Behind The Show | Fingering the Pulse at Trump's Second Inauguration | Jordan Klepper - Ian Berger
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Hello, everybody. Jordan Klepper here, and your ears have wandered into a special podcast episode where we take you behind the show at The Daily Show. I'm joined virtually by supervising producer and segment director Ian Berger today to talk about our latest foray into the megalopolis, figuring the pulse at Trump's second inauguration. Ian, how's it going? Hello. Good, good. I'm happy to be home and thawed out from that frigid weekend, but I

I think we had a good time. It was a cold one. I would say in prepping for this piece, a good 90% of it was discussing layers, how many layers we should bring, put on, what was appropriate for the upcoming apocalyptic freeze-scape. Yeah, we had a few weather strategy meetings that were very important, and I think we succeeded, so go us. People were very scared of this weather, and I will say in retrospect...

Not as cold as somebody growing up in Michigan. This was like a Tuesday. It was a regular Tuesday. It was it was a it was, I would say, a June Tuesday in Michigan, which actually brings brings up a joke you had that I don't think made the cut. But we're like, if if if MAGA and Trump can't weather, you know, 15 degrees in Washington, D.C., how is he going to take Greenland? I don't think they know that much about Greenland, but I'm pretty sure they understand it's cold.

We know for a fact they don't know much at all about Greenland. We talked significantly about Greenland, where it is, what it provides. The simple need to have Greenland existed out there in the Mug Universe. But the reality of the temperature definitely didn't play. Yeah, and they want to make Canada the 51st state. I got news for you. That's also cold.

Yeah, people are temperature sensitive. I think we also posited the idea that it was less a temperature decision on the Trump campaign part and more a we don't want to see an audience smaller than Obama's decision. So there's a lot of, frankly, there were snowflakes everywhere. Yes, there were. Circling back, you want to tell us about that weekend overall compared to the inauguration you went to eight years ago? Yeah, you know,

Eight years ago, nobody really knew what to expect. There was a lot of shell shocked reactions to the Trump administration. Going into this, I knew it was gonna be a weekend full of red hats, people celebrating, people excited, and we were not disappointed as far as that goes. You enter into Washington DC and it is on lockdown. I think

What we had this year because there was such a last minute shift in the ceremony how there was going to be nothing out there on the National Mall like it was very confusing to travel around Washington DC streets were blocked off nobody knew where to go what events were taking place and so us as a production.

It was confusing navigating that, but we kept running into people who were there for the celebration. We had no idea where to go, what to do, where to stand, what to expect. Confused but happy. It didn't matter. They had, like, you're with your people if you're a MAGA, you know, fan. It didn't matter that you didn't know where to go. It felt like people were kind of asking if we knew about things or where they should go. But at least...

Trump had a rally the day before, which when we were first planning this seemed like, oh, that's a good story point because it's kind of crazy to me to say, I'm going to have a rally the day before the inauguration, which is basically a rally. So, but...

you know, Trump needs attention. So he was doing that. But then because things got changed so much, it kind of like I think his, you know, his fans were really happy that he had this rally because there wasn't necessarily, you know, like a lawn event or whatever, a great mall event to go to. It's in retrospect, I understand the need for this rally. At first, I was like, this man just wants nothing but celebrations. But when you have to feed the beast that is Kid Rock, you

Placing him the day before on stage like Trump was gonna give Kid Rock three or four songs to perform Inauguration Day hard to slide that in it It wouldn't be totally surprising if he did on Inauguration Day sneak Kid Rock in there But it felt a little bit cleaner to have him the day before it really was an event that was like let's bring everybody who has made a lot of noise and created a

awful music and culture wars. Let's put them on stage to dance around. And I think the fans were very excited to have it. Yeah. In fact, like one of the lanes we wanted to explore, and it was kind of a game we had that, again, didn't make it into the piece because you go out in the world and you find other stuff, great stuff you weren't expecting, was that we were treating it like it was a destination wedding, but one of those like really long destination weddings with too many events.

And a lot of the MAGA crowd bought into that. They're like, absolutely. It's like a destination wedding. That's great. And I think...

We even had jokes about, like, you know, the gifts for Trump and, you know, whether they – where they would be seated and whether they'd get invited to the Tuesday brunch. But, you know, it really was like a destination wedding because there was parties everywhere. And people are drunk during the day. And there's a lot of outfit changes. So –

One premise that we had walking out was like, oh, this does feel like this big weekend. And we started joking with people about whether or not they had seen the Trump registry and given to the Trump registry. And perhaps it's no surprise anymore.

everybody everybody didn't bat an eye like the idea that like oh no one i buy a bunch of trump so i've already i've already paid a ton of money to the vendors right around here for the newest trump merch but secondarily like oh yeah there's there's a tithing to be paid we've we've already gifted to the campaign and we we joked with a lot of people about like um

how important it is to give money to the Trump campaign because your voice won't be heard if you don't give money. And of course, the more money you give, the louder your voice will be. That as a comedic premise feels sound, but does not land as a comedic premise there. It just lands as a baseline reality. Yeah. And that's a sad state of affairs for like, you know, politics in general in America. But yeah, they there was no shame in that. There's no shame.

Again, we've talked about it on the show, but the implicit is now explicit. And so perhaps we are the silly ones to be like, isn't that crazy? They're like, oh, you mean Bezos and Musk and everybody standing right behind Donald Trump when he's sworn in? No, that's just America. Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk about some of the things you were surprised to see. I mean, we can talk about the reactions to the J6 photos. What did you think of that? What were you expecting? How

How did it play out? Well, we went down there expecting some pardons to come down on day one of the new Trump administration. And frankly, we've been covering J6 since we were there on January 6th. And I think the question we had in New York was like, what is the line? Is there truly a line with the MAGA faithful? So we printed out pictures and images from January 6th. People who brought a gun, a man who brought a gun and shot it outside of January 6th. We brought a picture of him.

police officers being beaten and we kind of confronted people about like we understand you want quote unquote blanket pardons when you ask the MAGA faithful like what do you think about January 6 folks you know to a person they all would say like pardon and then you'd follow up blanket pardons and most people said yes of course yet when when confronted with the actual images confronted with what they did a good number of the people we talked to did draw a line

did see a police officer getting beat and say, well, of course not, not violent protesters. And I think looking back at what Trump did the next day, which is essentially pardon everyone and commute the sentences of the people who were violent criminals,

The majority of the MAGA folks we interacted with did see a line and drew the line at violence and attacking cops. And there was even one person who was a little ray of sunshine who saw these images of cops being attacked, beaten, and was somewhat horrified and said to us,

I've never seen these images before. When we asked him where he got his media sources, he said it was just conservative media. He was very open about that and vulnerable.

Where was this at? This was outside the Capitol. January 6th? Yeah. You've not seen this image? No, I have not seen that. Have you seen any of these images? Some of them, but not these. Really? Maybe the ones, maybe the media that I'm following is not, is not showing these. What, what? It could be. It could be? What media did you follow? All conservative. Did you watch the January 6th hearings? No, I didn't, no. Okay. So this is new. So that's my fault. I should have been better informed, yes. I will say that's a refreshing thing to hear.

And we went on to have a conversation beyond what is even in the piece where he said he will...

He said he promised to do his own research and engage in other media sources. Who knows if that man is knee deep in Huffington Post right now or not, but there was a true openness to him that we rarely see at these Trump events. He was genuinely concerned looking at those pictures, like concerned one for like the victims in those photos, but concerned for like the state of the world that he had never seen them before.

And confused by it. And it's kind of amazing. And then, of course...

Well, I think it does speak to many of the folks we show this to. I don't think it's seen many of these images. Their media diet doesn't show that to them, but usually approach it with, well, you're trying to manipulate me. What this man showed, and perhaps it's a crack in the wall, it's a little bit of the light that's coming through, a case for optimism. I don't know how you want to frame it, but the MAGA faithful were not defensive when it came to these conversations. They've won.

They feel like they're on cloud nine. They're getting what they want. And so in that moment, you're like, why did we get this person to actually be somewhat reflective? It's because the defensiveness has gone. He's doing a victory lap, and perhaps there's an openness, or at least we saw a moment of it. Yeah, that was incredible. It was incredible. And, of course, there are people who just have blinders on and their guard up. No matter what you show them, think of the guy in the hockey jersey, the

He went from like kind of trying to deny the reality of the photo to just admitting that he didn't care. He's like, "Oh, maybe that's Antifa. Oh, maybe the cops are attacking him." And then finally he was like, "I don't care what you show me." Like truly it is the old line. Trump could shoot somebody. It could be on video and there will be people like, "I don't know. He still seems all right." - This guy with a gun outside the Capitol, should he be pardoned? - Did he shoot the gun? Is that a real gun or is that a fake gun? - He shot the gun up in the air. Yes.

Yes. You should be pardoned. Yes. Because? Yeah, I think you should be pardoned. Why? Because I don't think you should be, uh, I don't think you should be pardoned. Yeah, absolutely. What about this guy spraying a bear spray at the police officer? Self-defense. So pardon? Yeah. That's a tough one. Was that from the same day? Yeah, that's January 6th. The most photographed crime in human history. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Okay, well, you can show me $8 million more. I'm pro-pardon. Wow. Like, when you ask somebody something uncomfortable in the Trump world, the first thing is like, well, it's Antifa, or that's a manipulated image, or that didn't happen. Like, they throw out a bunch of possibilities. And then when you get through all of it, it ends finally with, I don't fucking care. I don't care. Yeah. Thank you. You can just admit that right away, and we could wrap by lunch if you just all said it right away. It would be great.

Another thing we kind of discovered, which was on a lighter note, a pretty funny thing about a special VIP guest everybody there was excited about. Garbage truck, baby. One thing you're most excited about seeing today.

Donald Trump at 5 o'clock. That's it. And the garbage truck. And the garbage truck. Yes, this garbage truck. The MAGA garbage truck that went viral during the campaign will reportedly hit the streets during the inauguration day parade. And these full-grown adults who voted for the president were really, really pumped. The garbage truck is here? Yeah. No. I didn't know that. The garbage truck is here?

- No! - I did hear that. I did hear it was coming, yeah. Yeah, that's funny. - What are they talking about? - That's what I'm talking about. - A garbage truck is here. Have you heard about that? - No, the one that Trump sat in? - Yeah!

Donald Trump garbage truck was scheduled to appear at this inauguration. And we laughed about it on the show. When that news article came about who the VIPs were, they mentioned garbage truck. We had a field day with it on the show. And so the question that we had before coming down is like, do people really give a shit about the garbage truck? And it turns out the answer is yes, they do. They are so excited. The group of...

Three women, they reminded us about their excitement because they brought it up. We didn't actually have to prompt them. They were like, oh, I'm also very excited about the garbage truck. Yeah. The funniest thing might be that the garbage truck was never there as far as we could tell.

This was a weekend of metaphors. Like, if you want, years from now, we look back at what was the Trump presidency like, you see nothing but metaphors. You see a rich man hanging out with his billionaire friends, leaving his supporters out in the cold. You see a bunch of people coming to Washington to be excited about one image of American greatness, that being a garbage truck. And yet the third metaphor being the garbage truck that was promised

Never even fucking arrived. It's funny because it was just reported that it would be there. It feels like those convoys that were like...

forever supposed to be heading to the Capitol. They show these images of like 7,000 truckers are driving to the Capitol to protest vaccine mandates. And it just didn't exist. But everybody would post about it. So it feels like that. I'm sad. How could they not get the garbage truck there? It doesn't seem like it takes that much, but...

I remember day one, we shot this piece over two days, the day before at the victory rally and inauguration day. And one of those first interviews, the women brought up Garbage Truck. And so we just decided because the reaction was so funny to us that we would ask everybody about the Garbage Truck. And everybody was so...

so freaking excited to a T that it became like our internal, the one thing that we found so much joy in asking, like, well, we got to ask about the garbage truck. When did you see their faces light up? It was like a switch. Like, I think you made the observation and it didn't make it to the piece, but like their reaction and like obviously discussion and excitement over garbage trucks, very childish, but their reaction was like,

like that times 100. It was like telling your child you could have ice cream for breakfast. When you tell a kid that, like, oh my God, this is the best day ever. This is it. Yes.

That was it was that kind of reaction. It was like a child finding out they're getting extra dessert. It was pure, unadulterated joy. It was like they're excited about two things. One, they're excited about migrant families being detained at the border and a garbage truck has arrived to Washington, D.C. What joy. This is a new serious chapter in America. We're excited about the garbage truck.

We did get one of my favorite moments in these pieces was the lovely couple at the end. One dressed as Spider-Man, the other dressed as a traditional MAGA supporter with a Fight Fight Fight t-shirt. And

They were bummed, as most people were out there on the Capitol lawn, that there was no event, and when we told them that the truck was potentially there, they got so giddy. And the man in the Spider-Man said, "Ooh, ooh, ooh, I saw one! I saw one!"

Such joy. And then when we slowed it down to be like, wait, wait, you saw a garbage truck? Not necessarily the garbage truck. And he conferred, yes, that it was a garbage truck. And I'm so excited that I saw a garbage truck. To me, that was such a lovely comedic heightening and also an articulation of what that joy is. It's not even attached anymore to the trolling event of the garbage truck or Donald Trump's supremacy. It's attached to the sheer joy of seeing a thing. And that's

MAGA 2025, everyone. Yeah, it was the exact same kind of reaction to my child in a stroller being pushed around Brooklyn and seeing an actual garbage truck and pointing. Truck, truck. It was the exact same thing, except my child was two.

And to be clear, your child's not in control of or has a say in who should be running the largest democracy on planet Earth, correct? Did not vote. Did not vote. Did not vote. Did not vote. Did not donate money to the Trump campaign. Wow. So it has no say. Yeah, no say. One other group I want to talk about were the, I think they call themselves the MAGA boys, and they look like a boy band. We saw them from a distance, and it was like too incredible not to approach.

- Not only are we excited here in the US, but the world is excited. We're excited to get rid of the old administration, you know, just wipe the slate clean. - You do that with like dope dance moves or something? - No, we do that with crypto and AI.

We only used a little bit of them, but that was a fun interaction. What was your reaction? What did you think of them? And what do you think of their story? Remember, they kind of told you who they were and what they did or supposedly did. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating to see the Donald Trump means different things to different groups. The MAGA faithful are not monolithic. And these guys are.

These guys were dressed head to toe in bespoke MAGA gear, like expensive red, white, and blue leather jackets. Those were nice jackets. I'm not going to lie. They were pretty nice. They were nice jackets. And they had energy. They had MAGA bro energy. And they told us their story, which was essentially that they found this...

They found this team, this MAGA team. They traveled around in a bus and they had converted their bus into a podcast bus that is hitting the country and bringing the power of talk, MAGA boydom, all of that stuff to change America. When we asked them how are they going to change America, and they said through the power of AI and crypto. Big crypto, guys.

Huge into AI, crypto. They talked a lot about Bitcoin and all sorts of cryptonomics with us. And I think when we brought up like, oh, well, the big news was the Trump coin and it made so much freaking money. We're like, oh, how many of those did you guys get? They missed it. Their whole thing is Trump and crypto and Trump coin. They missed that investment opportunity and they felt so stupid.

And they should. And then their excuse was, we didn't think the Trump effect would be that big while they're dressed in head to toe Trump gear. Like if anyone should know that it's that big, you guys have like dedicated your life to this look. You are it. You are it. You believe in this man and crypto and you missed the moment because you underplayed it. I...

I feel like that missing that moment is like altered their course in some ways that we can't, we don't know, but like their lives would be very different, obviously. But like, I almost feel like sadly missing that moment. I could see them like the group splintering and then blaming each other and MAGA boys is over. Like,

If we were writing that episode of TV about them, that's what I think it would be. They missed Trump coin, and then now they've got to blame each other. I imagine them like a traditional boy band, like an NSYNC or Backstreet Boy. You've got your vibe of who's the Justin Timberlake and who's going to break out, who's going to end up having substance abuse problems, who's going to have a solo career in the MAGA sphere and become a

crypto rapper or something, you know, a year and a half from now, like you could really see it all distilled. You're the quiet one. You're the one who's going to get thrown out of your job in law enforcement. This is what, okay, I figured it out. And you're all going through divorces right now. Okay. That's the tie. There's a lot here. Okay. You know what, you know what, a moment that stood out to me too is like the culture of MAGA is,

fascinating and we were outside Capital One Arena and then we did most of our interviews and I went in not to the arena but the hotel and just watched most of that victory rally and it's wild to watch these events played out over an hour and a half you watch Kid Rock do multiple songs that are

Anti-deep state and then he does bow with taba with Trump speeches intercut in between where he's wearing like a wife beater There's a guitar solo and the audience is filmed filled of like 50 like of like thousands of 50 to 60 year olds Half dancing and half not knowing what to do. It's a weird cultural moment village people comes in like it's just it's abrasively it's abrasively like wedding band culture and

Yeah. To an audience that is not super into it, but is just excited to have been invited to the wedding. Yeah, and had a few cocktails. So they're going to dance so hard to these songs that they've never given a shit about. And like traveling around D.C. that day, the Village People has now just become almost a trolling song. There's little rickshaws that were riding around trying to get people to hop on playing the Village People. I walked into a pizza shop

that for the inauguration had brought in a DJ to spin tunes who was playing YMCA at a sad little pizza shop outside of Capital One Arena with a bunch of MAGA red hats sitting there on dates awkwardly eating mediocre pizza and listening to a DJ blast the village people. Where you're just like,

Are you guys even enjoying this? Is this what victory looks like? Is this what the new culture is? And I don't want to be pretentious that the new culture has to live in some world of like Philip Roth novels or us just...

zoning out to the newest electro jazz. But there's something to what is... There should be better music in America's future. We should aspire to something better than essentially a DJ in a pizza joint playing a gay anthem from the 80s. Right. Just want to finish and talk about the vibe at the mall on the second day.

Because obviously there was not an event there. But we went there knowing people would just show up because what else do they have to do? We were unsure where to go. There's 20,000 people I believe were getting into Capital One Arena with a promise of perhaps seeing Donald Trump later in the day. But for the...

thousands, you know, some people said there's hundreds of thousands of people who came to D.C. to see Donald Trump. They had no place to go. And it was fascinating. The people we walked around on the National Mall, like people were starting to congregate there. They had taken down the jumbotrons. They had taken out any place for people to hang. But Donald Trump was in the rotunda. And so people kind of made their way there as a pilgrimage.

People were bummed out. They'd spent thousands of dollars to get there. We felt for it. We would see families there who came down to D.C. for the first time, spent a bunch of money to get there, and now they didn't know where to go or what to do. And so there was like a melancholy

on the, the national mall. Um, we ran into a few people who like, who spoke to that. I think we laughed at it. We called it a calm. We felt it was like somber, felt a bit like a funeral. Well, I mean, cause we've shot on the mall a bunch and obviously we were there on January 6th and that day is very different and the energy is very different, but it was so odd to be there and see that many people being quiet. Like, like,

When you see that many people, you're kind of anticipating just noise, but it was really quiet. I think you touched on that on the piece, but still they had to go and gather somewhere. So it's not like there's great museums in that town that they can all go to. Yeah, I don't know. It's Martin Luther King's Day. Maybe if there could be an African-American museum that can help Americans reflect on our troubled history with...

racial inequality. I don't know, maybe that would be a nice opportunity. Literally hundreds of yards, just a couple hundred yards from where we were standing. Not like another section of the city, like right there. You could go right there today.

It is it created such a fascinating organic situation, which is true like the the MAGA faithful are always asking Where's the party at and oftentimes it's in a frickin parking lot But then a jumbo jet comes in and a man yells about immigrants for an hour and a half and they buy a silly hat That day nobody knew where the party was at and so they meandered and they wandered they didn't know how to like organize their

their excitement. And the reality was the party was inside the rotunda with a bunch of rich people who are taking care of the things that they want to take care of. And they're left to sort of wander the National Mall among these monuments, essentially lost. So obviously we've been to Trump events when he's won and Trump events when he's lost. And the ones where he lost were really kind of hairy. January 6th, even the Million Mag of March before that was in a way kind of scarier. And

But now they've won and they're feeling pretty good. Did you notice a shift in the tone and the vibes for yourself at this event? People were definitely jubilant and excited to be there.

I didn't see any vibes that were the anti-media vibes that we've seen in the past. I don't see that as a long-term solution to this tension that exists oftentimes out there in the field. But because this weekend was an example of Donald Trump's vision for America, finding its audience and being celebrated,

People seem just just happy and didn't pay us any mind. We are we are part of the We are part of the media landscape that they don't have to pay attention to now. I

Weeks from now, as things perhaps don't go as well as they imagine they could go in their own minds, I imagine sort of perhaps there's a tension that gets brought back into it. I think that's what happened with us last time, eight years ago. Again, I think it's going to be a very different four years than Trump's first four years. But I do think –

I do think this is just a brief pause in the tension and the anger. I think the MAGA movement is based on anger and grievance aimed at something. And therefore, this was more of an aberration to what is MAGA as opposed to a new angle for it. Yeah, absolutely. But just wait until Congress refuses to change the Constitution so he can run for a third term. They're going to be so angry then.

Prepare yourself. I'm already prepared. I've already heard the rumor that he's going to run as vice president next time around.

Which which I'm like, oh, that that makes too much sense. God damn it. It really does. Oh, my God. Any thoughts going forward? I mean, we've we've covered Trump in the past. I think he took a little break from rallies, but still he can't resist doing them. Any ideas about like covering these kinds of events next few months?

I mean, we always talk about what we like about going to these events. You know, it's like a laboratory of ideas. We get to see the conversations that Donald Trump has in front of the media or he tweets about what actually resonates with his supporters.

what we discovered with this one we talked you know since since trump was elected we hadn't gone to one of these events before and so a lot has happened and so we brought up things like greenland and what and and the panama canal and and canada there's a lot new mexico the uh uh uh oh yeah the the gulf of the gulf of mexico slash america we brought up a lot of these issues and it is fascinating to see what has penetrated like again more often than not we see people

create an argument for Donald Trump out of these things that they haven't thought about perhaps ever in their lives, but also stuff that doesn't resonate with them. They had no opinions about the Panama Canal. They were grasping at straws about Greenland. And I think as we move forward,

Who knows how many of these events there will be, but I think we always are on the search to see what people actually are talking about and how the propaganda is working. And many times I think that's what we do out there. We're testing what propaganda works and what doesn't work. And when you're in a hotel and you see people cheer for Donald Trump saying he won the youth vote by 36%,

That propaganda is working. But then when you're out in the cold and you hear people have no idea what's going on with Panama Canal, you see that propaganda hasn't taken hold yet. And so I think we're going to continue to stress test how America's propaganda diet is sitting in. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I would make kind of one ask of the universe, and that would be like, he's in Florida all the time. Do a public rally down there so we can go to Florida in the winter and not

a northeastern frigid city just do that i couldn't agree more i think we support mar-a-lago being the second white house let's do the events down there for the love of god the daily show ask you donald trump great idea all right jordan thank you a big thank you to ian berger we're going to continue fingering the pulse together for trump part two and hopefully we'll be back here to tell some more war stories this has been behind the show at the daily show thank you for listening

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