Klepp Your Hands
Starting Monday, the guest host of The Daily Show for the week on Comedy Central will be Jordan Klepper. As far as I can tell, he’s the only “staff member” they’re having sit at the desk during their guest host period, rather than an outside celebrity. And it's well-deserved, after nine years on the show. If you don't immediately recognize the name, he's the "reporter" who bravely and very effectively goes to (usually, if not exclusively) extreme right gatherings and events, and interviews with people there, generally with interesting, even insightful and very funny results, all done with his low-key, polite, very smart, non-confrontational, sly, cutting style.
I just read an interview with him in The Daily Beast about next week’s shows, and it sounds like he’s really prepared for it.
JK: Yes. I’ve got some surprises. I went to the world’s largest gun show!
TDB: That’s terrifying.
JK: It’s terrifying and, sadly, gun culture is not going away. It’s been in the news every week for as long as I can remember. And so there was a terrible shooting and the world’s largest gun show was happening—11 acres of guns. And I was like, I want to do a piece there, let’s dive in, let’s talk to people, let’s do some man-on-the-streets about our gun culture and our obsession with the AR-15. And so we’re prepping a piece for that right now.
I flew to Michigan a couple of days ago to talk to Governor Whitmer at my hometown brewery. We poured beers at Bell’s Brewery and talked about how they’re working in Michigan on gun safety measures, and we talked about how she ran on abortion as a winning issue in a place like Michigan, and we talked about the Michigan Wolverines, everything close to my heart. We have another couple of big guests who we haven’t announced who are going to be on the show.
I want to go out into the world. I want to cover this gun issue because it’s a cancer on our country and every day there’s a terrible, terrible news story, so let’s try to dig into this a little bit more in a way that I don’t usually get to do. Let’s talk to these movers and shakers in politics. So, yeah, honestly, it’s been a blast. It’s a packed week of shows. And it’s me going out into the world for a lot of pieces, and having sit-downs with important people and people involved in culture. I want to pack the second acts of shows this week with those kinds of conversations.
The show airs at 11 PM in Los Angeles and on the East Coast. I assume it's 10 PM in Central Time.
And again, if you don't know his work -- or even if you do, of course -- here's a sample. It's his report from the CPAC convention last year.
And here's a bonus video.
Roy Wood Jr. recently had a week as guest host, and it was extremely successful. In fact, so successful, he became a contender to be the permanent host. After one of the shows, he and Jordan Klepper took questions from the audience, and it was not only very funny, but it showed how clearly the two like and respect each other. And then Klepper showed what a class act he appears to be.
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