The Daily Show intended to give its audience a look inside a Republican presidential candidate forum held in Iowa this past weekend.
But after the state’s GOP chairman, Jeff Kaufmann, denied the Comedy Central program credentials, explaining, “We were afraid they were going to make fun of Iowa,” the show was left with a hole in its schedule.
“Seeing as this was the last chance for Iowans to see a group of GOP candidates in one place before Election Day, we wanted to be there,” Noah said at the top of the show. “Jordan Klepper filed this report.” But then all that followed were cricket sounds.
“Oh yeah, that's right, nobody filed shit,” the host quipped, “because, for real, the Iowa state Republican Party specifically denied The Daily Show access to their event last week.”
“Come on, Mr. Kaufmann. What you did was disingenuous,” Noah said. “You shouldn’t hide behind Iowa, where the things you really don’t want people making fun of are pretty obvious here…your terrible candidates and your ridiculous events. As far as I'm concerned, the Iowa GOP can suck its own caucus.”
With that, Noah went right ahead and made fun of the various Republicans vying for Iowa’s attention and the Halloween-themed attractions presented to attendees of the conference, including an actual Hillary Clinton scarecrow.
“If you wanted a fake, empty Hillary Clinton, you could have just used Carly Fiorina,” he remarked.
“You see, our problem isn’t with Iowa as a state, it’s with the bloated role in the American elections. I don’t understand, especially because Iowa’s Republican caucus stopped mattering years ago,” Noah said. For proof, he pointed to “‘not president’ Mike Huckabee” and “‘even less president Rick Santorum.’”