
Speaker 5: talk about Russia, they don't actually understand what it's like
Speaker 5: in Russia right now. And it's in the special She articulates,
Speaker 5: like living underneath an autocratic regime is it's frightening, and
Speaker 5: it takes away people's rights. And she had some stories
Speaker 5: about small acts of dissidence being attacked with brutal force
Speaker 5: and it was really harrowing. And the same thing happened
Speaker 5: when we talked to the Estonian Prime Minister, where again
Speaker 5: not a result of bad interviewing technique. Yeah, but when
Speaker 5: we were being prepared, Yeah, when we were basically about
Speaker 5: ready to end the interview, the Ausonian Prime Minister had
Speaker 5: a similar message, which again just clarifies when people get
Speaker 5: to sit down and talk about this, the thing that
Speaker 5: they want to articulate to the American public is the
Speaker 5: Moscow that you see, the Vladimir Putin, the tough guy
Speaker 5: that is romanticized on the right. People who live under
Speaker 5: the underneath that regime, it's it's it's terrifying. Their rights
Speaker 5: are stripped from them, and it is not this this beautiful,
Speaker 5: idyllic Christian white landscape that the Maga folks want it
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 3: And and over.
Speaker 5: And over again, we people were asking us to make
Speaker 5: sure that that that message was heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Julia talked about specifics, even things like
Speaker 2: students turning their teachers in for kind of being anti
Speaker 2: war like scary stuff like that, so frightening. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: Julia's connections to people in Russia currently in Russia was
Speaker 2: interesting because she said she'll be on like text chains
Speaker 2: and people like they'll be talking about these horrible abuses
Speaker 2: by Putin and jokingly referred to well, at least our
Speaker 2: subway stations are beautiful, Like obviously they don't feel that way.
Speaker 2: They're like, having a pretty subway station is not worth
Speaker 2: sacrificing all these rights.
Speaker 5: And we even we laugh about the propaganda. The subway
Speaker 5: station was a big story about a month or so
Speaker 5: ago when Tucker Carlson went over there and showed the
Speaker 5: beautiful subway stations. He showed the beautiful cheap bread quote
Speaker 5: unquote when we go to the Magaraj when we asked
Speaker 5: the people had seen that a lot of people had
Speaker 5: seen the Tucker Carlson interview and they were just parroting
Speaker 5: everything they heard. Their Moscow is a beautiful place. This propaganda,
Speaker 5: it works, especially when it's amplified by a pretty powerful,
Speaker 5: useful idiot.
Speaker 2: All right, hold that thought. We're going to take a
Speaker 2: quick break. We'll be right back with Jordan Klepper. Welcome back.
Speaker 2: So Jordan, let's talk about Estonia. What was it like
Speaker 2: doing this segment there, Why did we go there? What
Speaker 2: brought us there?
Speaker 5: I think, sort of again organically piecing this special together,
Speaker 5: we're hearing things in the field. We're starting to articulate
Speaker 5: with Julia Yaffi what hearing in the field and where
Speaker 5: that comes from. But frankly, what we started to understand
Speaker 5: was there's a misunderstanding on the ground as to what
Speaker 5: life next to Russia actually looks like. And here comes Estonia,
Speaker 5: a place that John Bolton said, if you're going to go,
Speaker 5: go now, and that's because.
Speaker 4: They're pretty dark.
Speaker 5: It's a pretty dark thing to say, but that fear
Speaker 5: is palpable. Estonia is on the border with Russia. There
Speaker 5: is talk right now that if Putin goes unchecked, that
Speaker 5: he will continue to be the aggressor, and Estonia very
Speaker 5: well could be next. And so this was an opportunity
Speaker 5: for us to go talk to the studying Prime Minister,
Speaker 5: learn a little bit about the importance of NATO, and
Speaker 5: again try to close the gap from our perceptions and
Speaker 5: our reality, because when you're halfway across the globe in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 5: your assumptions as to what Russia is like is very
Speaker 5: different than when you're a handful of kilometers from a
Speaker 5: Russian border. You have a better understanding of actually what's
Speaker 5: happening on the group.
Speaker 2: You're back in America right now, though Jordan, you don't
Speaker 2: I don't have to use it. I know, I know
Speaker 2: you're still in that frame of mind. I just I'm
Speaker 2: wearing a Tolling T shirt. But we use Miles here,
Speaker 2: we do right rightfully logically use Miles.
Speaker 3: I still can never wrap my head around.
Speaker 2: It makes so much sense. It's not even worth spending
Speaker 2: any more time on how much sense Miles makes. All right,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about meeting the Prime Minister. In
Speaker 2: your interview with her, your impressions. She has been outspoken
Speaker 2: critic of Putin has been front and center and the
Speaker 2: need to kind of, you know, strengthen NATO. As we
Speaker 2: said in the special, She's on of Vladimir Putin's most
Speaker 2: wanted list and kind of proud of that, which is
Speaker 2: kind of interesting.
Speaker 5: For a fascinating reason too. Right, she was taking down
Speaker 5: essentially Russian I believe it was a Russian tank.
Speaker 2: But now functioning as a monument to that occupation.
Speaker 5: Exactly, yes, which I think is an interesting comparison to
Speaker 5: what is happening in the US as well. A Russian
Speaker 5: tank was out there, and as the Ukrainian War amplified,
Speaker 5: she was like, why do we have these monuments to
Speaker 5: Russian aggression here? Let's take this thing down. Vladimir Putin
Speaker 5: doesn't like it. Now she's on the most watted list.
Speaker 2: How dare you take my tank away? Let my stand,
Speaker 2: Let this thing stand. There were some other reasons that
Speaker 2: this was an interesting story in the right place to go,
Speaker 2: and we didn't have time to touch on all of
Speaker 2: them in the special. But one thing about Estonia is
Speaker 2: that it, like Ukraine, has a Russian speaking population near
Speaker 2: the border of Russia, and they fear that, Like Ukraine,
Speaker 2: Putin will use that as an excuse to send in
Speaker 2: his military and use it as cover to say, I'm
Speaker 2: protecting these Russian speaking citizens. They feel threatened, they're you know,
Speaker 2: they need my protection, so I'm sending troops in, and
Speaker 2: that could very easily be the same logic. One thing
Speaker 2: we learned just before we went there, which is almost
Speaker 2: maybe even hours before we got on a plane to
Speaker 2: go to Estonia, was that apparently Russian security forces had
Speaker 2: been jamming the GPS systems of planes coming to land
Speaker 2: in Estonia from Finland, so much so that the planes
Speaker 2: had to turn around. And these about military aircraft, these
Speaker 2: are just like planes of people, tourists, citizens going back
Speaker 2: into Estonia that couldn't land in Estonia because the Russian
Speaker 2: military was screwing with their GPS systems, which is really frightening.
Speaker 5: Yeah, especially when you send me that article hours before
Speaker 5: we got on a plane.
Speaker 2: And we're going through Yeah, we're going through Finland.
Speaker 5: You're like, oh, this is uh, there's a there's a
Speaker 5: chance that Russia is jamming airplane signals landing into Estonia.
Speaker 3: Cool, anyway, I'll see at the airport right.
Speaker 4: And I truly was like, it won't be a big deal.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I should look at ferries from
Speaker 2: Finland to Estonia in case we don't get out of Finland.
Speaker 3: And at that point, I'm like, is Finland by Estonia?
Speaker 4: I was aware.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, I totally know the geography, are fine, Oh.
Speaker 3: You knew it for days?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for days, Like I knew it really well. After
Speaker 2: I was on that big GPS map for about forty
Speaker 2: minutes on the plane, I knew.
Speaker 4: I knew it.
Speaker 3: You always need your research. That's what's so impressive.
Speaker 5: You definitely get on that plane and you zoom in,
Speaker 5: you use those two figures of zoom and it'd be like, oh,
Speaker 5: that's where all the country, that's where Helsinki is now
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: Poland over there. Cool, you could go there. Another thing,
Speaker 2: I will say, even just walking around tallin the capital
Speaker 2: of Estonia, you see signs of like their reaction to Russia.
Speaker 2: Everywhere in this beautiful old town or old city section
Speaker 2: is the Russian embassy And what was that like?
Speaker 3: It was remarkable.
Speaker 5: It's blocked off and it's a whole city block full
Speaker 5: of just protest symbols, images of Navolny, even little shrines
Speaker 5: to Navolny who passed away recently, Ukrainian flags, anti Putin sentiments, graffiti,
Speaker 5: things of that nature. I remember walking through the town
Speaker 5: square and at one of the restaurants in the town
Speaker 5: square had both in Estonian and English, essentially asking when
Speaker 5: Putin was going to kill himself like Hitler did.
Speaker 4: In a bunker right, Like, where are we going to
Speaker 4: go to dinner?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 4: Okay, that's not a menu.
Speaker 3: What do they serve here? Oh? Oh a Putin suicide? Okay?
Speaker 5: Which the exchange rate for something like that? But it
Speaker 5: was it's palpable there. It's all part of the conversation.
Speaker 5: People were very blunt and open about it. Also side note,
Speaker 5: Estonia is a beautiful country and Tollin was such a lovely,
Speaker 5: lovely town.
Speaker 3: I had no expectations of.
Speaker 5: What it was like in Estonia and this old town
Speaker 5: area with these cobblestone streets to a medieval city. It
Speaker 5: also has a bar that's the depeche Mode Bar, that
Speaker 5: is just depeche Mode music that you go into a
Speaker 5: basement and they played depeche Mode on videos and they
Speaker 5: have paraphernalia.
Speaker 2: And depeche Mode has enough of a catalog for it
Speaker 2: to be a bar exclusively dedicated to that.
Speaker 4: I yes, that's the good thing.
Speaker 3: That's the good thing.
Speaker 5: And also I don't believe there's any Estonian connection to
Speaker 5: depeche Mode, but there is a depeche Mode bar in
Speaker 5: Estonia that God's put it on your bucket list.
Speaker 3: Get there.
Speaker 2: Depeche Mode bar feels like something like like kind of
Speaker 2: Soviet era, like we have a we have a depeche
Speaker 2: Mode bar.
Speaker 5: Whatever that Venn diagram of Soviet era and Portlandia's sketch is.
Speaker 5: I think it's depeche Mode bar in Estonia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I will say one thing back to kind
Speaker 2: of this anti Russian sentiment and this support for Ukraine
Speaker 2: on the Prime Minister's residence in Estonia every night they
Speaker 2: kind of project the Ukrainian flag, which I couldn't imagine
Speaker 2: them doing something like that.
Speaker 4: Here in America.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine the White House had another flag projected
Speaker 2: on it?
Speaker 5: I believe didn't we wave flags on the we passed
Speaker 5: funding for Ukraine military, there was some waving of Ukrainian
Speaker 5: flags and that was not wild widely accepted as.
Speaker 3: A lovely thing to do, if I recall.
Speaker 5: So, yes, it's very clear, like when we got to
Speaker 5: meet the Prime Minister, which is really an honor for
Speaker 5: us to meet ahead of state like that, she welcomed
Speaker 5: us in and to be very clear, they are supportive
Speaker 5: of Ukraine and their battle here. They see it as
Speaker 5: not only important morally but also for their own safety.
Speaker 5: They give more money percentage wise to NATO and too
Speaker 5: military than the US does. And so she was very
Speaker 5: forthcoming about that and that importance the history of Estonia
Speaker 5: and the Estonian people and specifically the history under Soviet occupation,
Speaker 5: and how again, this is a history that they are
Speaker 5: grappling with and understand and have memories of, and this
Speaker 5: is part of the reason they're pushing back against that
Speaker 5: because they really feel colonialism don't stop.
Speaker 3: And it could continue.
Speaker 5: And it could could continue soon if there isn't a
Speaker 5: real unified force to stop.
Speaker 2: It, right and she, I mean I thought it was
Speaker 2: especially interesting. She described her own experience as a child.
Speaker 7: Everybody's for peace, but we understand what peace under Soviet
Speaker 7: or Russian occupation means. You had mass atrocities, mass deportations.
Speaker 7: My own mother was deported to Siberia as a six
Speaker 7: month old baby. There were mass killings. They were suppressing
Speaker 7: our culture, trying to erase our life. This is what
Speaker 7: peace under occupation means. That doesn't mean that the human
Speaker 7: suffering was stop.
Speaker 2: How wild was that to hear?
Speaker 5: I mean, we had a taste of it in Hungary.
Speaker 5: This is the naive somebody who didn't get to travel
Speaker 5: much abroad as a kid. Like when you go to
Speaker 5: eastern Europe, you realize just how recent history is in America,
Speaker 5: even though in England they'll make fun of Americans because
Speaker 5: our oldest things are only a couple hundred years old.
Speaker 5: But it feels like our moments of turmoil seem distant
Speaker 5: and in the past. And revolution and I remember in
Speaker 5: Budapest seeing bullet holes from protests twenty years earlier, and
Speaker 5: then stories fifty years earlier of this is where revolution
Speaker 5: takes place. I think in Estonia. To hear these stories
Speaker 5: of like, oh, you have grandparents who were in the Gulac,
Speaker 5: you have you remember being under Russian occupation, running into
Speaker 5: other people around who had stories too, It's like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is.
Speaker 3: Not a hypo.
Speaker 5: And to bring it back to sort of the US
Speaker 5: perspective on it, like we talked to people in the
Speaker 5: fields who are upset about things. It's all theory, so
Speaker 5: much theory, so angry about things that we're crafting boogeymen
Speaker 5: out of middle schooler trans athletes and people drinking bud light.
Speaker 5: Like we craft these these folks, you know why they're
Speaker 5: they're keeping us down, and these these bad, bad guys,
Speaker 5: bad enemies. And then you go to a place like
Speaker 5: Estonia and they're like, oh, do you know what it's
Speaker 5: like to live underneath an Authrotivian regime?
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 5: I could tell you that story. It's not a theory,
Speaker 5: it's a reality, and I can articulate it. That's why
Speaker 5: we believe the things we believe.
Speaker 2: Right, Like we're flipping out of the costs of eggs
Speaker 2: being marginally higher. But she described her own daughter made
Speaker 2: some comment about you know, if this store doesn't have
Speaker 2: the thing I want, we'll go to the other store.
Speaker 2: And the Prime Minister made her think about her own childhood.
Speaker 2: She was like, there was no other store. That's not
Speaker 2: a thing that existed. This is the store. They don't
Speaker 2: have it, you can't get it, Like for your life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is why we go there. I think we
Speaker 5: are lucky that we get to make these specials. But
Speaker 5: I think it was important to us. It's not just
Speaker 5: us talking about like, Wow, look how misinformed we are.
Speaker 5: I think American gullibility is a real problem in this country.
Speaker 5: It's a threat that has global repercussions. But I think
Speaker 5: a misunderstanding of the realities of what some people are pining.
Speaker 3: For here is also a real, real threat.
Speaker 5: And so wherever we can go there and talk to
Speaker 5: people who have firsthand knowledge, I think that's a real
Speaker 5: win for the things that we do here.
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to take a quick break. We
Speaker 2: will be right back. Welcome back, So Clipper. One other
Speaker 2: element that we weren't expecting to find when we started
Speaker 2: this story was a lawyer in Nashville who has a
Speaker 2: lot of connections to Russia. It was a very nice
Speaker 2: s Gouy g Cline Preston, what a nice person. Real
Speaker 2: history boff, Like you look around that office. Yeah, we're
Speaker 2: talking about the Stalin bust and the Putin buss. But
Speaker 2: like there's books everywhere about American and Russian history. But
Speaker 2: very interesting conversation, very interesting afternoon with that man. Unexpected
Speaker 2: phone call at the end of it. Do you want
Speaker 2: to tell us about that interview?
Speaker 3: I mean, I echo everything you say there.
Speaker 5: He has a wild pass that we sort of talk
Speaker 5: about a little bit on the show, so we didn't
Speaker 5: know what we'd expect to talk to Kleine Again, he's
Speaker 5: very much a fan of Russia.
Speaker 3: He spent time there in college. He was a.
Speaker 5: Defender of Vladimir Putin. I believe we call him a fanboy.
Speaker 5: He says, he just collects souvenirs. There's a hand, there's
Speaker 5: a half of things that are a little on the nose.
Speaker 5: Even though the red paints were sort of like, come on,
Speaker 5: come on, Kline.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we have this joke and I don't
Speaker 2: even think it made the special, but it was like
Speaker 2: you said it, like you have a poster that big
Speaker 2: of Vladimir Putin and then you say, I'm not a fan.
Speaker 2: It's like when we were kids. If you have a
Speaker 2: poster of your favorite baseball player on the wall, it's
Speaker 2: hard to be like, well, I don't really like that guy.
Speaker 5: I also, he's an attorney in Nashville, and I can
Speaker 5: only imagine somebody walking off the street. They'd be like, uh,
Speaker 5: I just got a parking ticket. I'm trying to get
Speaker 5: out of not the Gulag. Are you the right guy
Speaker 5: to help me here? So you know, we talked to
Speaker 5: Klein about this. I think he's a very opinionated guy
Speaker 5: about Russia, about Russian history, and also he's a MAGA supporter.
Speaker 3: I think was involved in some of the legal.
Speaker 5: Arguments to change the results in Michigan. There's some complicated
Speaker 5: history there. But I think what surprise this is in
Speaker 5: our conversation is as we're talking, he gets a phone call.
Speaker 3: Oh man, got a call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, RT.
Speaker 3: That's Russian television that's calling.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I have to ask, are you a Russian asset?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 3: If I am on a battlee wait?
Speaker 5: Was Klan about to feed the propaganda from the Kremlin
Speaker 5: back to Russian state.
Speaker 3: Television today about Ukraine? Oh? No? Was I the biscuit
Speaker 3: in a propaganda circle jerk. In the middle of our interview,
Speaker 3: where we had been joking and seriously asking him if
Speaker 3: he was a Russian asset, we literally were like, you
Speaker 3: have busts of Putin and little stickers of him magnets
Speaker 3: on your fridge.
Speaker 2: Some entity in Russia, he wouldn't tie it to the government.
Speaker 2: There's an NGO that I think the government basically stocks
Speaker 2: with its own people, pays for him to go over
Speaker 2: there and be as an election watcher, as a pole watcher.
Speaker 2: So some entity in Russia is also paying for him
Speaker 2: to travel back to Russia.
Speaker 5: And what a pol watcher does. They go over there,
Speaker 5: they take a look at the elections, and then they
Speaker 5: tend to go on television and tell people that the
Speaker 5: elections look great. And so as we are doing this
Speaker 5: interview with him, TV calls and he takes a break
Speaker 5: to go on Russian television.
Speaker 2: I think we didn't We couldn't believe it was actually happening,
Speaker 2: and I think for a moment we weren't sure that
Speaker 2: it was really that's really what was happening. It kind
Speaker 2: of felt like a At one point I thought the
Speaker 2: call was like, oh, someone he just wanted to get
Speaker 2: us out of his office.
Speaker 3: For some Yeah, because we didn't we like, all right,
Speaker 3: we'll stop down and let you go and do that.
Speaker 3: We left.
Speaker 2: It was like the equivalent of like, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're on a bad date, your friend calling you to
Speaker 2: be like, oh sorry, I got to take this call,
Speaker 2: except it's Russian State television, Like you want to get
Speaker 2: out of that comedy shows interview, We got your back.
Speaker 2: Just send me the text and I'll call you.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, you know what they're They
Speaker 5: might be a hell of a propaganda machine, but they
Speaker 5: are really they're also a really effective wing state.
Speaker 2: Is going horribly. I'll get you out of it.
Speaker 3: Put it's a nice guy. Maybe he really is. He's
Speaker 3: looking out for his people.
Speaker 5: He pushes some journalists out windows, and some journalists he
Speaker 5: just lightly nudges out of interview.
Speaker 4: Real just ends interviews.
Speaker 2: I'd like to think they're just monitoring all interviews that
Speaker 2: are about Russia and they're like, this has gone too far.
Speaker 2: Hit the button, it's over. Yeah, that was It was interesting.
Speaker 2: But he was a great sport again, very interesting guy,
Speaker 2: like dedicated family man. But you're right, if you were
Speaker 2: just someone wandering in off the street of Nowshville to
Speaker 2: hire a lawyer to be a parking ticket. I think
Speaker 2: you'd be a little confused by the space. So a
Speaker 2: lot of people talk about gridlock in America and the
Speaker 2: Democrats appearing weak on a lot of issues, particularly democratic leadership.
Speaker 2: Do you think that feeds into perhaps this desire or
Speaker 2: this openness to authoritarianism from part of our country.
Speaker 5: You know what, I think democracy is slow, is not
Speaker 5: meant to be a speedy process. And I think you know,
Speaker 5: on both sides of the eye of people are frustrated
Speaker 5: with the government right now. They're frustrated with this the
Speaker 5: partisan bickering. I feel like it doesn't feel like America
Speaker 5: is functioning swiftly or effectively, and so I can understand
Speaker 5: why people are frustrated with it.
Speaker 3: I think an appeal to a.
Speaker 5: Overly simplistic view of autocracy is in its efficiency and
Speaker 5: its ability to get things done. I think what that
Speaker 5: neglects is the reality of how those things get done
Speaker 5: and the ways in which the minority is often repressed
Speaker 5: in order to serve an auto ideal that doesn't get
Speaker 5: talked about. But I think the germ of something that
Speaker 5: is appealing outside of the Christian whiteness of Russian's autocracy,
Speaker 5: but the germ of some of that is order, order
Speaker 5: an efficiency.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 5: I think as we take a step back and we
Speaker 5: look at what Russian misinformation the goal of it. They
Speaker 5: are top line looking just to sow distrust and chaos
Speaker 5: that helps them globally. There are other goals specifically like
Speaker 5: funding for Ukraine and also an unstable NATO that are
Speaker 5: big goals that we talk about in the special as well.
Speaker 5: But the way in which Russia affects people like it's
Speaker 5: not just like, oh, they're paying for a spy over there.
Speaker 5: It's not necessarily spycraft. It's just affecting the conversation. And
Speaker 5: one of the things that some people have told us
Speaker 5: about it is like, it's not about creating new info.
Speaker 5: It's eighty percent telling people the things they want to hear,
Speaker 5: in twenty percent telling the things you want them to hear.
Speaker 5: And this info it's giving them enough string that they
Speaker 5: can run and go with. And I think that's what
Speaker 5: we started to see in a bunch of different ways
Speaker 5: of people like just being the fan the flames being
Speaker 5: fanned by Russia propaganda. In this one way, or then
Speaker 5: seeing a story about Zelensky yachts and this kind of
Speaker 5: way makes its way into the house.
Speaker 3: Or it's even just like yeah, perhaps paying for a.
Speaker 5: Trip to Russia to show you how great that place is,
Speaker 5: and if you can speak highly about it on television,
Speaker 5: that only adds to the public discourse and the overall distrust.
Speaker 5: They can have actual, real ramifications on the House floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, next special, where are we going?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: My lord, I I don't know.
Speaker 2: Just something. We keep going to places we know less
Speaker 2: and less about.
Speaker 5: I was going to say we didn't know a ton
Speaker 5: about Estonia much respect. We had a wonderful time we
Speaker 5: met the Prime Minister's she is such an impressive person Mongolia.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: Let's say I don't know anything about it, so this
Speaker 2: feels right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, let's put it in there. Yeah, was there?
Speaker 3: What politics are happening in mind?
Speaker 4: Go imhow tied to the election?
Speaker 5: I'm sure we're taking requests. So if you're out there
Speaker 5: listening to this Ears edition and you know where we
Speaker 5: should go, and by that, I mean you know very
Speaker 5: little about the political situation. Uh, it's alwayst like six
Speaker 5: degrees of Kevin bacon, but it's a political crisis that
Speaker 5: we do yet.
Speaker 2: Know perfect all right, thank you, Jordan, Thank you, Ian.
Speaker 2: This has been Ian Berger and Jordan Klepper, thank you
Speaker 2: for joining us on The Daily Show Ears edition. Be
Speaker 2: sure to stream Jordan Klepper Fingers, the Pulse, Moscow Tools
Speaker 2: on Paramount Plus, the Daily Show's YouTube channel and video
Speaker 2: on demand streaming everybody.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ian, thank you. Explore more shows from the
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Speaker 2: Stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 7: This has been a Comedy Central podcast now