For nearly 10 years now, “The Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper has been on the Trump beat, traveling far and wide to rallies, protests, and inaugurations to get the MAGA faithful’s thoughts on the temperature of the nation. In tonight’s edition of “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse,” airing on Comedy Central at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT, Klepper attends the recent June 14 military parade to interact with conservatives who gathered in the streets to celebrate both the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army and the 79th birthday of the President.
IndieWire has an exclusive clip from the episode, which finds Klepper asking the question, “Was this a military celebration, or more of a ‘make Donny feel like a big boy authoritarian leader’ party?” Klepper talked to a variety of MAGA supporters and found that few of them saw the contradiction in celebrating massive funding cuts while attending a superfluous military parade costing taxpayers a reported $45 million. “That’s a good use of your tax dollars, I think,” one Trump fan said without irony.
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As usual, Klepper got a lot of comic mileage out of his interviewees’ tunnel vision, as when he talked to a parade goer who got upset that the left criticized Trump for throwing himself an expensive birthday party when, really, the parade is all about the military and not the President — all of this being said by a guy wearing both a Trump shirt and Trump pants. “He’s worked hard and I think a celebration is in order,” said another MAGA disciple, who nodded in agreement as Klepper joked, “He’s put in a hundred some odd solid days of work, give him a parade!”
If there was one thing everyone Klepper talked to seemed to be in agreement about other than that the parade was worth the expense and Trump deserved it, it was who the Army’s next military target should be: Southern California. “Which one of these tanks do you think we should send to Los Angeles?” Klepper asked one of his interviewees, who responded, “I think we should send all of them.”
MAGA cheerleading aside, it’s clear from the segment that Trump’s parade was, as Klepper put it, kind of a dud. “It didn’t have the cold, intimidating scope of other authoritarian displays,” according to Klepper. “All we had was guys holding drones like pizzas and killer robot dogs who just wanted treats.”
The clip will air on the upcoming June 17 episode of “The Daily Show” at 11 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central. Watch the segment ahead of time below.
