S4E3: Jordan Klepper and Teapot Dome

He literally got an entire herd of cattle at one point from one of these tycoons.

You gotta start asking questions. I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.

You show up at the cabinet meeting and there's four hundred cattle there? Where do you get things like? Don't worry about it?

Why do you smell like like cowshit? It's these layers. I have to wear all these layers. What am I gonna do? I wear these layers.

Welcome to Snapoo, a show about history's greatest screw ups. I'm your host ed helms, and this week I am talking to an Emmy winning comedian, writer, producer, and contributor and co host of the Daily Show. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing, insightful and dare I say delightful Jordan Klepper.

Welcome, Jordan, Oh, thank you? Dare you say it? I'm glad you said it?

I dare you?

Dare you took the swing? Everybody wondered. They were all wondered, is he gonna? Is he across the rubicon? And stay delightful? He did it right.

Off the bat.

Don't don't make me a liar. I know this does I was gonna say I had since a hotbar. I was going to take you down today, and I have.

I have just a stack of information about you and about your past that I was going to use against you, wield it with certainty and aggression. But now that you've labeled me as delightful, I'm going to set it aside and I'm gonna be.

Kind delight me Jordan, all right, now, before we get into today's snap who, I'm just curious a little bit about your background.

We've known each other a while.

We obviously share the Daily Show, as I was on the show back in the early two thousands, a long time ago. I'm curious sort of what your path to the Daily Show was.

You know, the Daily Show. I was. I was a fan of The Daily Show.

I remember in college watching it, watching John I was like my first into giving a shit about politics in the world around me. Up until that point, I was sort of just a kid in Kalazoo, Michigan and only cared about what was happening with a two mile radius, which in Kalamazoo, Michigan was not a lot. It was mostly it was mostly Little League and people talking about Derek Jeter.

Can I say anybody from Kalamazoo, Michigan. You have to say their full name and from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and you immediately sound like a depression era business mogul Jordan Klapper from Kalamazoo, Michigan. It just is, It's got such a great zinger vibe to it.

It sounds like a Doctor Seuss town. In fact, the buttons in Kalamazoo, Michigan say, yes, there really is a Kalamazoo. You approach Kalamazoo with a disbelief that it actually exists, and the people there will will sell you a button to try to prove we are a real thing. We are a small town in southwest Michigan. Embrace the weirdness of it all.

So you're in Kalamazoo, Michigan and you're just a comedy fan.

I'm that comedy Yeah, I think basically, I'm a whose line is it anyway?

Improv guy in high school?

But am I'm a nerd who gets a math scholarship to go to the tiny liberal arts college Kalamazoo College as a math major with eyes towards finding something that's inspiring to me. And I find comedy. I find improv.

Now, did you always have an inkling towards sort of commentary or satire or political engagement of any kind or was that really a product of joining the Daily Show?

For me, it was always exciting to do shows that were commenting on something that was happening. You jump into the Daily Show and that just gets bumped up tenfold and at my reading level, which I thought in Chicago and in New York was a pretty good I was like, I'm pretty well informed. I like walk into those offices at the Daily Show and CRIMEA was invaded. The first day I walked in and John wanted to do a peace on crime and I'm like, I don't know where

I will say, That's something I miss from my years on the Daily Show. I could, like, like a couple of years into the Daily Show, I could step into any like topical conversation about politics or sort of current events and just be on fire, like I had everything at random access, because you're just steeped in it day

Oh? I love it all right?

Well, given your day job involves a gosh darn lot of keeping up with political dramas, I thought it would be perfect to journey into a snap foo today involving one of the wildest early political scandals our country has ever seen. In fact, before Watergate, it might have been the biggest most sensational scandal America had even been through, filled with all kinds of presidential corruption and bribery, which will surely remind you of absolutely nothing going on right now?

Do you want me to connect this to anything? Because it feels like sci fi?

Right now? What you're pitching me?

Ed? Right?

Are you ready? I'm ready? Let's jump in?

All right?

Great?

We begin our journey in nineteen twenty alongside a man who several contemporaneous publications described as quote milk toast. This description, of course, refers to a man of weak character who is indecisive and or easily influenced, all of which will come into play very shortly. Milk toast is kind of a rude nickname. Did you have any nicknames, Jordan Klepper.

You know, milktos would have been a fine one for me. I would have accepted milk toast. I think I've been as pale as what I could imagine the delicacy of milk toast is. I was jordy Bean to begin with, Jordy Bean, jordy Bean because I was thin as a string bean. I have this weird long head, so that became the case. And then when I got into an improv group, I gave myself a nickname Truck, which was absurd to the people there, and I was called out for the absurdity of giving yourself a nickname.

Can't give yourself a nickname. That's illegal, that was the argument.

And yet that becomes in and of itself a bit about giving yourself a nickname. And now fast forward fifteen years later, I'm Truck to a small group of people in Chicago, and I proudly I probably did it myself.

That's a very cool nickname. That's the problem with nicknames you pick yourself. Is like they're too cool, the truful. Hey, here comes old truck. What'd he go to?

He's got some good improv up his leaves, has got great improv.

And truck, of course, was somebody who who at that time drove his parents dodge intrepid. So I've gotten nowhere near a truck.

Sure, but you hauled good improv skills. I ain't that the true it's sixty wheels baby.

Well, underneath the feeble exterior of this particular person was a sexual miscreant with a penchant for scandal. In fact, he's on record having told the press quote it's a good thing I'm not a woman. I would always be pregnant. I can't say no this guy, that's a fun guy to hang out with. I guess, I guess. So, yeah, he's just sort of like a yes man. All right, I'm in whatever you.

Got, you know what.

Honestly, in the nineteen twenties, for a phrase that starts it's a good thing of not a woman dot dot dot, that was probably that. That's probably the nicest answer you're going to find.

I guess. So that's what that's a modern man right there.

Lovely, he didn't bring in any other minorities to make fun of or hound. Perhaps that comes later in the story. Right now, that's a that's a that's a PG answer for nineteen twenty all right.

Any guess who we're talking about? Oh God, I no, I'm at a loss.

Well, it's the twenty ninth President of the United States, Warren G.

Harding. It's Harding, that's who. It's Harding. We're talking about Harding. It's classic. Yeah.

His wife's biographer pegged his number of mistresses at seven, including the wife of one of his best friends. In fact, the steamy affair was so problematic, none other than the Republican National Committee paid the woman a two thousand dollars monthly stipend on top of a twenty five thousand dollars trip to Japan and China, just so she'd be far out of the spotlight while our mister milk Toast campaigned for the American presidency.

We were doing that back then.

We were sending we were sending women who were having affairs to Japan. I mean that's a long trip. Yeah, that's a very long trip.

Also, like kind of a nice little silver lining to an affair. Likely, yes, get a trip to China.

You know, you know, it was hard enough and so expensive to see any other culture at that day and age. Probably your most effective bet was to sleep with the president and see if the government would pay for it.

Yeah, there you go, twenty five thousand dollars trip to China and Japan. That was the cheapest rate you could get at the time. A lot of powerful men have affairs.

Here we go, and I told you we can't talk about this, and we can't talk about this. Okay, don't put this on me, he said, We're just gonna talk history. We're going to talk history. We can't go into all of my infidelities at please, it's dangling right in front of us. You're you are known for having thousands of affairs. No, but honestly, it's well into the summer of nineteen twenty three and we're and Harding is nearing the end of his first term. All those twirling allegations of misconduct are

I love that. That's Florence flow hard He had to be a flow, right, you take flow? Yeah? At that time. Of course, she's a flow. You go with flow, You go with the flow.

Yeah, So Warren and Flow set off on a two month adventure to show some serious leadership and earn back voters trust. Face to face, there's any even a semi wholesome photo of Harding at the helm of a locomotive in Alaska. Here do we have that photo, handy? Can we take a look?

Oh? Was that? I guess he's in there? He was, like, he's hanging out the window there.

I mean, they might not have had zoom technology, but the photographer could have walked up a little closer. Correct, Yeah, this I assumed this wasn't a movie locomotive.

Yeah, you know, I I think you're right.

Although I tell you, I tell you, and you zoom in on this right now, and I look and I'm like, oh, yeah, that guy fox right right? I mean, yeah, you see that. You look at that? Look at that glove.

Look at that that the creepy glove that he's wearing. I don't know, he's a he's kind of a lot going on there.

Well.

So he called this giant pr stunt the Voyage of Understanding, and it surprisingly held some historical significance. It was the first ever instance of a sitting president visiting the remote regions of Alaska as well as Canada. How are we doing with Canada right now?

Do you think?

Do you think relationshis are better or worse than they were back in nineteen twenty three?

Oh God, I will yeah.

I hate to say it. I think we're on a downward spiral with Canada.

I don't know why. It's so random, and it is. It's so random.

It is like, why the hate Canada? Why are you coming at us with so day?

Yes?

So what we talk about making you the fifty first saint or throw of you?

Yes, we're the fun older brother who's ribbing you right now. Enjoy it. You're part of the conversation. Welcome.

So throughout this tour it wasn't just the scandalous affairs that were weighing on Old Warren G.

Harding.

There was also something else going on, something way worse. During the boat ride in Alaska, Harding anxiously asked his Commerce secretary Herbert Hoover.

Yes, that Hoover for.

Advice, he said, and I quote, if you knew of a great scandal in your administration, would you for the good of the country and the party, expose it publicly, or would you bury it? Jordan, what's the right answer here? You know what, I think we all know.

You bury that thing so deep, so deep you try to.

Yeah, you try to find a cave and fill it with concrete.

Fill it, fill it with concrete, and then and then you blame whatever remnants on whoever you want to go down, whoever you're running against next.

Yeah, that's the right advice, obviously, Yes, that's the American advice. So well, Hoover emphatically said, you gotta you gotta tell the American people they deserve to know. But to your point, Harding ignored this sage wisdom and tried to keep this mysterious scandal under wraps. It wouldn't stay hidden for very long, as massive political scandals tend to do. It started to emerge. There was a dark cloud forming over Harding's presidency, and this cloud was very much in the shape.

Of a teapot.

Yes, that's right, Jordan Klepper, Do you know much about the teapot dome scandal?

The teapot dome scandal.

I'd like to say that rings a bell, but I don't think I know a thing about it.

It's like a great history.

It just has like like I can picture sort of like political cartoons of the time of the day with like a teapot, of which there were many, but it feels evocative.

I remember before.

Digging into this, I was like, yeah, what exactly is that?

Well it is.

It is one of the biggest scandals in American political history. So let's rewind a bit. So he's on this tour in nineteen twenty three to sort of bolster his reelection. But now let's go back to nineteen twenty one. What exactly was Teapot Dome. Well, first off, Teapot Dome is a real place. It's a landmark rock formation in Wyoming

Oh wait, is this that's Teapot Dome.

I think this is a modern photo. This is teapot this is there's actually there are old photos of Teapot Dome where the spout is still intact. The spout was knocked off by a tornado in nineteen sixty two. But this, uh, and I think this is this is after that.

Yeah, if you got it without a spout, yeah, I mean we're just talking. We're talking crackles. I'm seeing, I'm seeing castle. Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing some phallic representation there.

I mean, but you have to admit.

You have to admit it does also look short and stout, you know what.

I do have to admit that, you know what it Frankly, it looks tall to me. Everything around it makes it look tunny.

Not sure.

Here is its handle, here is its spout? But there is no I know you're right, it's not. I'm supposed to trust you.

Yeah, you've already instilled that there's more information that being hidden away, and now I have to trust you about this so called spout and handle on this rock formation.

In nineteen twenty one, the newly elected Harding made an interesting move. He shifted control of these oil reserves from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Now why in the hell would he want to do that? Mind you, this was a time when there was a lot of debate on whether to conserve the country's natural resources or to allow private industry to take hold of these resources and milk America Drive for the benefit of Yes, you

Does he become the fall guy? Is this one of those American stories? This is great? My name is Mud kind of situation.

Kind of this is and this is a point of contention. So Fall actually does become the fall guy of this story. And a lot of people think that that is the origin of the term fall guy. That is disputed. It is apparently not the origin, but it's awfully convenient. He's Harding's new Secretary of the Interior and a former senator from New Mexico. Fall was also a rancher, lawyer, and poker addict. I wasn't everybody in the twenties who downed plenty of whiskey, didn't everybody in the twenties in the.

Midst of prohibition. He was a man in the twenties, Yeah, exactly.

He was just a dude in the twenties. Now we've got a photo of him Ooh.

I like this.

He's very scandalous. Doesn't it look like he's holding something creepy, whether it's his genitals or like there's he looks like he's hiding something.

He looks I mean, well, the handlebar mustache definitely alludes to a man who is hiding something. Although the quality of that coat, I always, I'm always it's amazing the quality of the clothing of that time.

I agree from right, Look how thick that coat is.

But no crazy thing is like every but he wore a suit all the time in the twenties, Like even you would see even like like a dirt poor farmer, like out working in the fields, like they're wearing a suit for some reason, or like you know, like beggars on the street of New York City, they're wearing suits like.

Everybody holds suits.

And the sweat got the smell of the twenties. It feels like that's something you can't encapsulate. They could only imagine if everybody's wearing three piece suits.

Wools and child washing.

The dry cleaning industry had not come into full fruition. Oh they didn't, chemicals, No, so they're they're just they're sweating away and the smells of.

This man, this this Fall guy.

Yeah, I can only imagine.

Now.

Harding had campaigned on a slogan of return to normalcy. Fall was not on board with normal sea. It turns out he really coveted power and wealth and to get it he needed access to those reserves. Almost immediately he uh secretly commenced his money grubbing intentions. He leased the navel oil reserves at Teapot Dome and also a place called Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, to two private oil tycoons, Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil and Edward L.

Does anybody know that? As I'm in New York? Would I have known that? Would people who live on Doheny Drive know that?

They probably don't know for whom Doheiny Drive is named, But now they do.

And they really are provided service? Ed Are you really they're thrilled?

This is really the point of this podcast is just to give people useless information.

Can you tell me why why Third Avenue is called Third Avenue? Is there a story behind that here in Brooklyn?

That one's tricky. Yeah, there was a There was an Arnold j Third was a.

Local bridge building tycoon. No, it was a poker offiicionado if I recall, of course.

So these deals that are our dear friend Albert B. Fall made with Sinclair and Doheny, these deals were made without competitive bidding, and Fall justified this by saying it was quote for the public good and national security. But then all of a sudden a weird thing started to happen, which is that his bank account started looking very shall we say well oiled?

We should say that that's the yeah, exactly, thank you.

At the time, Harding doesn't know his secretary of the interior is being like shady as hell.

Do you do you believe that?

Do you think he was totally oblivious or do you think he was just turning a blind eye?

I you know, I gotta believe it's blind. I'm often confused about how people communicated pre cell phone era, So the fact that they had no easy way to communicate. I'll give him little leeway. I don't know how fast these horses are. Back of those days, that train looked like it wasn't moving very fast either. So you know, I'll give him perhaps he's not up to the moment informed, but I don't know. You've given me very little, little to rest my head when terms in terms of trusting Warren Garding.

Well, it turns out there's actually a good reason to believe that Harding was relatively unaware.

At this time.

President Harding was quite busy dealing with the extensive aftermath of World War One, jostling through labor disputes, and flirting with women not named Florence. Still, you'd think he might have noticed when Fall started receiving gifts and loans totaling over four hundred thousand dollars, which in today's dollars would be a little over seven million dollars. He literally got an entire herd of cattle at one point from one of these tycoons.

So, yeah, you gotta start asking questions. I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.

You show up at the cabinet meeting and there's four hundred cattle there, Why do you stink?

Why do you smell like like cowshit. Just be honest, weall like these layers. I have to wear all these layers.

What am I gonna do? I wear these layers? I guess we all stink a little bit, right, It's we're wearing woolf. Okay.

But it's not just how much money he was receiving, it was how obvious he was about it. I mean, the guy was living large in DC, buying up ranches, handing out cash, strutting around like a gilded age Gordon get Go with a bolo tie. Now are you a frugal guy? Like if you fell into this kind of money, would you be chill about it? Or would you be like putting on like a suit and hit in the nightclubs?

Oh yeah, see, I don't think I'm creative enough to spend money like that. My mom told me when I when I got I got a show after the Daily Show and I got a I was.

Like, oh my god, I got a TV show. What I do with this? Mama?

I was like, you need a good chair? She goes, what I would buy would be an EMS chair, and I was like, I don't even know what an EMS chair is. And then I googled it, and for the next two weeks all I thought about was ems chairs and that was the thing I bought. I was like, oh, you know what I will buy. I'll buy a chair that I'll have for the rest of my life. So that's that's the one fancy thing that.

Advice I love because it's just sort of like, yes, like little creature comforts, they're important and they kind of make there's these little things that just make your life experience nice.

All right.

So now speaking of making instant millions, According to a Senate survey, the three reserves, these big oil reserves held an estimated four hundred and thirty five million barrels of oil, which at the time would have been equivalent to the amount of oil produced by the country as a whole up to that point in time. Now, crazy fact, that number was well under the actual amount of oil that

That's what gets it.

Nine times out of ten, it's that person who wants to strut struck, you know, don't do it. Don't wear that fancy don't wear that fancy suit. I think that's like a plot in The Godfather What are the Godfathers?

Yeah, weirdly, I think that the flagrancy of like using your Sinclair trucks to transport sort of it'll be gotten oil speaks to the fact that they didn't think there was any risk here. Like it was like almost like a cold thing. It's like, yeah, yeah, we're just doing shady business and then everybody knows it.

Who cares?

I mean, it's it speaks to one of the truest thing. Not to bring up mister Donald J. Trump, but if we're connected to comments like when when Trump got called out for not paying taxes, you know, he holds it up to like, yeah, because I'm smart. Right, There's always been an idea with the billionaire class that like proof of my expertise and acumen come in the fact that I get away with shits.

Yeah, and so you see.

That there, it's like, oh my god, how'd you get away with that? It's like, I'm smart. So this this is what I get for being so smart.

Yeah, just let's not even bother asking the questions of character about any of that stuff. Buddy, that's a black hole that we could go down, but I'm gonna keep going one. Wyoming Senator John B. Kendrick was pestered with questions from other local oil men, mostly as to why they never had a shot at least sing the land the teapot dome. Suspicions kept growing, they grew and grew. The Denver Post followed soon after with a front page expose calling the events quote one of the baldest public

But the way they're framed, I mean, you think about Watergate, you think about uh uh, you know, the what was the the Oppenheimer when when he was investigated, and I think all that red scare stuff, they're not always used in the best of best of ways. And I think like the Mueller investigation was such a you know, I think that's the the or the January sixth investigation sure

Yeah, that's pretty heartbreaking when that happens. I agree, there was one. One of my favorites is definitely We covered

To go full circle on this, I told you how I got into the world of improv and comedy, and it was doing improv and my roommate fellow improviser in college was Frank Church, the grandson of Senator Frank Church.

Way one hundred percent so cool. Are you still in touch? I am still? And he grew up in Idaho. He grew up in New York.

Because if if I don't want to bastardize Frank's life, but I feel like, uh, Frank Church was such a hero in Idaho and and ran for I think ran for president as well, or attempted to. And then his son, my Frank's father became came a large priest, cut into the stars in.

New York and so fascinating.

Yeah, and so Frank, my Frank grew up and grew up in New York and then came to Kalma Zoo.

That's that's so wild. That is wild.

I'm realizing now I have I have newfound guilt for the lack of respect I gave my friend Frank Church back in time.

Did you bully a young Frank Church? Oh? Yeah, Oh, your family was important. Yeah.

Why haven't I ever heard of him? All right, sorry for all the wedgies, Frankie. Why are we now just like denigrating this poor guy.

I think we're celebrating.

We're celebrating Frank Church, the history of my Frank Church, your Frank Church, all.

Frank Church, all the Frank Churches.

Diving back in Albert, Fall had actually already stepped down as Secretary of the Interior in January of nineteen twenty three, so you know he could enjoy his new ranch as well as help Sinclair and doheany with other oil deals abroad. Clearly, Fall had pulled some corrupt shiit. It might be worth mentioning here that President Harding was really feeling the heat by this point in his presidency, particularly relating to a few crooked folks he had appointed in his administration. Now,

Should I have no?

As a Michigan boy, As a Michigan boy, don't. We don't give much respect to anybody from Ohio. So perhaps it's not my own ignorance, it's just my own prejudice.

H there you go.

Yeah, So this was the nickname for some of Harding's appointees, basically because he'd hired or appointed so many of his buddies from his days in Ohio, and a lot of them were ruffling feathers and drumming up scandals from all angles, from influence pedaling to selling illegal permits for confiscated government alcohol. These dudes were just awful basically. So it kind of makes sense that Albert Fall and his oily mustache twirling

O handlebar.

Yeah, I mean, even if we're besmirching the guy, I don't think we want that image in our head.

I mean, it's funny, but it's gross.

It's funny, but yeah, it's it's one of those things. It's like moist. You're like, Okay, that might be the right word, but I don't want to hear it.

So President Harding said at the time, I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies, all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor nights. Now. That's very godfathery, that is I tho you really leaned into it too in the performance that it was nice.

Yeah, my friends just when I think out, they pulled me back in who the Ohio game? Thought clear.

I do wonder though, like someone you know, you look at these presidents, whether it's a Trump or a Barack Obama or somebody, You're like, how many good, like close friends are they able to maintain at that At that point, I would think someone like Trump is like so hard to get close to and so hard to sort of like feel a sense of trust with, even if you're if you match his core values whatever they are, like, it just seems I don't know, they're so their their

Yeah, I mean I think, like, yeah, the usage of a friend as somebody who you could truly be honest with and empathize with and you could like be vulnerable with. I see people like Trump who sees almost everybody as like a means to an end. Everything has a loyalty test, right, and even things you know, not to smirch any relationships, but those don't seem to be the most friendly and open.

Are you expressing it?

Are are you starting to express some some deep compassion for Donald Trump?

Oh my god, I've stumbled done it.

We've created a monster and I just want to give him a hut.

That's what probably all he needs. Jordan didn't give a hug. Yeah, group lug, I want on that. Come on, let's do it. Let's let's break through that. Oh god, you could be a better person.

At this point in our tail, we're sort of we're coming full circle. So, as you recall, we sort of started with this this voyage of understanding, and then we jumped in nineteen twenty three. Then we jumped back to nineteen twenty one and sort of told the unfolding of the teapot Dome scandal under Harding's administration. Now now we're back. We're back on the trip with President Harding. And suddenly he began complaining of shortness of breath, and then suddenly

So there would be.

No re election for mister Harding after all. Now, what do you think happened to the teep Dome scandal in light of Harding's passing.

Boy, that is a great question.

My guess is the fall guy rides away any to a very successful life and the story moves on to other more pressing things. Yeah, as there's never accountability, I guess that's what I've learned to believe in American politics.

So that accountability is a rare, rare mineral. It's very elusive.

You're largely correct here, there was a whole lot of legal wrangling over the course of several years, and at long last, the Supreme Court ruled in nineteen twenty seven that the leases had been illegal, and all of the oil reserves were returned to government control. In nineteen twenty nine, Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from Sinclair and served one year in prison, which sounds light until you

I mean, I can't imagine there's making a lot of space for rec time or rehabilitation.

Yeah.

Now, one nice thing about this was that it's sort of set the standard that even cabinet members aren't above the law, and I truly hope that Ethos carries through. I think it's a little wishy washy at times, but it's nice to see some little measure of accountability, even if it feels small. Now, Sinclair and Doheny were totally acquitted of their charges of conspiracy to defraud the government, although Sinclair did end up serving six months in prison

Come on, oil man, Yeah, mud relaxed, you got the win.

Yeah, this is the golden age of oil barons where they can just do whatever the fuck they want. I mean, they're just they're all the elon musks of their day.

I guess, yeah. One.

So, needless to say, damage was irrevocably done. Public trust in the government tanked Harding's legacy. Despite dying a quite popular president, his legacy was permanently stained. In nineteen forty eight, Arthur M. Schlessinger, a Harvard historian, put out a poll amongst fellow historians and government officials to assess the greatest and worst presidents up to that point. Harding landed dead last and continues to place near the bottom of the

Now now I feel like katari jet is just so much cleaner.

Oh god, that's a good one.

Yeah, although that's not a scandle, that's not a scan. It's literally not a scandal. I'm honestly, you are right.

Yes, there has been no kerfuffle on the other side of it. We're just we're just moving up.

Yeah, we're just moving on. It's kind of refreshing. There's no such thing as a scandal anymore.

It's just like, that's why why we're gonna waste time by everybody spending years looking into this.

Just keep moving on.

Well, this does lead me to my favorite portion of this this podcast, which is the sort of reflection here Jordan and I'm curious, what are your takeaways. Have we learned any lessons or are there lessons we still need to learn from a teapot dome type scandal? Are there any parallel to the modern moment we've touched on a few throughout the episode. What jumps to mind, Well.

I mean, frankly, I was shocked that there was some amount of accountability. It's right, it's humorous that the oil barons get off scott free, except for trying to intimidate witnesses.

Which is which is hilarious.

But the fact that like there was sustained pressure and a governmental organization that continued to stay on it to punish somebody for for abusing the public trust is refreshing to hear. But I think so sad in the light of what we are seeing right now. It seems as if like, oh, there's there's no appetite for that, there's no bipartisan appetite for come up and for somebody abusing this, and like you said, you s doubled on it with

To stick with stings. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a great question.

Yeah, I think you're raising a really a really meaningful question about contemporary mores, which is like, has our sort of ethical or moral compass degraded in recent time? Or are we just too overwhelmed to actually compute these things as they happen. And I can say honestly like I think exasperation is working in corruption's favor. There are a few points that that I think Teapot Dome raises, For example,

It's amazing.

These are incredible resources for all of us.

There's conversations about where those lines are being drawn and be curious where the ramifications of something like the big beautiful Bill and how that affects people like that who are using this public land in those ways, aren't.

Going to see the kickbacks. I worry.

That's what we talked about, is it's so hard for us to have sustained attention on anything that isn't completely outrageous.

Yeah, Jordan Klepper, what are you up to? What can you tell us about us? Obviously you're still crushing it on the Daily Show? What else do you have going on?

That's that takes up a lovelier part of my time. And then when I have free weekends, I hit the road and I do a show called Suffering Fools, which is part stand up, part ted talk. I got a bunch of slides and trying to make sense from some of these stories I've got from being out on the road. So that's that's a fun time to get out into all over America and tell some war stories.

I love it. I really, I really want to see that show.

And if you're out there, anyone we're in America, go see Jordan Klepper the guys. He's yeah, he's funny, he's smart. And I will say, you delivered undlightful.

Pretty delightful thing. I mean, you were kind of delightful. I feel like I carried a lot of the delightfulness. You were very delightful, yes, but you met it.

You met the standard, and I appreciate it.

Well. Thanks for having me. And you know what, I learned something.

I don't know if I like harding any more than I did coming in and out, but I understand the man more. Yeah, I'm more confused about fall guy, but I'm glad to see a little bit of a moment of accountability.

So thank you for that.

So glad to have you on the pod. Jordan Klepper, all my best buddy. Thanks v Snapoo is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapfoo Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim Whitney, Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tory Smith.

Just go to.

Snaffoo dashbook dot com.

Thanks for listening, and see you next week.