With just a few more weeks to go until Election Day, Jordan Klepper is still putting his life on the line to make fun of Trump supporters at the president’s increasingly irresponsible rallies.
After checking out one of Trump’s infamous boat parades over the summer, the Daily Show correspondent strapped on his mask and headed to Pennsylvania where he trolled the parking lot outside Harrisburg International Airport for the most embarrassing people he could find.
“On the day Donald Trump most likely contracted COVID at an event in the Rose Garden, he hosted another, slightly different kind of superspreader event,” Klepper explained. So he decided to travel to that swing state “to see just how many people had caught Trump’s version of reality.”
“Is there anything 200,000 deaths later that doesn’t quite work as well?” he asked one merchandise purveyor. When the answer came back no, he added, “It’s almost as if the Trump stuff isn’t affected by that at all.”
As the event approached, Klepper interviewed a series of Trump superfans from a respectable distance. In almost every case, he was the only one wearing a mask. “So much excitement in the air,” he said. “So many droplets. You feel like people are going to feel this effect for weeks to come.”
One man said he just forgot his mask in his car, but another young Trump supporter explained that he just wasn’t worried about COVID-19. “Me personally, I’m not worried, but my dad has underlying health conditions,” he told Klepper. “So if he gets it, he’s going to be in trouble.” But to him, seeing Trump in person was just worth the risk.
Later, he blew that same supporter’s mind when he informed him that the president himself votes by mail despite claiming mail-in ballots are inherently fraudulent.
“The efficacy of Trump’s ‘herd mentality’ theory was on full display,” Klepper said before interviewing a bearded man in a USA hat who described himself as pro-life. If it’s “important for Americans to do whatever they can to protect a human life,” then the comedian asked, “Why aren’t you wearing a mask?”
“It’s a personal choice, I think,” the Trump fan responded with no sense of irony. If “everyone” was wearing a mask at the rally, he said he would “respect their wishes” and put one on. “But we’re not sheeple,” he added.
“You’re not sheeple,” Klepper said. “So you’re going to look at what everybody’s doing and you’re going to follow along.”
For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper on The Last Laugh podcast.