‘The Daily Show’ Star Jordan Klepper on What He’s Learned About Americans From Doing His ‘Fingers the Pulse’ Specials

Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” star Jordan Klepper has now produced seven of his “Fingers the Pulse” specials, with another one on the way. And if there’s anything he’s learned from his time out in the field, it’s that Americans love to talk to people with a camera.

“When you get out into the wild of America, you are constantly surprised by what people are actually talking about,” says Klepper, who has been with “The Daily Show” for more than 12 years. “Americans are a lot more creative than we give them credit for — as far as conspiracy theories go, logic for political beliefs. I don’t know if we’re evolving or devolving over the last 10 years of doing it, but I do get a pretty good sense of how the cultural norms have shifted pretty drastically since I began ‘Fingers the Pulse.'”

Klepper notes that before Donald Trump started spreading birtherism lies about President Obama, the idea was considered something racist that you wouldn’t say to a person with a camera.

“And within months, when Donald Trump started talking about this birther conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, I found us going from 1 in 10 people wanting to talk about birtherism to suddenly 7 or 8 out of 10 people wanting to talk about birtherism. It really just articulated that in this time that we’re living in, the cultural norms are dictated by the commander-in-chief. The person who gets all the attention. And people are taking their marching orders as what they can talk about, how they should talk about things and whether or not they want to fact check the reality of what they’re saying. That has fallen by the wayside. And now the most important thing is to articulate an opinion that you saw online that you’ve made a part of your identity — and feel no guilt or responsibility if that opinion is proved to be hypocritical or simply incorrect.”

Klepper won an Emmy last year for his previous “Fingers the Pulse” special. For his most recent one, “The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give the Man a Prize,” the host explored Donald Trump’s obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize. During the special, Klepper travels to a peaceful nude bike rally against ICE internment camps holding people without due process. The protest was met with violent response by authorities, who are seen tackling protesters in whimsical costumes. Later, Klepper traveled to Oslo, Norway, to meet with officials from the Nobel Peace Center.

Earlier this month, Klepper traveled to New Orleans to interview people at Sail250 about the state of America and the Trump administration. His interactions with the average American — particularly at Trump rallies — has become one of his biggest calling cards on both “The Daily Show” and “Fingers the Pulse.”

Meanwhile, “The Daily Show” has seen ratings success with its current hosting setup: Jon Stewart on Mondays, with the rest of the show’s news team, including Klepper, Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson,  Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic (with Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt) splitting Tuesday-Thursday hosting duties each week.

With “Give the Man a Prize” up for an Emmy nom this year, Klepper recently spoke with Variety about the current “The Daily Show” shared hosting duties, what it’s like out on the field, and the unique ability of shows like “The Daily Show” to mix comedy with solid reporting.

Have you found when going to those rallies early on vs. now, is it easier to get people to talk?

There’s some people who come up and they recognize me and that can go two ways. Sometimes they’re like, “Screw this guy. I’m not going to talk to him.” Fair. Or some people are like, “This guy has a camera. I know his point of view. I’ve seen ‘The Daily Show’ and I want to engage. I want to interact.” And they seek it out. It’s not uncommon for me to do an interview with somebody and then go to another MAGA rally and that person comes up and says, “I saw the interview. Do you want to keep talking?”

Attention is the thing people are after. It’s not necessarily for their thought to be validated. The validation is in the fact that they said it out loud — and more often than not, the thing that they said that might be seen as hypocritical to a traditional audience, I don’t know if hypocrisy exists anymore. I think they’re getting a totally different newsfeed than a lot of the other people who are perhaps watching this clip and that newsfeed is not telling them that their point of view is to be vilified or hypocritical. It’s telling them that they are right.

How do you think your interview skills have evolved over time? You’re very quick on your feet when someone says something.

I think having been out there for 10-plus years, it’s broken me and so I am dead inside and I think that can be used as an asset — in which that you can really go anywhere now. I came from improv. Improv is listening and trying to find context and making a scene work in the moment with your scene partner. I now do improv with people who don’t know that they’re in improv scenes. And so my job is to really to pay attention and to be curious. I think the most interesting moments are when people are thinking through their logic for the first time on camera. We are in these bubbles and our friend groups are not pushing the points of view that we are just adopting because we read it once.

And so those moments where I get to confront somebody with something that they haven’t thought through, they just heard Donald Trump say it and now it’s their personality, but now they’re thinking through, that to me is the most interesting, compelling thing. And what I’ve learned is like my job is to create a space where they feel comfortable enough with me. They feel open enough about their points of view where they don’t feel judged, so that they can reveal something compelling and interesting. And then the secondary jive I have as a comedian is to contextualize that with a joke or a comment so the audience at home can see that thing in context.

It all feels spontaneous but focused at the same time.

We think of it as debate prep. Before going out on a piece, I’m meeting with writers and producers and we’re just talking about the news that’s happening. We’re talking about some of the opinions that we think might exist out there, the lanes that we want to talk to people about, some of the things that feel hypocritical and ways in which to articulate that to our audience at home. So it’s a structured form of spontaneity. If you’re going out there just to say a joke that you thought of three days ago, it’s not going to be as funny as if you go out there and you truly listen to what is there.

In the most recent special, you’re in Portland. First off, let’s talk about the naked bike ride. Because I know that was a challenge for your editors and the censors at Comedy Central.

Give them all the Emmys. It was a rainy day in Portland, and so we thought there might be a dozen naked people showing up to protest against the ICE raids that were happening. And we found that people like to get naked in Portland. Hundreds and hundreds of people like to get naked immediately in Portland. And when you film that, you’re like, “We’ll figure it out in post.”

And then I would walk into the editing bays and I’m watching editors zoom in very seriously and be like, “Is that a dick? Is that a boob? That looks like a boob!” Or “Is that a shadow? It might be a testicle.” They’re getting network notes back that are like, “At 22:04 there is a testicle.” And you’re zooming in. I’m like, “I think that’s a shadow. Is it a kneecap?” Well, the knee would be here and the testicle would be here. We are constantly writing top-notch satire in one room and in the next room we are zooming in on testicles to see if it’s a testicle or shadow. So this is the work of modern comedy.

Feel like an interesting HR issue.

It is. I think yes, all those editors have been fired now for simply doing their jobs.

So that part of the day was fun, but then things turned very serious. What that was like for you? You’ve gone into dangerous situations before, but this was unlike anything you’ve probably done.

It was. I’ve had a weird run of it in the last decade or so. I did a show for Comedy Central called “Klepper” where I got arrested, was a part of a protest and a part of a movement there and spent some time in jail because of it. I followed some time with pipeline protestors in the Bayou where a boat sank and police were following us around. Strange jobs for a person who trained as an improv comedian.

I’ve found myself in weird places. January 6 in and of itself as well. We knew that things could get hairy, but what was really interesting about this story was we were watching it at the time and it’s happening again now. We’re seeing images in New Jersey outside these ICE facilities with an administration that has not been honest or articulate with the populace and horrific stories about what’s happening inside. People are frustrated and angry, but we’re a comedy show and so how do we enter into this conversation and not just be angry but bring humor.

Our tool is to find comedy in place as this place didn’t necessarily have comedy in it. And I give it to the protestors in Portland too, they organically found a way. One, to be naked and to dress as frogs and chickens, but they also used the fact that the Trump administration was trying to paint this protest as nefarious and Antifa. To do that, they were going to bring comedy to this protest and show that they weren’t wearing anything. I thought that was a great opportunity for us to both highlight how humor can be used to deescalate situations and to play with perspective, but secondarily as a way that we could use our comedy around that story. Those can be your intentions, but you had an administration whose entire, from what we could tell, interest was in creating a scene, a scene that scared people away and that was violent.

And so when we arrived on the scene, the pepper balls were being sprayed into the audience indiscriminately. ICE agents were being aggressive with protestors. They were pushing people around. We saw an entire band dressed as bananas. They were playing brass instruments and getting plowed by ICE agents. It was chaotic and intimidating and frustrating and it made me very sad and angry to see that kind of thing happen. All of these people who simply were there because they saw cruelty happening and they’re being met with cruelty. I was grateful that we were able to capture some of that story because that’s sort of what this administration feels like at times, which is the complete absurd and the brutal reality of cruelty.

And speaking of the absurdity, the fact that this president is demanding a Nobel Peace Prize while this is all also happening and being generated by this administration. And this special aired in December. Since then he’s started an actual war!

I think he would still argue that he wants that Nobel Peace Prize. I remember this is what we were seeing when we were putting this special together. As we put this thing into place, we’re like, “Oh, this man just wants a prize. We should give this man a prize so we can move on to something else.” As we were putting this together, the FIFA prize happened, which is what this man wanted, “let’s create a prize out of nothing and give it to him just to make him happy.” And so for us, there was a lot of hypocrisy and comedy to be had and looking back at it now, we’re still in this place.

So let’s talk about all the different hats you get to wear on “The Daily Show.” How much do you enjoy being behind the desk versus being in the field?

I love being behind the desk. Let me tell you, the field is great, but when I’m behind the desk, I walk into an air conditioned studio. I have a beautiful suit. They bring in 250 people who laugh at the jokes that I tell, that the writers have all crafted and put together, that the graphics artists have made really funny jokes over my shoulder. I am set up to succeed. When I’m in the field, I’m sent to the middle of Harrisburg, staying at a crappy La Quinta and I’m barraged with conspiracy theories.

So, as somebody who is curious about the world, I love being on the road. But give me a beautiful suit and an audience that laughs at my jokes. But we love the fact that we get to do so many different things now. All of us hosts, I think of it as the best of both worlds. I get to indulge in a bunch of different types of storytelling. When I’m hosting the show, we are responding to news of the day and we’re crafting an eight-to-ten minute story in that first act that gives you an arc and a story of the day. When I do field pieces, I can create a four and a half minute piece about what’s happening out in the world that somebody’s getting on YouTube and can sort of be indulged in that story in that way. That thing can then be delivered at somebody who has no patience for watching an eight minute segment and yet there are still issues that deserve looking into for deeper dives.

And then I can do a special and a special where I can focus on Hungarian politics. I can focus on what’s happening in Norway and America’s unrest at home, which I don’t want to be a tweet. I don’t want it to be just a little clip. I want it to be a 30 minute piece. And so that allows us to tell slightly deeper stories with bigger arcs. It’s a lot, but I think it’s a real benefit to what “The Daily Show” has crafted over the last couple decades is, let’s meet the people where they are. And if they’re at home at their couch watching linear TV, we have a show for you that can tell you a beautiful arc. If you need a clip or a funny social media reaction to what’s happening, we are connecting with you there. And if you want to sit in a topic for a longer period of time, we have specials that can do that too.

How does it work with you all these days in terms of scheduling? The idea of rotating hosts seemed like a stop gap measure at first, but it’s working.

We love it. Hosting a late night show is exhausting. It burns you out. It’s also the best job in the fricking world. I love being behind that desk. I also love Thursdays after a host week where I get to take a break for a little bit, but you’re always on call. We are a team. I think we are the court jesters in all of this. We are a funny little traveling group of circus folk who get to put on fun shows every week and we help each other out in that way. And so we know a few weeks ahead of time who’s going to host when, and we prep for those weeks. And then when you’re not hosting, you’re on call and you’re helping out. I’m in on Mondays to be there when Jon [Stewart] is crafting his Monday show to talk to other people to prep for my future weeks.

I’m then also on call to help if I need to do a piece with Desi [Lydic] that Tuesday because I would fit in it. I’ll come and do a chat with Desi. If I’m not on, then maybe I’m prepping a field piece and out on the road trying to do a piece that might air later on.  I think we were all skeptical at the beginning of like, “how is this going to work?” But we sort of discovered in the weirdness of “The Daily Show” and our ebbs and flows of a writer’s strike, COVID, Trevor leaving, of an interim period where you have rotating hosts, that we’ve got a unique skillset. How do we make the show as efficient as possible? How do we let other voices still be the voice of the larger show and how do we share the rock? And I think  we know how to do this now. This might be the best way to present “The Daily Show,” with this many perspectives.

That’s a good point about the diversity of perspectives and also interests.

We’re going to get guests based on whatever our own host perspective is.  The host is in there in the morning choosing what you want to talk about from the angle that they want to talk about. And so Josh is going to have a different perspective that I’m going to have. Costa’s going to have a different perspective. Desi, Ronny, a different way of writing the jokes and performing it. And I think if you told me that four years ago, I’d be like, “But is it still going to feel like the same unified show?” And I think it does. I think it has different shades to it all, but we are a team, we like each other and the machine of “The Daily Show” is bigger than all of that in a way that allows it to still have the same footprint.