Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Jordan Clapper is a Comedy Central staple, having hosted two
Speaker 1: documentary series and the networks earlier late night talk show,
Speaker 1: The Opposition, But you probably know him as this guy.
Speaker 1: This is Jordan Clepper, fingers the pulse. This past summer,
Speaker 1: Trump flag waivers spouted a lot of theories about Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's hell. I headed to Trump rallies in the crucial
Speaker 1: swing states of Ohio and Wisconsin to discover what his
Speaker 1: supporters know that the rest of us don't. It could
Speaker 1: be aids. What makes you think she has aids a
Speaker 1: way her husband used to be? So you think Bill
Speaker 1: had aids? So how did Bill Clinton get aids? Probably
Speaker 1: messing out with that Magic Johnson. Jordan Clepper is the
Speaker 1: king of interviewing Trump supporters in their natural environs in
Speaker 1: his role as a Daily show correspondent. He started going
Speaker 1: to Trump rallies in January two thousand sixteen, just as
Speaker 1: the campaign was really taking off. Man on the Street
Speaker 1: interviews are inevitably cherry picked and should be taken with
Speaker 1: a grain of salt. But simply by turning on his
Speaker 1: mike and asking questions. Clapper creates an important document of
Speaker 1: this particular segment of Donald Trump's bace and one of
Speaker 1: the most unbelievable discoveries yet Barack Obama. I had big
Speaker 1: part of nine eleven, which part not being around, always
Speaker 1: on vacation, never in the office. Why do you think
Speaker 1: Barack Obama wasn't in the Oval office on nine eleven?
Speaker 1: That I don't know. I would like to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of that. Clapper is from one of those
Speaker 1: crucial swing states. He now studies, a middle class kid
Speaker 1: from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and he was a smart one. If
Speaker 1: you don't know him as a star of The Daily Show,
Speaker 1: you may know him as the nine National mock Trial
Speaker 1: champion or the recipient of one of Kalamazoo's most prestigious
Speaker 1: math scholarships. Clippers intelligence, however, did not translate into foresight
Speaker 1: when it came to the coronavirus. Being prepared is something
Speaker 1: that's not my sweet spot. I had a couple cans
Speaker 1: of beans and my wife's podcasting equipment. You and I
Speaker 1: are brothers because my wife has a podcast and my
Speaker 1: wife has They sent her all this honking equipment, and
Speaker 1: what really hurts most of all because she she says,
Speaker 1: she I'm I'm in my wife's office right now using
Speaker 1: her equipment. She has the better equipment, and as a
Speaker 1: result of having better equipment, my wife is actually making
Speaker 1: more money than me for the first time in this
Speaker 1: this year so far, year to date, selling skin cream
Speaker 1: on Instagram and diapers and butt cream but paste. I
Speaker 1: think this quarantine had really highlighted the importance of producers
Speaker 1: everybody else who's trying to do it at their own.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I'm a comedian, I'm a performer,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, you don't know what lighting is.
Speaker 1: Have you not been talking to grips? You've been on
Speaker 1: sets for years, and you don't know the importance of
Speaker 1: not putting a light right behind you. It's like, I
Speaker 1: just I need somebody to hold my hand at all times.
Speaker 1: Lauren Michael's had a great line. He said, you know
Speaker 1: that the logo this is years ago. He said, the
Speaker 1: logo for YouTube is broadcast yourself. And Lauren said, you know,
Speaker 1: over time, we've realized a layer of executives and producers
Speaker 1: isn't really a bad thing, isn't to decide who's ready
Speaker 1: to broadcast themselves. Who's really ready to make that step?
Speaker 1: I don't know. But now, you grew up in born
Speaker 1: and raised in Kalamazoo, correct, that's right, yes, Klamazoo, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and nobody in the family was in the arts, musicians, comics, actors,
Speaker 1: not a well my parents know, we were, you know,
Speaker 1: a blue collar family. My dad a brick salesman. My
Speaker 1: mom would stay at home mom, and she also worked
Speaker 1: in the schools. Although we did have the funny strange
Speaker 1: connection is my mom's cousin and my dad's college roommate,
Speaker 1: UH was Tim Allen, and so I would see I
Speaker 1: would see Tim Allen every Thanksgiving or Christmas, and that
Speaker 1: was just as he was a stand up when I
Speaker 1: was like a kid. And then he got Home Improvement
Speaker 1: and so that was the first little UH insight into
Speaker 1: the industry. Getting to watch suddenly uncle Tim be up
Speaker 1: there on television, which was quite the exciting treat when
Speaker 1: you're a ten year old at home and watch somebody
Speaker 1: you know actually on your screen. The um you were,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to say NERD or WONK
Speaker 1: math major, uh, mock trial champion. Oh you were kind
Speaker 1: of you. You were a smart guy. Up to a point,
Speaker 1: making some really good decisions up to a point. Up
Speaker 1: to a point, I was a doing things that mattered
Speaker 1: up to a point. Yeah, there's when when I was
Speaker 1: under the tutelage of my parents, I was studying and
Speaker 1: I was a four point kid. I got a math scholarship.
Speaker 1: I did mock trial. It was funny. I went back
Speaker 1: when I had my wedding after in fifteen years outside
Speaker 1: of the nest, in this entertainment world, doing improv. My
Speaker 1: parents got up to speak in a room full of
Speaker 1: all of my mostly new friends, and they spoke primarily
Speaker 1: about my experience as a national champion mock trial person.
Speaker 1: And the entire room was like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: what that is. You never bring that up, But it's like,
Speaker 1: all right for my parents who experienced this with me,
Speaker 1: that's who I am. I'm a guy who's way into
Speaker 1: the law, who's way into math. To my friends, now,
Speaker 1: I'm the person who likes to pretend to be a
Speaker 1: wind or a tree on stage for no money. So
Speaker 1: so the people I was a beef steak tomato when
Speaker 1: that line he had. But but my path was the
Speaker 1: same where I was going to go to law school
Speaker 1: and someone kind of like just dared me to audition
Speaker 1: for the n y U Acting program, and I got in.
Speaker 1: But there are times I stop and think that I
Speaker 1: could I go the right way in the fork in
Speaker 1: the road, you know, because this business is so non meritorious.
Speaker 1: Although I will say I had a very it was
Speaker 1: a similar path of like when I got into college,
Speaker 1: I did the improv team, and suddodly it was you
Speaker 1: should try this, this is fun. I think what was
Speaker 1: so eye opening for me at the time is what
Speaker 1: I found in the arts and and or improv specifically,
Speaker 1: was like I've never been asked to kind of think
Speaker 1: in that way. It was creative, there was no yes
Speaker 1: or no, there was no right answer, and I was
Speaker 1: suddenly around people who were very curious in different ways.
Speaker 1: I loved the math world, I love the law world.
Speaker 1: I love the academic world. But I was very much
Speaker 1: on a path of like, these are the things you
Speaker 1: do to get these outcomes. And then suddenly you hit improv,
Speaker 1: and you hit the theater types and folks, and you're
Speaker 1: reading plays, you're reading scripts, you're making things up off
Speaker 1: the spot, and suddenly it's like, well, there's no right answer.
Speaker 1: We want to know how you feel that. I think
Speaker 1: I had gone eighteen years where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: nobody asked me how I felt about this. They just
Speaker 1: asked me like, what was the slope of this this
Speaker 1: line or this angle? And for that was that was
Speaker 1: really kind of a game changer for me. So when
Speaker 1: you when you are in the math world and you're
Speaker 1: going to school, are you devouring comedy and absorbing comedy
Speaker 1: and watching the world of comedy eva of on TV
Speaker 1: and perform Are you going to comedy clubs? Are you
Speaker 1: the funniest guy in the room high school? My bedroom
Speaker 1: is full of Jim Carrey posters. I'm watching SNL every weekend.
Speaker 1: I'm coming home after school and I'm watching General Hospital
Speaker 1: with my mom and then watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? Alone?
Speaker 1: And I get to college, I start playing around and
Speaker 1: because I'm still an academic, I'm like, well, I want
Speaker 1: to know everything about this. And so because we're in Michigan,
Speaker 1: I go to Chicago and I go to Detroit to
Speaker 1: learn about the second city, and I see that live
Speaker 1: and suddenly developed that why why why go to Chicago? No? No, no, meaning,
Speaker 1: did you kind of get a sense when you're going
Speaker 1: to Kalamazoo and you're a math major from day one.
Speaker 1: When you're here, you're going, I don't know, any minute,
Speaker 1: I'm may going to the theater program. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: be crazy orientation a week I walk on it. So
Speaker 1: it's a small college, Kalamazoo College campus of I think
Speaker 1: it's it's four hundred people. So it is this. I
Speaker 1: could be a big fish and a small puddle. And
Speaker 1: there's an improv group. They say, issue for it, see
Speaker 1: if you can be in it, And in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I like this? Whose line
Speaker 1: is in anyway thing? I'm kind of a funny guy
Speaker 1: in my math classes. I'm gonna audition for this. And
Speaker 1: I tell myself there's a lot of people auditioning. If
Speaker 1: I get to be in a show in the next
Speaker 1: four years, that's a success. And I do that and
Speaker 1: week two or three they cast me and it's like
Speaker 1: you're in and I'm like, oh, well, this is this
Speaker 1: is more success than I expected. And you get that
Speaker 1: first laugh and I'm like, actually, I like this so
Speaker 1: much more than I thought I would. I know, but
Speaker 1: at that point, I'm like, I got a math major
Speaker 1: and I got a scholarship that paid for me to
Speaker 1: go to college. But I did that again. At this point,
Speaker 1: I did that thinking through what my future would be,
Speaker 1: and I was like, if I can get college paid for,
Speaker 1: I might not be a math teacher or going to
Speaker 1: be an actual real scientist. I'll find something in college
Speaker 1: that I care about. And at that point, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is the one thing I'm good at. It's the
Speaker 1: one thing I enjoy. I don't know how it's a career,
Speaker 1: and to be quite honest, I don't think I figured
Speaker 1: that out for another decade. But I was still curious
Speaker 1: about these things. And so suddenly six months in it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I like this. I'm gonna take an
Speaker 1: acting class. You know, I'll take a I'll take a
Speaker 1: lighting men. Yeah. At mentors. I mean, he's he's the guy.
Speaker 1: He's the head of the theater arts program at Kalamazoo College,
Speaker 1: and he was the guy who sort of shepherd me
Speaker 1: into the world of performance. He's like, you're funny, you're smart,
Speaker 1: but if you want to know about this stuff, there's
Speaker 1: like there's a legacy here. Go to that. Understand that.
Speaker 1: And he's a theater nerd who's gonna talk to you
Speaker 1: your ear off about Sam Shepherd Ibsen. But he had
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Sweets book something wonderful right away, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you gotta go to Chicago. Let me tell you about
Speaker 1: Nichols and May. This is how comedy started in America
Speaker 1: when it comes to sketch and improv. And so I
Speaker 1: jump in and I'm certainly reading Viola Spolan. I'm going
Speaker 1: to Chicago to watch people improvise on Friday nights. I'm
Speaker 1: driving to Chicago and I'm seeing late night shows at
Speaker 1: the Improv Olympic. And he was really the guy who
Speaker 1: walked me through that I put up my first sketch show.
Speaker 1: He introduced me to people in Chicago. I went to Chicago,
Speaker 1: got to meet the people I was reading about. Year
Speaker 1: is the two one is when I moved to Chicago graduated. Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the first shows I see in Chicago, which
Speaker 1: might have been two thousand, I was still in college
Speaker 1: at the time, I see Rachel Dratch on stage. Uh,
Speaker 1: and she's the funniest. I'm saying, that'll do it. You're like,
Speaker 1: what is this? And you're in live theater. People are
Speaker 1: laughing like they're so engaged. It's smart, it's ridiculous, it's
Speaker 1: alive and it's and it's all you tell me if
Speaker 1: you don't agree. The comedy that I liked when I
Speaker 1: was younger, I watched f Troop and the Monsters, and
Speaker 1: I watched The Adams Family and all these cookie shows.
Speaker 1: They were clever, they were wonderful actors, funny, deadly timing
Speaker 1: and so. But there was a bit of warmth to them.
Speaker 1: They weren't snarky like Rachel. There was an innocence to
Speaker 1: them and a sweetness to them. And that's the thing
Speaker 1: that attracted me most to you was it was not nasty. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of you to say. I think, actually
Speaker 1: you've hit on something that people don't talk a lot
Speaker 1: about with comedy. Often people talk about like the edgy comedians,
Speaker 1: and trust me, I love my Carlin's and I love
Speaker 1: the comedians who can cut to the quick like that.
Speaker 1: But I will say in the improv role that came
Speaker 1: up with your right, there's a warmth because it's an
Speaker 1: art form that's sort of built in collaboration. And one
Speaker 1: of my one of my early coaches was Keegan Michael Key,
Speaker 1: who had moved from Detroit to Chicago. He's this theater nerd,
Speaker 1: who was also the best person I've ever do seen
Speaker 1: do sketch comedy. He was built to do sketch comedy,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I want to work with some
Speaker 1: young students, and I'm like twenty three at the time.
Speaker 1: And so you work with Keegan and he's like the kindest, warmest,
Speaker 1: smartest person you're gonna run into. He's doing this work
Speaker 1: at night. That's just mind blowing. And I think, like,
Speaker 1: like I grew up and watching people like that. I
Speaker 1: loved Python, and you love the Michael Palin's as well,
Speaker 1: who sort of bring like an innocence to it. But
Speaker 1: it's not at the expense of intelligence. Carlin I think
Speaker 1: was edgy and acrid. But everybody he gave it to deserved.
Speaker 1: That's what it is, really, they really did. He's not
Speaker 1: punching down. I think that's you know, that's one of
Speaker 1: the early things. If you're punched it in the right direction,
Speaker 1: take those swings, like whatever your whatever, whatever your tactics are,
Speaker 1: use them, but but but swing in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Now when when you are when you're there, and mentor
Speaker 1: says you should try improv I mean obviously, when someone
Speaker 1: has a lot of academic promise and you come from
Speaker 1: a middle class family, how did your parents feel when
Speaker 1: the scholarship mathlete decides I'm gonna go live in poverty.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm I am, I am fortunate beyond belief.
Speaker 1: I think they were, they were, they weren't continued to
Speaker 1: be my my biggest fans. Like I'm doing basement improv
Speaker 1: shows at nineteen and I'm and they're coming, they're they're
Speaker 1: like the parents who are there amongst amongst a bunch
Speaker 1: of drunk college students at a terrible performance. And I
Speaker 1: think they the one thing my family, which you know,
Speaker 1: as I embark on a family of my own, I
Speaker 1: respect most and got most out of it. My family
Speaker 1: always showed up, my grandparents and we were lucky, we
Speaker 1: were small town count zoo. But if I had a
Speaker 1: basketball game, my family was there. My Grandpa would show up,
Speaker 1: my Grandma would show up, and like they always were there.
Speaker 1: And so when they got to watch me find love
Speaker 1: in this thing, be terrible in this thing, and when
Speaker 1: graduation came, I'm like, I don't exactly know what I
Speaker 1: want to do with my life, but I like, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm interested in this world. The math thing it got
Speaker 1: me through. Now I have no debt. But the theater
Speaker 1: thing I'm curious about. I love Chicago. I was gonna
Speaker 1: give it a year. Did you say the same thing,
Speaker 1: Did you say, I'm gonna a dabble in this. I
Speaker 1: I was bad with deadlines, but I was definitely not
Speaker 1: a dabbler. I think, like still the mindset of a mathematician,
Speaker 1: like junior year, it starts to uh dawn on me.
Speaker 1: It's like, I like Chicago. I think I want to
Speaker 1: give this thing a go. How do I make that work?
Speaker 1: I wish I had the ego to be like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill this thing. I'm gonna walk out and do it.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I need I need a game plan.
Speaker 1: I need to make money. And so I'm junior year.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not thinking about getting that acting job.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about getting that service job that help me
Speaker 1: support trying to get that acting job. So I got
Speaker 1: a catering job by jar so it was I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, I got a catering job, so I
Speaker 1: have references to get a job in Chicago waiting tables, which,
Speaker 1: of course then I never worked waiting tables, but I
Speaker 1: had all the good at like there's not enough caviar
Speaker 1: on top of this. It's a little light of the kids,
Speaker 1: a little bit of I know what you guys are
Speaker 1: doing back there. I respect it. For God's sakes. Give
Speaker 1: me the caviar. We need that. So you're in Chicago.
Speaker 1: How long I'm in Chicago almost ten years? I jumped
Speaker 1: and I burned out. Why why? I mean, I think
Speaker 1: i'd like to say, you know, I always was moving
Speaker 1: to that next thing. I think you get comfortable, like, well,
Speaker 1: here's one thing. It's a great town, and I think
Speaker 1: you know the entertainment industry, there is no path, but
Speaker 1: in the improv world there's the illusion of a path.
Speaker 1: You can start taking classes and then you move up
Speaker 1: a ladder at second City, you get on the touring company,
Speaker 1: and then hopefully you get on one of the stages,
Speaker 1: and then you get on SNL. And there was like
Speaker 1: there the path when you go to Chicago for success.
Speaker 1: That is beneficial for people who don't know how to
Speaker 1: make connections, but it becomes detrimental once you're there too long.
Speaker 1: And so I sort of I got what I could
Speaker 1: get out of it. For five six years, I got better,
Speaker 1: I got connections I got close to getting breaks, and
Speaker 1: then I got a little complacent, and then and then
Speaker 1: I book a thing here, I get a pilot, I
Speaker 1: get a couple of little things. I'm like, funk out,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to New York. Also New York Er
Speaker 1: l A. New York was always romantic to me. And
Speaker 1: uh and also I have the ship on my shoulder
Speaker 1: now of Chicago because I didn't get everything I wanted,
Speaker 1: so funck it, Let's go to go to New York.
Speaker 1: But this point, I'm in my thirties or I am.
Speaker 1: I'm thirty, I think, and and now trying to kind
Speaker 1: of restart. I had. I met her touring at Second City.
Speaker 1: She's a masochist, so she knew what she knew exactly
Speaker 1: what she was getting into. The guy with the math
Speaker 1: scholarship who wanted to become a comedian. She's the patron
Speaker 1: state of Lost cause, yeah, that's right. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: she knew it from the beginning. At that point, she
Speaker 1: had dated somebody who was a clown. She had dated
Speaker 1: some but like she's she's been in the art world.
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, at least this guy she dated,
Speaker 1: the Joker, dated the Joker this guy could be our
Speaker 1: accountant and it could at least trace our economic downfall.
Speaker 1: You can bounce a check, but which is easy because
Speaker 1: it's not much in the bank. To time minutes, I
Speaker 1: can tell you what we don't have. You met her
Speaker 1: where I met her? At Second City? Essentially one of
Speaker 1: my side hustles was teaching, uh, underprivileged schools in Chicagoland area,
Speaker 1: improv after school, and she was doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: and so we suddenly meet there. We get put on
Speaker 1: a touring company for a Second City and get launched
Speaker 1: into a van across America. And you spent two years
Speaker 1: in a van with somebody, Uh, you kind of start
Speaker 1: to develop a relationship. Let you went two years in
Speaker 1: a van with her, I mean, you're your home here
Speaker 1: and there, but it's yeah, you're you're you're I mean
Speaker 1: at the time, it's a ton of van, but you're
Speaker 1: getting paid seventy five dollars a show, so it is
Speaker 1: worth it. You come home after like eight nine shows
Speaker 1: in a month, you pay your rent and then where's
Speaker 1: Laura from? Where Laura's from Downers Grove outside Chicago, Downers Grove.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a Jimmy Stewart movie. I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you if the image you have in your head of
Speaker 1: Downers Grove fits covered bridges, Edmund Gwen with a beard
Speaker 1: winging a ball out in front of Kresky's. They have
Speaker 1: like a claim to fame for the largest flagpole. But
Speaker 1: I looked it up and it's not height, it's width.
Speaker 1: And that's where did she go? She goes to Northwestern
Speaker 1: and she kind of she thinks she's gonna be a poet,
Speaker 1: and she's going into writing programs and then suddenly finds herself,
Speaker 1: uh loving acting. Northwestern is a grade school, finding improv
Speaker 1: finding second city. She we laugh. Megan Marco was in
Speaker 1: one of her classes, which is you know, you kind
Speaker 1: of they deal with jealousy in this world, but when
Speaker 1: you're literal classmate becomes a princess and a movie star,
Speaker 1: you get pretty jealous and Jaden, So Laura's always dealing
Speaker 1: with that. And she finds Chicago kind of the same
Speaker 1: way I did, but from the suburbs, and she's a
Speaker 1: she's a better performer, a little bit more artistic. She
Speaker 1: was doing stuff with other theater companies, a more uh
Speaker 1: straight theater in town. Uh. But we get kind of
Speaker 1: put on this team together and and sort of find
Speaker 1: that we both like the same stuff, we like each other,
Speaker 1: and then we decide buck, let's let's quit this team
Speaker 1: and let's move to New York. And we did it
Speaker 1: about two years after we quit. That. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get to but I think it's interesting how you
Speaker 1: have that if things had played out differently, you said
Speaker 1: that she went to Northwestern and studied poetry or literature.
Speaker 1: What is your degree in poetry? Poetry and creative writing?
Speaker 1: So if you had played your cards differently, you could
Speaker 1: be teaching math at the Kuran Instituted Inn by U.
Speaker 1: Your wife could be an editor at the New Yorker.
Speaker 1: But instead the two of you were in a band
Speaker 1: for two years driving around. Yeah again, you know, emotional
Speaker 1: choices were made. If I had stuck to the mathematical brain,
Speaker 1: and I would be so much more successful right now
Speaker 1: and not stuck in my apartment having not thought through
Speaker 1: what happens when true So when you come to New York,
Speaker 1: you're in Chicago for ten years, you go to New York. Now,
Speaker 1: the overwhelming number of people that I have worked with,
Speaker 1: whether it's Dirty Rock or esn NO like right now,
Speaker 1: the SnO cast is remote for the shows from l A,
Speaker 1: many of them, it's more like live from my bedroom
Speaker 1: in l A. The comedy world is in l A.
Speaker 1: You don't go to l A. Why I don't like
Speaker 1: l A. I've grown to be okay with it. But
Speaker 1: I think l A's and one industry town, which is
Speaker 1: good if you want to get in an industry, and
Speaker 1: I think there's more opportunities there. I think New York
Speaker 1: has always been held this romantic appeal to me. You're
Speaker 1: You're never the most interesting person in the room, and
Speaker 1: I think most of my time in New York has
Speaker 1: has been failing and finding camaraderie with other people who
Speaker 1: are failing along with you. And I think that shared
Speaker 1: suffering brings a connection to New York, a richness to
Speaker 1: New York. Uh that, don't get me wrong. I think
Speaker 1: I we're consistently talking about l A for those opportunities.
Speaker 1: But I think I've always I've always loved the people
Speaker 1: I run into here, and so when we launched into
Speaker 1: moving to New York, we stumbled on the UCB folks.
Speaker 1: We stumbled on people who are like, if you come
Speaker 1: to New York, you're gonna be hustling from day one,
Speaker 1: because it's too expensive, you're leaving something behind and you've
Speaker 1: got skin in the game. And so immediately we made
Speaker 1: our best friends here. We made people who are creative
Speaker 1: in different worlds, were animators, who are actors, who are writers,
Speaker 1: who are chefs, and suddenly, like get populated with this
Speaker 1: this rich, full life. Even if we weren't finding success
Speaker 1: career wise, I feel like our life filled out really
Speaker 1: quickly and beautifully here. And so every time I think
Speaker 1: of l A and we still do, it's it's a
Speaker 1: career decision, but the life decision continues to pull us
Speaker 1: back towards New York, because to me, it's you have kids,
Speaker 1: we have one on the way, and uh, if one
Speaker 1: on the way, we have we have one. Uh even
Speaker 1: we you've been with her, how long now you've been
Speaker 1: We've been now a little over a decade. And only
Speaker 1: now did you decide to get they got I think
Speaker 1: we got engaged three years after dating, held on to
Speaker 1: engagement for another three years. We put that off, and
Speaker 1: when the virus came and shut down the whole business,
Speaker 1: that's when you turned your said let's have it's time
Speaker 1: to double down on humanity. I really think what this
Speaker 1: world needs is more people. This it's going great. Let's
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's a really weird we've with all
Speaker 1: of this. It's been so strange to both consider what's
Speaker 1: happening in the future outside of these four walls. The
Speaker 1: exact moment when it was okay for us to tell
Speaker 1: people that we were pregnant correlated with the stay at
Speaker 1: home orders, and so now this child has been brought
Speaker 1: into a world where every time we announced that he's coming,
Speaker 1: it's met with like, that's great. Also, are you okay?
Speaker 1: There's already this anxiety and that's been attached to this
Speaker 1: little child in the womb. Daily Show correspondent and comedian
Speaker 1: Jordan Clepper. We'll talk Trump in the second half of
Speaker 1: the show, And like many funny men, Clepper is a
Speaker 1: deep thinker about the state of American politics. A few
Speaker 1: years ago, I spoke to the novelist and political observer
Speaker 1: Steve Erickson about how we got to our current woeful
Speaker 1: political state. His answer was especially poignant in light of
Speaker 1: the recent unrest. It's a lack of acknowledgement that keeps
Speaker 1: us from fulfilling the American idea. Whether they're trying to
Speaker 1: rationalize the meaninglessness of Vietnam, or two and fifty years
Speaker 1: of slavery. It maybe in the American DNA too, always
Speaker 1: think that everything is year zero. It might be in
Speaker 1: the American DNA to have cut ourselves aloose from history
Speaker 1: and therefore not ever have to answer for it or
Speaker 1: to it. Trump is not something that happened to America.
Speaker 1: America happened to America, and Trump is the result of that.
Speaker 1: For a link to my full conversation with Steve Erickson
Speaker 1: and his new novel text ericson to seven zero zero one.
Speaker 1: That's E R I c K s O N to
Speaker 1: seven zero one zero one. I'm Ali Baldwin, and this
Speaker 1: is here's the thing. A van and a dream brought
Speaker 1: Jordan Clepper to New York in two thousand eleven. His
Speaker 1: relationship with the network that would make him famous started immediately,
Speaker 1: but not well within a year or two. I sell
Speaker 1: a pilot with Comedy Central, and I get to make
Speaker 1: a pilot, and then I get to have my heartbroken
Speaker 1: when they don't pick up that pilot, and I get
Speaker 1: to hope another one is just around the corner, and
Speaker 1: get close and close, and then it doesn't happen. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, I'm having little work here and there,
Speaker 1: but it's it's probably six years into New York until
Speaker 1: the the big Daily Show break happens. Uh. And two
Speaker 1: years before that, I'm working pretty regularly writing on a
Speaker 1: bunch of jobs, weird MTV two shows, reality shows, whatever
Speaker 1: kind of I can get. But it doesn't happen until
Speaker 1: about six years in when the Daily Show finally it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's here's a legitimate opportunity. And I guess essentially the
Speaker 1: big break you were there for. I think, if I
Speaker 1: if I read the calendar the right way, you were
Speaker 1: there for about a year when John was still about
Speaker 1: a year year and a half with John, so I
Speaker 1: jumped in when John Oliver left to go to do
Speaker 1: the HBO show, and then about a year and then
Speaker 1: John announced he was leaving and we had I think
Speaker 1: like six months more until Trevor came in. So I
Speaker 1: basically got a year and a half with John, a
Speaker 1: year and a half with Trevor, uh, which was wild.
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was a day. I love
Speaker 1: the Daily Show. That was definitely a show that I
Speaker 1: was growing up watching and watching people watching the Coldbets,
Speaker 1: the Corral, the dead back at all is everybody spin
Speaker 1: off from it? You were there how long when Trevor
Speaker 1: was off for about a year and a half, and
Speaker 1: then you know, I uh, and then I went off
Speaker 1: and did the eleven thirties show afterwards, and Trevor was
Speaker 1: really helpful and he was an EP on that as well,
Speaker 1: and stayed close. And now and now I've you know,
Speaker 1: I still do pieces here and there with Daily Show,
Speaker 1: but as far as like uh, day in and day out,
Speaker 1: I almost split almost exactly a year and a half
Speaker 1: with John year and a half with Trevor, which was
Speaker 1: which was really like such a mind shift because you
Speaker 1: come into John and John was tell me, what would
Speaker 1: tell me about the difference. I walk into John Stewart,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, a guy I've been watching on television
Speaker 1: for years, somebody who's one of the smartest political minds
Speaker 1: out there, and I'd just to be able to like
Speaker 1: to audition in front of him, you know, took uh,
Speaker 1: some steely reserve and some bullshit confidence that I had
Speaker 1: to muster, and then to walk in day one. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember my first day. It happened so quick, and
Speaker 1: they kind of hire you because you can jump into
Speaker 1: the fire and day one I walk in. I had
Speaker 1: auditioned three days before Crimea had been invaded, and they're
Speaker 1: talking about it in the morning meeting and they're like, Jordan,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do a chat on this, come to John's office.
Speaker 1: And suddenly I'm brought it to John Stewart's office my
Speaker 1: first day. I'm twenty five minutes into the day and
Speaker 1: John's not only talking about what happened in Crimea, He's
Speaker 1: talking about two op eds he's already read this morning.
Speaker 1: I fucking don't know where Crimea is, but I have to.
Speaker 1: I have to brainstorm with John fun ideas for the
Speaker 1: show that night, and you're just in it. But I
Speaker 1: think like that show. He's like, I only hire people
Speaker 1: that I trust who can make this thing happen. And
Speaker 1: so I learned so much from him. He was clearly
Speaker 1: such a mentor, and he was so I think one
Speaker 1: of the virtues he had that always resonates beyond kindness
Speaker 1: and intelligence is decisiveness. Like he knew what he wanted,
Speaker 1: he knew how to get to it. You'd film a
Speaker 1: piece that need to kind of a minute and a
Speaker 1: half so that I could go to air that night
Speaker 1: and he'd make those decisions while the live audience is there,
Speaker 1: um and under a minute he'd be like, we kind
Speaker 1: of here, we cut here and make sure you edit
Speaker 1: from this point. He just knew what he wanted, and
Speaker 1: I think that was something as I got to move.
Speaker 1: It's very much like Lauren I I would imagine. So
Speaker 1: Lauren's genius was too to be on the deck of
Speaker 1: the carrier. There the water is coming up of the deck,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's just really pretty tumultuous
Speaker 1: to put the thing together and deciding, you know, what
Speaker 1: is the show in terms of the flow of the
Speaker 1: show and what works now. Leno Leno of course would
Speaker 1: interview people on the street. And as I think I
Speaker 1: told you when we were talking on the phone, when
Speaker 1: I was sucking up to you to get you to
Speaker 1: do this show with it took multiple phone calls. I
Speaker 1: really was holding out, Yeah, you got the Greater's ice
Speaker 1: cream that I sent you. Let's let's hurry this up,
Speaker 1: Aule the But you know, Leno would do those interviews
Speaker 1: on the street with people and it was you know,
Speaker 1: like borderline appalling. You thought to myself, my god, I
Speaker 1: mean this is stage because they were so stupid. What
Speaker 1: state is Washington, d C? You know, Washington State? And
Speaker 1: I didn't find it funny. It was so stupid, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Now you go off. When I
Speaker 1: watched you do this, I mean I'd be howling laughing,
Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't laugh at a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And you played it flawlessly. You know the first time
Speaker 1: you did this, Describe what it was like. You didn't
Speaker 1: feel threatened or you felt relatively safe. I will see.
Speaker 1: What was interesting was, you know, with the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: you do Man on the Streets, and I had done
Speaker 1: Man on the Streets a little bit before for other topics. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then when the Trump phenomenon came, the first time
Speaker 1: I went to one of those rallies, I remember, I
Speaker 1: think it was January of that year, what have you?
Speaker 1: And we started hearing about these rallies, hearing about the
Speaker 1: support that he had, and I think what I was
Speaker 1: immediately shocked by one was the excitement surrounding him. People
Speaker 1: were waiting in the snow. I remember our first piece,
Speaker 1: We're waiting in the snow for hours, uh, and they were.
Speaker 1: They immediately jumped into Trump talking points in a way
Speaker 1: that the people I talked to beforehand. Usually, usually you
Speaker 1: do a man on the street. People are really reserved
Speaker 1: about what they actually feel. They understand the lines of
Speaker 1: human decency or the opinions they should have out loud
Speaker 1: and the opinions they should keep to themselves. And what
Speaker 1: you started to see a Trump rallies right off the
Speaker 1: bat is that that line shifted. They like, for example,
Speaker 1: the birtherism, h Barack Obama secret Muslim those ideas were
Speaker 1: very fringey. And I remember, even having done man on
Speaker 1: the street stuff before Trump, you never get people to
Speaker 1: talk about that. That would be such a diamond in
Speaker 1: the rough that somebody actually revealed that. But suddenly at
Speaker 1: these Trump situations, people were becoming revelatory. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: I can share this now because the guy I'm going
Speaker 1: in to see is going to say the same thing,
Speaker 1: so I can. I can begin to share that. And
Speaker 1: so right off the bat it was surprisingly I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say antagonistic, it was almost jubilant. People were excited. They
Speaker 1: were excited about this guy. They didn't feel threatened. Over
Speaker 1: the course of the next six months, the relationship to
Speaker 1: the press became antagonistic. We would get heckled wherever we went,
Speaker 1: and there'll be threats of violence. Um, you have to
Speaker 1: have security with you. We did, yeah, and I mean,
Speaker 1: and the security keeps building as we continue to go.
Speaker 1: The last one I went out, we had a few.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a mix, like if you have a camera,
Speaker 1: you're a target at those rallies and you'll get yelled at,
Speaker 1: people will hound you info wars might try to come
Speaker 1: up and and bomb you. Uh. But you're also met
Speaker 1: with people who are like, I want to engage with you,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to fight with you, I
Speaker 1: wanna I wanna give you my p O V. And
Speaker 1: so uh, I want to straighten you out. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the thing with we always say with like daily
Speaker 1: show pieces, people ask like why did they talk to you,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's one people like to win and
Speaker 1: think they can win, and two people want to be
Speaker 1: on television. And so even though you have a paranoia
Speaker 1: of the press, you have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: want the attention of a camera and have the ego
Speaker 1: of victory. Right, we talked on the phone before, but
Speaker 1: you were talking to that one woman saying, uh, you
Speaker 1: know marriage equality, do you think a gay couple should
Speaker 1: have the same rights as No, I don't, I really don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair to the gay couple. Well, no,
Speaker 1: but the ringlet couple they work so hard, you know,
Speaker 1: and a gay couple they want more. Do you when
Speaker 1: you say more, do you mean equal? Yeah? They want
Speaker 1: in there and that's just too much. And the way
Speaker 1: you lead them, the way you pull them slowly over
Speaker 1: to the cliff. That one guy who was talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, respecting, what's an American ideal that we treat
Speaker 1: women with respect? You tell me about your shirt, Well,
Speaker 1: let's it say Trump that bitch? You know that? To me,
Speaker 1: that's like a comedy classic, that tape of your But
Speaker 1: at the same time, do you feel like that's become
Speaker 1: like shooting fish in a barrel? Did you ever feel
Speaker 1: like you were punching down, you know, with the with
Speaker 1: the rallies, I feel Donald Trump plays to his crowd,
Speaker 1: and I think his crowd dictates the policy more often
Speaker 1: than not the way in which the uh the administration
Speaker 1: responds to their wants and their needs. So I think
Speaker 1: the pieces that I feel most proud of when we
Speaker 1: go out to these rallies are those ones where we're
Speaker 1: essentially testing the thesis. We're testing whether or not if
Speaker 1: he's going to use reading the training script as the baseline,
Speaker 1: if he's gonna welcome his fan base into that conversation.
Speaker 1: I think they deserve to be interrogated, a cross examined,
Speaker 1: and by who else than somebody who was a mock
Speaker 1: trial national champion. I mean this, this is my opinion,
Speaker 1: and I on the show, I try to avoid too
Speaker 1: much Trump bashing, But but do you believe that these
Speaker 1: people you meet in the heartland, so to speak, they
Speaker 1: simply believe that Trump was the person that they were
Speaker 1: sold on The Apprentice, that he was this crack executive,
Speaker 1: the super smart, rich guy who knew how to run
Speaker 1: a company, and he was decisive. How much do you
Speaker 1: think the Apprentice and his persona from that came into
Speaker 1: the I think I think that's a large part of
Speaker 1: the equation. I think Donald Trump has been a brand
Speaker 1: in America for decades. And you realize there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are political walks, and we'll follow the
Speaker 1: day to day, but there's most of this country's too
Speaker 1: busy working other jobs to focus on that. And the
Speaker 1: brand of Trump has been for so long one of success.
Speaker 1: He reminds me of the CEO of a lot of
Speaker 1: these companies. I go to my dad's brick conferences, and
Speaker 1: I go to things in the middle of Pennsylvania or Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and I will see, like, oh, there's the big conference
Speaker 1: where everybody comes together and they see the CEO, and
Speaker 1: the CEO loves to have a flashy car, a big suit,
Speaker 1: allowed tie, and for a lot of people, that's what
Speaker 1: success is. And Trump has been the brand of that
Speaker 1: kind of success for so long that Trump supporters see
Speaker 1: that and that has been what they're aiming for. They
Speaker 1: see that as a well lived life. He's got a
Speaker 1: model wife, he's got a gold apartment, and he says
Speaker 1: what's on his mind. That's what they want to be.
Speaker 1: I think you mix that with uh people needing to
Speaker 1: feel validated like their team is winning. And he's been
Speaker 1: so good at the tribalistic like I'm not wearing a
Speaker 1: John McCain had. He was standing for people. Trump stands
Speaker 1: for himself and says, you can be on my team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean us. If we're going specifically to rallies, you
Speaker 1: realize we're not engaging in conversations about what actually could
Speaker 1: happen within this country. I'm picking on you in a
Speaker 1: way that you're treating like an Ohio State fan. I'm
Speaker 1: a Michigan fan. I'm like, oh, these are the conversations
Speaker 1: I have with the buck Eyes talking about their team,
Speaker 1: because this is your identity, this isn't your political belief
Speaker 1: and so I think liberals are gonna be are gonna
Speaker 1: be frustrated, continue to be frustrated, waiting for that thing
Speaker 1: that is going to change people's point of view on
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Well, you know, to me, the president sees
Speaker 1: the world from a vantage point that no other human
Speaker 1: being could ever attain ever, and it's changed as a
Speaker 1: result of that. With one exception, there's only one man
Speaker 1: who is as hate filled, myopic, self seeking now as
Speaker 1: he was when he started the job, and maybe even more.
Speaker 1: For change, you need, you need at least an ounce
Speaker 1: of humility where you might not know everything. And when
Speaker 1: that comes asking an expert, asking someone else, or the
Speaker 1: ability to be to be moved. I'll take the information
Speaker 1: work I can get. And I think like it's been
Speaker 1: been set up so that it's only a conflict, and
Speaker 1: I think Trump only survives conflict by doubling down when
Speaker 1: we talk about when you're talking to people. I can
Speaker 1: play logic games when I talk to folks. So I
Speaker 1: think what is often cathartic about talking to people on
Speaker 1: the streets is Trump makes proclamations that fall apart when
Speaker 1: they're pressed with logic, and I think he leaves it
Speaker 1: to his space to attempt to justify it, and there's
Speaker 1: no justification behind most of these things. Well, what's one
Speaker 1: memory among many? I'm sure of a moment for you
Speaker 1: where you actually even you even you've seen who, who's
Speaker 1: who's seen all the ingredients in the Buoya Bays of
Speaker 1: American political thought. Oh my god, there's you know, one
Speaker 1: of the last rallies I went to, there was a
Speaker 1: moment that sort of encapsulated everything. I thought. It was
Speaker 1: beautifully honest. There was a woman I was talking to.
Speaker 1: It was it was right around it was during impeachment
Speaker 1: and as the storyline was going about whether or not
Speaker 1: you know, Trump is blocking subpoenas, he's not let anybody testify, um,
Speaker 1: Bolton won't testify, um. And there's this narrative going on
Speaker 1: which is like, well, he claims on one side that
Speaker 1: he's completely innocent, uh, and but he won't let any
Speaker 1: information in to prove that innocence. So we go out
Speaker 1: to talk about impeachment and there was this like should
Speaker 1: these people testify to his innocence if that's what you believe.
Speaker 1: This woman was very clear. She was like, you can
Speaker 1: tell he hasn't done anything wrong just by his demeanor.
Speaker 1: I mean he would be trying to hide things. If
Speaker 1: he were blocking witnesses or evidence or something like that,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, you're hiding something. But otherwise, right,
Speaker 1: he said, let him see everything, let him I'll prove
Speaker 1: whatever you want. You want me to prove. Right, But
Speaker 1: Trump is blocking witnesses. I don't care. I don't care.
Speaker 1: And I was like, you don't care. Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: I believe you. I think that's true. It's like, this
Speaker 1: is just a game, this conversation we're having is this
Speaker 1: is a ridiculous statement. He said, it's contradictory all of
Speaker 1: these things. I heard a beautiful quote that was about like,
Speaker 1: facts don't always tell you who you are, but contradiction
Speaker 1: often does reveal you. I think it was Hilton Owls
Speaker 1: who said that, and I was like, oh, yeah, in
Speaker 1: these contradictions, we see the warring faction of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I believe this he's in. It doesn't matter if you
Speaker 1: believe he's in you you believe this guy, you don't
Speaker 1: trust me the media telling you something else, And if
Speaker 1: I give you the facts, it's not going to change it.
Speaker 1: You don't care. You've already you've already cast your ballot.
Speaker 1: The show I did after the Daily Show called The Opposition.
Speaker 1: The golden rule of that character was, may you only
Speaker 1: hear from others what you've already been helling yourself. That
Speaker 1: show lasted how long? Not long enough is what I
Speaker 1: would say, a little under a year. And when a
Speaker 1: show like that doesn't work out, what do you attribute
Speaker 1: that too? Well, I mean it was because you were
Speaker 1: doing so well with them. Well, I think like we
Speaker 1: jumped into that. They were at a hard time fielding slot. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's hard to put up a late night show, to
Speaker 1: be quite honest. Everybody was like, it takes a it
Speaker 1: takes some time, a year to two years to get
Speaker 1: that audience. The audience numbers were okay, they weren't blowing
Speaker 1: everything out of the water. And the network they were like,
Speaker 1: there's six late night shows right now, you're like the seventh.
Speaker 1: We feel there's Trump fatigue, and they were they were
Speaker 1: bummed I wasn't able to go on the road, to
Speaker 1: be honest, and they were like that that's why that
Speaker 1: basically ended, because they were like, we think it's overcrowded
Speaker 1: right now. Can we shift you to do a show
Speaker 1: where you're on the road the whole time? And it
Speaker 1: was kind of a bummer, to be quite honest. You
Speaker 1: build up a whole show around you know, you have
Speaker 1: a eight plus people working for you, and you're like,
Speaker 1: we we have a couple we have a couple of
Speaker 1: years to get this thing going. I think we had
Speaker 1: some some great stuff things we were proud of, but
Speaker 1: I think the numbers and the crowded marketplace pushed us
Speaker 1: out pretty quick, and and the network was in a
Speaker 1: weird place, continues to be in a weird place trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to compliment the daily show in
Speaker 1: these times of lots of late nine uh is like
Speaker 1: traditional TV sitcom for camera, single camera, Will and Gray's
Speaker 1: thirty Rock or the Office, that kind of thing. Is
Speaker 1: that something that appeals to you or do you assiduously
Speaker 1: avoid that kind of thing? The casting director usually helps
Speaker 1: me avoid those kinds of decisions. And they actually they've
Speaker 1: been vigilant and not giving me those opportunities. Traditional television sitcoms,
Speaker 1: all of that are things I'm curious and I'm dabbled
Speaker 1: in here and there. I think as I've as I've
Speaker 1: spent time getting that daily show opportunity did shift my mindset,
Speaker 1: where before that it was I will do anything and everything.
Speaker 1: And I still curious and love the experience of those things.
Speaker 1: But I've really gotten a lot out of being able
Speaker 1: to to be a part of projects where you get
Speaker 1: to control kind of the point of view in the voice,
Speaker 1: and so the projects to be able to go out
Speaker 1: and produce my own pieces or specials or write my
Speaker 1: own stuff has kind of been the priority to do
Speaker 1: your own thing, to do my own thing, and I think,
Speaker 1: like that's incredibly attractive, and I think like, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: aware enough to know that the world doesn't necessarily need
Speaker 1: my acting chops. Those are taken care of, thanks a
Speaker 1: lot Alec for grabbing all the big roles that would
Speaker 1: have obviously gone to me. Sure, but I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: but I think I I think I know how to
Speaker 1: wrangle points of view and kind of speak to some
Speaker 1: of these other topics doing the opposition. Doing those shows,
Speaker 1: it was exhausting but also liberating to kind of to
Speaker 1: get to work through the ship. You're purists. That I'm
Speaker 1: a purist, but I'm gonna be a father. So anything
Speaker 1: you have for God's sakes. Comedian and generally available person
Speaker 1: Jordan Clapper. His two documentary series, Jordan Clapper Solves Guns
Speaker 1: and Clapper are funny, nuanced dives into complex issues. They're
Speaker 1: available on Amazon and YouTube. By Malick Baldwin and this
Speaker 1: is Here's the thing