Behind the Show: Jordan Klepper Discusses MAGA’s Putin Obsession

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Hello, and welcome to The Daily Show Ears edition. This is Ian Berger, supervising producer for The Daily Show. We're here with Daily Show contributor fresh off a trip to Estonia, right near the Russian border, Jordan Klepper.

Welcome, Thank you, Jordan.

We're talking about your special. It's called Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse Moscow Tools, which is available to stream on Paramount Plus, the Daily Show's YouTube channel and video on demand. Jordan, what was it like making this special?

Well, I'm gonna say it's our special.

Thank you.

We've done four specials now, a lot of.

Specials, and they're all special.

They are all specials. This one was, Honestly, I really liked the process of making this special. I think we're we're finding an interesting rhythm of like this one. This one, we were discovering something on the road. We go out in the road, we do the Fingers of the Pulse pieces. We're discuss seen in discovering a shift in the narrative around Russia, and suddenly people on the road are embracing

Dop Absolutely, and I think obviously we kind of encounter some of this and you read about this stuff in the news, and so you start down this path and we're like, we're gonna go out into these rallies and see if this is actually what they're talking about. And honestly, the very first interview at the very first rally we did in rainy, freezing Green Bay, that woman was like, I love watching Vladimir Putin videos, Like right off the bat home run.

Putin is a thatw leader runs this country. Here's a respectful person's worst country. What do you like about Vladimir Putin? The way is Lena's country is off for freedom. I used to watch the videos fishing, horseback riding back.

In the day.

You do just for fun. You watch Putin horseback riding videos.

Yeah, who's a better leader, Vladimir Putin or Joe Biden Putin?

She said, just to calm her down.

If watching Vladimir Putin fish and ride shirtless on a horse was like watching cute cat videos for her.

Yeah, we were surprised. It was amazing. Like once it's kind of like you start off with that and you realize, well, this is actually a story.

Yep. Well even I remember we were starting to ask people too.

There was a stat that came out that said the MAGA voter base thinks Joe Biden is more than fifty percent thinks Vladimir Putin is a better president than Joe Biden, which seemed like a big number. But as we started asking people about this, I think, I think, gosh darn, every single person at this event had no problem lauding Vladimir Putin, especially when put up against Joe Biden. And so this is where we started to say, like, oh, this is this is a thing.

Yeah, so for us and for you, And like, what I think we're trying to discover was there is this shift that happened in this part because traditionally the Republicans are not a party that seems to be so cool with Russia.

Yeah, that seemed to be kind of their their whole calling card for a little while.

Right when I was a kid, that was the thing that was Reagan's thing, and that was what they're very proud of. But it seems to have changed. So to explore that change, what are some other things you wanted to do in this special and people you wanted to talk to.

Well.

I think a large question that bubbled up quickly as we started to look into this was is this a special about Russian misinformation? Yes, but it's very much a special about American gullibility of like are we these useful idiots? Which is a term Vladimir Lenin supposedly coined about American journalists, that they were useful idiots, that they could be fed Russian propaganda and utilize it and put it out there

Fed to us?

Or is there a big part of the Republican Party right now that truly pines for Vladimir Putin's Russia that really wants an autocracy and the anti wokeness and the anti LGBTQ community that Putin promises. I think that's a bigger, scarier question that the Republican Party is reckoning with right now, and so we wanted to jump in and talk to people kind of surrounding those questions.

Yeah, and one of the first interviews we did was actually with a well known Republican who's not someone you would often sit down and talk to, but had kind of the opposite view of how we should be approaching Russia. That was John Bolton. You want to tell us about that.

We sat down with the messager John Bolton, and I think we talked, especially offline, about this of like, this story is so wild and bonkers and important existentially that we find ourselves at a special like this talking to John Bolton and talking to an Estonian prime minister about the same thing. And John Bolton a part of three Republican administrations. He was right there with Donald Trump, and as we've talked about, he's a guy who saw this up close, so much so that now he rails against it.

It's just antithetical not just to the philosophical beliefs of Ronald Reagan, but to the positive attitude about America and its prospects.

So Reagan wakes up and he's shocked, right, And he's also like, what is this internet thing? Maybe we should send Stephen Saghal over there to kick Putin's ass. Wait a minute, Steven sagh already lives there. This is all too confusing. Let's just go back to ignoring aids.

I think he'd be stunned that the Republican Party had anything to do with Donald Trump.

What is Trump's infatuation with Putin?

Well? I think he has a fascination with authoritarian leaders generally. I think Trump would like to be a big guy, but I don't think he's enough to be a dictator.

So is Trump what's the term an idiot? Well?

I think Rex Tillerson had the iconic two word description of Trump, the first word I won't repeat even on your show, the second of which was moron.

Okay, I'll throw it in there.

That's that's pretty much on point, Yes, Maura, Right, can a moron still be a useful idiot?

I think the answer to that yes, And I think Vladimir Putin understands it.

And it was a good interview and it was friendly, which I think a lot of people might think was weird for us, and it's unexpected, Like this is not a story where we're going out to freed John Bolden for being kind of a warhawk. This is a story about's happening in the Republican Party now that he witnessed first hand, which I think is kind of like what we wanted out of him.

And yeah, god, I mean, we did have some conversations in the room about the Iraq War and if some of his his pushing for American overseas interventionism, if that causes and has some effects with people today being skittish about funding our military.

We talked a little bit about that.

But I think when we're putting this piece together, when we were talking about what the overall arc was, it was about looking forward as to like, who, what do we need to know about Donald Trump and his feelings towards Ladimir Putin and more so also this party that he heads right now. Why has it moved in this direction? And Bolton was was remarkably enlightening about all of that.

And obviously Bolton can speak to kind of global threats that Russia poses that maybe well, certainly Donald Trump wasn't comprehending. He kind of talked to that and the need for alliances. This is somebody who you know, kind of is a big proponent of NATO, and I think was kind of shocked that Donald Trump either didn't understand NATO or was opposed to it.

I mean, still, it's still crazy to think about. The news moves so fast.

But John Bolton, Trump Administration National Security advisor, I believe correct. When we ask him if he's a smart guy. He points to Rex Tillerson, who said he was a fucking moron, and Bolton says, he's a fucking moron. This person who is running this is third time running to be president. He's leading in all the polls like everybody around him. When asked if he knows what's going on in the world,

And yeah, there's too much of that unfortunately. So that's that feels like old news. It's old.

Oh yeah, Donald or Donald Trump's a fucking moron who doesn't understand international alliances.

Yeah, what else is new? Anyway, He's up nine points in Pennsylvania.

He might be threatened whatever. So at one point John Bolton, in our discussions about Trump and putin, Bolton said he thought Trump was too stupid to be a strong man. What do you think he meant by that? Do you agree?

I again, I'm I'm always a little bit of gas that that's what you think of the leader of the free world. To be clear, he's not going to vote against in the next election. Too stupid to be a strong man, So you're voting for Joe Biden. I'm gonna vote for a third party candidate. Thanks, John Way, to put your country ahead of a party, I suppose.

Yeah, shocking shocking.

I don't know.

I mean, I think trum Trump feels like he's trying to be a strong man. I think I think what I hear in a comment like that is I don't see Trump. Trump doesn't seem to think too many steps ahead. When I hear the stories of Latimer Putin, I'm hearing stories of somebody who is has a lot of tactics, is doing things that people don't understand behind closed doors, finding creative ways in which to hold on to power.

I don't believe Donald.

Trump is finding creative ways to do but I think he might stumble into a strong man in the stupidest possible way.

Yeah, I think.

Well, we went to Hungary. Obviously we looked at Victor Orban. A lot of people at that time described Victor Orban as like a more competent Trump. He's a lawyer, he knows how to like pull pull the levers. So I feel like it's similar. So moving on next, we talked to reporter writer Julia Yaffi, who has obviously a lot of knowledge about Russia. She's from border raised in Russia. Talk to me about that interview. What were you expecting, what could she illuminate.

Here's something that we get to do in specials that we don't get to do and figures the pulse pieces is we found this. The Washington Post posted this, these documents from the Kremlin, essentially talking points about the ways in which they wanted to influence American culture, talking points they wanted to amplify.

In the American media.

And what's remarkable is the things that Russia is pushing are the things that we're hearing out at Trump rallies. And so we thought it was an opportunity to do something we hadn't done before, which is like, let's walk through this. We can show how Russian propaganda has made its way into the fields of Pennsylvania and Green Bay.

The best political influence campaigns are the ones where you don't invent anything. You just take the facts on the ground and you amplify them, right, And so what you see these fake accounts amplifying are arguments that I'm sure you've heard on the trail and at these rallies, which is that Democrats are globalists who care more about Ukraine than about the southern border. It's Russia's good and Ukraine has corrupt.

It is corruption.

They're taking a advantage of a situation where what they created.

It's by this.

They're pumping money over there and we know what's coming back to politicians' pockets here.

Now it goes into the means of spreading this information.

How they're gonna do it, Well, you're going to use.

Social media, but it says the only place where they can spread this information without any censorship is I'm gonna let you guess.

Where can they get the vitamins? Where are you selling T shirts? I'm red pill can Oh, so you've read pill caid.

Social The most useful of the idiots can be found on.

Truth social or owning it.

And I will say that was something that like we did our interview with Julia and we talked about many many things, and even before we just before we wrapped, she kind of wanted to say, like, hey, can I say something?

And that's always a good time when whenever you're doing an interview and they're like one more thing. For the most part, you're like, oh, this is what they're passionate about.

Yes, it does.

It doesn't mean the interview or is missing something and left something on the table. It's definitely not not it. No, No, definitely not a sign.

You didn't just take the boxes for your jokes and try to move.

That's not exactly no, not at all, not at all. It's a sign of a good interview. I leave space for somebody to add on to it.

I understand what's important about this story, though, Please tell me what I miss?

Oh what is it?

No, she kind of she took a moment to clarify, especially like, hey, I don't think people actually when we talk about Russia, they don't actually understand what it's like in Russia right now. And it's in the special She articulates, like living underneath an autocratic regime is it's frightening, and it takes away people's rights. And she had some stories about small acts of dissidence being attacked with brutal force

And and over.

And over again, we people were asking us to make sure that that that message was heard.

Yeah, I mean Julia talked about specifics, even things like students turning their teachers in for kind of being anti war like scary stuff like that, so frightening. Yeah, And Julia's connections to people in Russia currently in Russia was interesting because she said she'll be on like text chains and people like they'll be talking about these horrible abuses by Putin and jokingly referred to well, at least our subway stations are beautiful, Like obviously they don't feel that way.

And we even we laugh about the propaganda. The subway station was a big story about a month or so ago when Tucker Carlson went over there and showed the beautiful subway stations. He showed the beautiful cheap bread quote unquote when we go to the Magaraj when we asked the people had seen that a lot of people had seen the Tucker Carlson interview and they were just parroting

All right, hold that thought. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Jordan Klepper. Welcome back. So Jordan, let's talk about Estonia. What was it like doing this segment there, Why did we go there? What brought us there?

I think, sort of again organically piecing this special together, we're hearing things in the field. We're starting to articulate with Julia Yaffi what hearing in the field and where that comes from. But frankly, what we started to understand was there's a misunderstanding on the ground as to what life next to Russia actually looks like. And here comes Estonia, a place that John Bolton said, if you're going to go, go now, and that's because.

They're pretty dark.

It's a pretty dark thing to say, but that fear is palpable. Estonia is on the border with Russia. There is talk right now that if Putin goes unchecked, that he will continue to be the aggressor, and Estonia very

You're back in America right now, though Jordan, you don't I don't have to use it. I know, I know you're still in that frame of mind. I just I'm wearing a Tolling T shirt. But we use Miles here, we do right rightfully logically use Miles.

I still can never wrap my head around.

It makes so much sense. It's not even worth spending any more time on how much sense Miles makes. All right, I want to talk about meeting the Prime Minister. In your interview with her, your impressions. She has been outspoken critic of Putin has been front and center and the need to kind of, you know, strengthen NATO. As we said in the special, She's on of Vladimir Putin's most wanted list and kind of proud of that, which is kind of interesting.

For a fascinating reason too. Right, she was taking down essentially Russian I believe it was a Russian tank.

But now functioning as a monument to that occupation.

Exactly, yes, which I think is an interesting comparison to what is happening in the US as well. A Russian tank was out there, and as the Ukrainian War amplified, she was like, why do we have these monuments to Russian aggression here? Let's take this thing down. Vladimir Putin doesn't like it. Now she's on the most watted list.

How dare you take my tank away? Let my stand, Let this thing stand. There were some other reasons that this was an interesting story in the right place to go, and we didn't have time to touch on all of them in the special. But one thing about Estonia is that it, like Ukraine, has a Russian speaking population near the border of Russia, and they fear that, Like Ukraine, Putin will use that as an excuse to send in his military and use it as cover to say, I'm

Yeah, especially when you send me that article hours before we got on a plane.

And we're going through Yeah, we're going through Finland.

You're like, oh, this is uh, there's a there's a chance that Russia is jamming airplane signals landing into Estonia.

Cool, anyway, I'll see at the airport right.

And I truly was like, it won't be a big deal.

And I was like, I should look at ferries from Finland to Estonia in case we don't get out of Finland.

And at that point, I'm like, is Finland by Estonia?

I was aware.

I was like, oh, I totally know the geography, are fine, Oh.

You knew it for days?

Yeah, for days, Like I knew it really well. After I was on that big GPS map for about forty minutes on the plane, I knew.

I knew it.

You always need your research. That's what's so impressive.

You definitely get on that plane and you zoom in, you use those two figures of zoom and it'd be like, oh, that's where all the country, that's where Helsinki is now I know.

Poland over there. Cool, you could go there. Another thing, I will say, even just walking around tallin the capital of Estonia, you see signs of like their reaction to Russia. Everywhere in this beautiful old town or old city section is the Russian embassy And what was that like?

It was remarkable.

It's blocked off and it's a whole city block full of just protest symbols, images of Navolny, even little shrines to Navolny who passed away recently, Ukrainian flags, anti Putin sentiments, graffiti, things of that nature. I remember walking through the town square and at one of the restaurants in the town square had both in Estonian and English, essentially asking when Putin was going to kill himself like Hitler did.

In a bunker right, Like, where are we going to go to dinner?

Oh?

Okay, that's not a menu.

What do they serve here? Oh? Oh a Putin suicide? Okay?

Which the exchange rate for something like that? But it was it's palpable there. It's all part of the conversation. People were very blunt and open about it. Also side note, Estonia is a beautiful country and Tollin was such a lovely, lovely town.

I had no expectations of.

What it was like in Estonia and this old town area with these cobblestone streets to a medieval city. It also has a bar that's the depeche Mode Bar, that is just depeche Mode music that you go into a basement and they played depeche Mode on videos and they have paraphernalia.

And depeche Mode has enough of a catalog for it to be a bar exclusively dedicated to that.

I yes, that's the good thing.

That's the good thing.

And also I don't believe there's any Estonian connection to depeche Mode, but there is a depeche Mode bar in Estonia that God's put it on your bucket list.

Get there.

Depeche Mode bar feels like something like like kind of Soviet era, like we have a we have a depeche Mode bar.

Whatever that Venn diagram of Soviet era and Portlandia's sketch is. I think it's depeche Mode bar in Estonia.

Yeah, But I will say one thing back to kind of this anti Russian sentiment and this support for Ukraine on the Prime Minister's residence in Estonia every night they kind of project the Ukrainian flag, which I couldn't imagine them doing something like that.

Here in America.

Can you imagine the White House had another flag projected on it?

I believe didn't we wave flags on the we passed funding for Ukraine military, there was some waving of Ukrainian flags and that was not wild widely accepted as.

A lovely thing to do, if I recall.

So, yes, it's very clear, like when we got to meet the Prime Minister, which is really an honor for us to meet ahead of state like that, she welcomed us in and to be very clear, they are supportive of Ukraine and their battle here. They see it as not only important morally but also for their own safety. They give more money percentage wise to NATO and too

And it could continue.

And it could could continue soon if there isn't a real unified force to stop.

It, right and she, I mean I thought it was especially interesting. She described her own experience as a child.

Everybody's for peace, but we understand what peace under Soviet or Russian occupation means. You had mass atrocities, mass deportations. My own mother was deported to Siberia as a six month old baby. There were mass killings. They were suppressing our culture, trying to erase our life. This is what peace under occupation means. That doesn't mean that the human suffering was stop.

How wild was that to hear?

I mean, we had a taste of it in Hungary. This is the naive somebody who didn't get to travel much abroad as a kid. Like when you go to eastern Europe, you realize just how recent history is in America, even though in England they'll make fun of Americans because our oldest things are only a couple hundred years old. But it feels like our moments of turmoil seem distant

Not a hypo.

And to bring it back to sort of the US perspective on it, like we talked to people in the fields who are upset about things. It's all theory, so much theory, so angry about things that we're crafting boogeymen out of middle schooler trans athletes and people drinking bud light. Like we craft these these folks, you know why they're they're keeping us down, and these these bad, bad guys,

I do.

I could tell you that story. It's not a theory, it's a reality, and I can articulate it. That's why we believe the things we believe.

Right, Like we're flipping out of the costs of eggs being marginally higher. But she described her own daughter made some comment about you know, if this store doesn't have the thing I want, we'll go to the other store. And the Prime Minister made her think about her own childhood. She was like, there was no other store. That's not a thing that existed. This is the store. They don't have it, you can't get it, Like for your life.

Yeah, this is why we go there. I think we are lucky that we get to make these specials. But I think it was important to us. It's not just us talking about like, Wow, look how misinformed we are. I think American gullibility is a real problem in this country. It's a threat that has global repercussions. But I think a misunderstanding of the realities of what some people are pining.

For here is also a real, real threat.

And so wherever we can go there and talk to people who have firsthand knowledge, I think that's a real win for the things that we do here.

All right, we're going to take a quick break. We will be right back. Welcome back, So Clipper. One other element that we weren't expecting to find when we started this story was a lawyer in Nashville who has a lot of connections to Russia. It was a very nice s Gouy g Cline Preston, what a nice person. Real history boff, Like you look around that office. Yeah, we're talking about the Stalin bust and the Putin buss. But like there's books everywhere about American and Russian history. But

I mean, I echo everything you say there.

He has a wild pass that we sort of talk about a little bit on the show, so we didn't know what we'd expect to talk to Kleine Again, he's very much a fan of Russia.

He spent time there in college. He was a.

Defender of Vladimir Putin. I believe we call him a fanboy. He says, he just collects souvenirs. There's a hand, there's a half of things that are a little on the nose. Even though the red paints were sort of like, come on, come on, Kline.

Well, I think we have this joke and I don't even think it made the special, but it was like you said it, like you have a poster that big of Vladimir Putin and then you say, I'm not a fan. It's like when we were kids. If you have a poster of your favorite baseball player on the wall, it's hard to be like, well, I don't really like that guy.

I also, he's an attorney in Nashville, and I can only imagine somebody walking off the street. They'd be like, uh, I just got a parking ticket. I'm trying to get out of not the Gulag. Are you the right guy to help me here? So you know, we talked to Klein about this. I think he's a very opinionated guy about Russia, about Russian history, and also he's a MAGA supporter.

I think was involved in some of the legal.

Arguments to change the results in Michigan. There's some complicated history there. But I think what surprise this is in our conversation is as we're talking, he gets a phone call.

Oh man, got a call.

Yeah, RT.

That's Russian television that's calling.

Yeah.

I mean I have to ask, are you a Russian asset?

Well?

If I am on a battlee wait?

Was Klan about to feed the propaganda from the Kremlin back to Russian state.

Television today about Ukraine? Oh? No? Was I the biscuit in a propaganda circle jerk. In the middle of our interview, where we had been joking and seriously asking him if he was a Russian asset, we literally were like, you have busts of Putin and little stickers of him magnets on your fridge.

Some entity in Russia, he wouldn't tie it to the government. There's an NGO that I think the government basically stocks with its own people, pays for him to go over there and be as an election watcher, as a pole watcher. So some entity in Russia is also paying for him to travel back to Russia.

And what a pol watcher does. They go over there, they take a look at the elections, and then they tend to go on television and tell people that the elections look great. And so as we are doing this interview with him, TV calls and he takes a break to go on Russian television.

I think we didn't We couldn't believe it was actually happening, and I think for a moment we weren't sure that it was really that's really what was happening. It kind of felt like a At one point I thought the call was like, oh, someone he just wanted to get us out of his office.

For some Yeah, because we didn't we like, all right, we'll stop down and let you go and do that. We left.

It was like the equivalent of like, you know, if you're on a bad date, your friend calling you to be like, oh sorry, I got to take this call, except it's Russian State television, Like you want to get out of that comedy shows interview, We got your back. Just send me the text and I'll call you.

I was going to say, you know what they're They might be a hell of a propaganda machine, but they are really they're also a really effective wing state.

Is going horribly. I'll get you out of it.

Put it's a nice guy. Maybe he really is. He's looking out for his people.

He pushes some journalists out windows, and some journalists he just lightly nudges out of interview.

Real just ends interviews.

I'd like to think they're just monitoring all interviews that are about Russia and they're like, this has gone too far. Hit the button, it's over. Yeah, that was It was interesting. But he was a great sport again, very interesting guy, like dedicated family man. But you're right, if you were just someone wandering in off the street of Nowshville to hire a lawyer to be a parking ticket. I think

You know what, I think democracy is slow, is not meant to be a speedy process. And I think you know, on both sides of the eye of people are frustrated with the government right now. They're frustrated with this the partisan bickering. I feel like it doesn't feel like America is functioning swiftly or effectively, and so I can understand why people are frustrated with it.

I think an appeal to a.

Overly simplistic view of autocracy is in its efficiency and its ability to get things done. I think what that neglects is the reality of how those things get done and the ways in which the minority is often repressed in order to serve an auto ideal that doesn't get talked about. But I think the germ of something that is appealing outside of the Christian whiteness of Russian's autocracy, but the germ of some of that is order, order an efficiency.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

You know, it's interesting.

I think as we take a step back and we look at what Russian misinformation the goal of it. They are top line looking just to sow distrust and chaos that helps them globally. There are other goals specifically like funding for Ukraine and also an unstable NATO that are big goals that we talk about in the special as well. But the way in which Russia affects people like it's not just like, oh, they're paying for a spy over there.

Or it's even just like yeah, perhaps paying for a.

Trip to Russia to show you how great that place is, and if you can speak highly about it on television, that only adds to the public discourse and the overall distrust. They can have actual, real ramifications on the House floor.

Yeah, okay, next special, where are we going?

Oh?

My lord, I I don't know.

Just something. We keep going to places we know less and less about.

I was going to say we didn't know a ton about Estonia much respect. We had a wonderful time we met the Prime Minister's she is such an impressive person Mongolia.

I like that.

Let's say I don't know anything about it, so this feels right?

Yeah, okay, let's put it in there. Yeah, was there? What politics are happening in mind?

Go imhow tied to the election?

I'm sure we're taking requests. So if you're out there listening to this Ears edition and you know where we should go, and by that, I mean you know very little about the political situation. Uh, it's alwayst like six degrees of Kevin bacon, but it's a political crisis that we do yet.

Know perfect all right, thank you, Jordan, Thank you, Ian. This has been Ian Berger and Jordan Klepper, thank you for joining us on The Daily Show Ears edition. Be sure to stream Jordan Klepper Fingers, the Pulse, Moscow Tools on Paramount Plus, the Daily Show's YouTube channel and video on demand streaming everybody.

Thank you, Ian, thank you. Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven.

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