The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Jordan Klepper On Comedic Journalism, Engaging With Both Sides, New Comedy Special + More

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Jordan Klepper On Comedic Journalism, Engaging With Both Sides, New Comedy Special. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. How far would he go to cover up what he'd done? The fact that you lied is absolutely

horrific and quite frankly I question how many other women are out there that may bring forward allegations in the future. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yo K-pop fans are you ready? It's your boy Bom Han and I'm bringing you the K-Factor, the podcast that takes you straight into the heart of K-Pop. We're talking music, idols, exclusive interviews, and even the real behind the scenes K-Pop stories. Plus, you're the fans, you're part of the show, and you can get a chance to jump in, share your opinions, and be part of the conversation like never before. And trust me, you never know where we might pop up next. So listen to the K- Factor starting on April 16 on iHeartRadio Apple podcast or wherever

you get your podcast. This isn't just a podcast, it's a K-pop experience. Are you in? Let's go. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, Danity Kang alum, Aubrey O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart radio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. When we step beyond the edge of what we know... I clinically died.

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Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the Guy. We are The Breakfast Club, we got a special guest in the building. Yes indeed. Jordan Klepper, welcome.

Thanks for having me. How you feeling? I'm feeling real good, yeah. I love the way you came in here already because I was joking, I was like, you what, six four? And then Charlamagne was like, really? You went and you said Charlamagne must be around six one, I mean five one.

He didn't say that, he said five one. I said five one. I said five one. You're not right. I was being generous, in my head I was like, I'll make a joke about four six, but I'll give him a little bit more, I said five one. What did you one. I was being generous. In my head I was like I'll make a joke about four six But I'll give them a little bit more. I said five one What did you say you were Charlamagne? I'm five six. That's a goddamn lie. You're five six. You are no five six.

Actually five seven, but I just say five six to make people feel comfortable. Whatever reason I say five seven they argue with me. So I just say five six. Yeah, and even though you said five six I'm arguing with you right now, right? Does that include the brim? If you put the brim way up, you're including the brim, right? But see, that's what I thought with you. I'm like, with the hair, you might be 6'5". I was thinking like 6'1".

That is fair. The hair gives me an extra couple inches. I'll give you 5'6", with heels on. I knew it. Well, you wear heels. How tall are you when you actually wear them? I'm 6'5", okay? What happened to your foot, Jordan?

I broke my sesamoid bone. I haven't even heard of it. I didn't either. It's called the kneecap of the toe. Wow. I know. I got another. Let me tell you, if you want old man stories right now,

I broke my sesamoid bone by standing on it for too long. I don't even know what that is. It's a tiny... I broke a bone by standing. I'm that old now. Wow. Yeah. And that means that's a big deal for you

because you are, you know, probably one of the best field journalists out here. If not the best. The best, a hundred percent the best. I think you're the best. I'll take it. I do. And you have the new one of fingers, fingers,

fingers to post. What? Fingers to post, MAGA the next generation. That has to affect you. It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, literally if you watch the special right now, you will see I'm only shot

from like the halfway up. And if anything gets awry, like I can't move or get away from people. So it was broke during the special? It was broke during the special. Oh, you can't do that when you're on the MAGA crowd. You just never know. Now no offense to the MAGA crowd, but they're also slow movers too. So you know, I can usually outmaneuver them.

I can use my privilege to lord it over them, or I use the four security guards to get between me and them if things get hairy. I enjoyed the special. It's you talking to the younger, I guess, generation of MAGA because 15% of what, young men? Yeah. Young men shifted right this election.

And there was a shift right from the entire youth generation. Like women shifted right, but men especially moved into the MAGA camp. And so we were curious why. Like what was it about that? It doesn't feel like the cool thing on a campus to believe in anti-abortion reproductive rights, or essentially it's the anti-hippie movement but but there was a movement so we're like let's get there let's go to a turning points event let's go to a UFC fight let's like talk to some of these kids. I watched it and I when I finished I was like

I still didn't hear a logical reason it just felt like vibes. I think yeah I think it still is vibes the large question was like is there an ideology behind this shift and I think it still is vibes. The large question was like, is there an ideology behind this shift? And I think the answer is no. I don't think you have a lot of kids who have conservative ideals. Some, there's some religion comes in or whatever those ideals are. But I think mostly they see people finding success on TikTok and the social media space being conservative and that gives them an identity. They see it as a little bit punk. That gives it an identity. So I think like they're moving towards vibes,

which I think for the left, they can get those vibes back, but they're just not engaging with that generation. Jordan, I would have to ask why. Why did you wanna waste your time and talk to MAGA younglings? I don't think it's a waste of time. I think it's a good exercise. I think more people should do that.

The reason I say that is because you're not going to get the answers you'd like probably and then you're probably going to get threatened a lot. Sure, yes. I mean the first answer, health insurance. My job is to be able to talk to other people and if I don't do my job I don't have health insurance. Correct. And I have weak bones.

So we've established that for this six foot nine frame I need that health insurance. But I think what I like about it, I mean, I'm lucky I get to go out there. I'm not a journalist, I'm a comedian. So I get to push, I get to ask follow ups, I get to cavort and try to find something that reveals. Like my job out there isn't to convince people of one way or the other.

I think my job is to find something that is revealing. Like for this special, we talk to a kid and I always find it fascinating to go to a campus and just see like what actually is happening. CNN will tell you one thing, but until you go to Texas A&M and talk to a kid, do you actually understand what it is? Like we talked to a kid about like why he was obsessed with Charlie Kirk and why he was going to a Charlie Kirk event. What is it about this guy? And he literally articulated like, I have a hard time with my words. I like to listen to what he says. I like to memorize it.

And then I have his words and his ideas. And it's comedic in the special, but I think above that, it's just revealing. When you're like, well, why are these people, why are they drawn to this? It's like that kid said it right there. He didn't even know that he's being somewhat comical that you're just memorizing ideas so you can regurgitate it, but it's very human.

He was like, he feels lost without that. So for me, it's always compelling to go where the story is and to talk to folks about it. That part in particular reinforced something that I truly believe. People wake up every day and wait for other people to tell them how to think and feel about things. They have no opinion about nothing, but they'll go online, see their favorite person's face, every day and wait for other people to tell them how to think and feel about things.

They have no opinion about nothing, but they'll go online, see their favorite person's opinion on something, and now that's their opinion. Man, I'm sure you guys feel this stress. Like I remember when I was hosting a show before The Daily Show, I would wake up every morning and I'd grab my phone, I'd look at the news, and I realized, I was like, the first thoughts I have

of the day are somebody else's. It's somebody else's opinion, somebody else's take. It's like I've given no space to actually have an opinion on the world whatsoever and I think that's very much the case and in fact you can't compete in a collegiate space without having some sort of social media presence or connecting so these kids aren't given space to figure out what the hell they want to think about first. I was gonna ask that, not a threatening part. How many times have you been threatened, whether it's calls, people in person,

emails, texts, et cetera, et cetera? I mean, that happens a lot. The emails, the calls, there's been threats on family members, which is not super fun. I think out in the field, 10 years ago, I'm not going out there with security guards. You know, you can go out there as a comedian, talk about politics and not be afraid of getting punched.

But Trump era comes in, people get more upset. Trump says like, you're a patriot, fight back. These are the enemy of the people. And it was during his first run for president that like we went to a school board meeting and are having a conversation. And I get bum rushed by somebody who's just mad that we went to a school board meeting and are having a conversation and I get bumrushed by somebody who's just mad that we have a camera there. And since then, we keep adding security guards.

I was there on January 6th and that got hairy. We got a security guard, they got pushed, there's flash bangs going off. They're like, we can't stand here, we need to get on a train. It's sort of the new reality. And most people I talk to are great. They wanna talk, they wanna be on TV, they wanna engage. But you have it now where people have been weaponized by the most powerful men on the planet

who says like, you can do something, you should fight back, these are the bad guys. And all it takes is a couple bad ideas for those guys to feel themselves and go after you. What's the crazy experience that you've had so far? I mean, J6 was pretty wild. I'm sure. You was out there for J6?

I was out there for J6. What the fuck, I didn't know that. What was you told? I was working on J6, all right, Charlamagne? I was working there. I was out there. I was out there. I was out there.

Closing the window. You know what the funniest moment on J6? Outside of the whole trying to overthrow the government and, you know, crapping on Nancy Pelosi's desk. Outside of that, I'm literally interviewing people and we'd been there before and we knew sort of like we don't want to get trapped on the onslaught. So let's stay outside of where everybody is. And quite frankly, we're like, where's the one place nobody is congregating? And it was outside the African American History Museum. Nobody was going there. So we were like we will meet up here and then we will go and find people to interview. We start walking we find this guy swinging a

pitchfork and I go up to the man I start talking to this man. Oh that's the guy you want to talk to. That's the guy. We gotta make TV here you know and that guy's got a pitchfork he's throwing it around. Lead with blood. I still find it hilarious that nobody was outside the African American Museum. Oh, 100%. The 40th thing. Where are we going to go? African American Museum. Nobody there.

Do you want to engage with America's sins of the past? No, no, let's take a crap on the desk at the Capitol. What do you say? So we're talking to this guy, swinging a pitchfork, and he's ranting about revolution, and another man comes up, he sees the camera, and he just starts, he's just swearing. He's just obscenity, man. And he's yelling so loud that Pitchfork Man stops the interview, he shushes him,

and then he says, this man doesn't speak for me, which then leaves me grateful to the more level-headed man swinging a Pitchfork. And he makes eye contact with me, and he rolls his eyes as if to say, like, can you believe this heaven guy? And I was like, oh yeah, that's it. Like even this guy is like, these guys are too crazy for me.

Can we just have a conversation? And you're like, right, we can actually find a little bit of common ground if there is that crazier person there. Yo, refresh my memory. I don't, what the hell was happening on January 6th before the insurrection? What was everybody there for? Well, they were there to certify the vote. Certify the vote, okay.

But Trump then preempts it by having a huge rally at 11 o'clock. And so everybody comes out, Rudy Giuliani's there, and so everybody comes to watch the giant Trump speech, but everybody leaves halfway through. Not everybody, half the folks leave halfway through to start moving towards the Capitol, which then we saw, we saw the Proud Boys

march on the Capitol. I mean, it was a wild day. It was not a surprise though, as a cable comedy show. Like, we knew to be at the Capitol. We were right there when they pushed in because we're like, this is where everybody's going. This is where they said they're going. There's going to be something happen here. We didn't expect them to get inside, but we knew they'd be there. For the sake of content, for the sake of clicks, did you think to yourself, hey, we should go in with them? Luckily, my inherent fear got in the way there.

I think it was confusing as to what the rules were. I think even at the time, there was a small fence that got pushed in. And even as you're seeing this and you're watching this, and again, it's half tragic. You're like, this is the Capitol, this is the seat of American governance and I see all these people acting like generals going in there and it's also completely absurd.

I saw, I interviewed literally an old man on a Segway trying to go up the hill while it's happening. But I'm assuming they can't get in, right? You're like, they're going to get stopped at some point there, but the people just kept coming and literally our security guards at one point were just like, we're like, they're going to get stopped at some point there, but the people just kept coming and literally our security guards at one point were just like, we're hearing explosions, this is an uncontrolled situation, it's time to get out.

People at The Daily Show, and you said it a little while ago, everybody at The Daily Show always says something that I totally disagree with. Y'all say that, y'all not journalists, y'all are comedians. When in reality, y'all are probably some of the best journalists out. Because you do things like go and talk to the other side when other folks really don't, right?

So do you ever interview people at these rallies? Well, first of all, do you think it's fair for y'all to be able to say y'all are not journalists? Well, it's definitely a dodge. So yeah, thanks for calling it out. You know, I mean, I think I say that in that the stories we get on The Daily Show are stories that are brought to us

by journalists putting in the work. And so that I respect, and they work by the code of journalism. I think what we have, we take it very seriously. I don't see myself as a journalist, but I take going out and bringing back what we see to the show very seriously. But I do want an audience to understand the bias

that we have towards comedy and that we're making a show with that point of view. But I think all news has a bias. And I do think like in modern journalism, I don't think it should be a bunch of comedians going out there bringing the stories back, far from it, but I do think they could probably loosen up some of the rules and the ways in which they engage with people. Because sometimes you see people engaging with the old school rules of journalism, not pushing people past their conspiracies or their BS or their weighing both sides. We're like, no, that's BS. You need to call that out.

You need to use some other way to knock that person off their talking point so they can reveal something truthful there. And I think as comedians, we have that ability and at its best it works that way. But we're working in conjunction with journalists who are actually bringing the story back. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast, Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me.

Caroline's husband was living another life behind the scenes. He betrayed his oath to his family and to his community. She said you left bruises, pulled her hair, that type of thing. No. How far would Joel go to cover up what he'd done? You're unable to keep track of all your lies, and quite frankly, I question how many other women may bring forward allegations in the future. This season of Betrayal investigates one officer's

decades of deception, lies that left those closest to him questioning everything they thought they knew. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yo, Kebabs fans, it's your boy, Bumhan, and I'm bringing you something epic. or wherever you get your podcasts. From producers and choreographers to idols and trainees, we're bringing you the real stories behind the music that you love. And yeah, we're keeping it 100, discussing everything from comebacks and concepts to the mental health side of the business. Because K-pop isn't just a genre.

It's a whole world, and we're exploring every corner of it. And here's the best part. Fans get to call in, drop opinions, and even join us live at events. You never know where we might pop up next. So listen to the K Factor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This isn't just a podcast, it's a movement.

Are you ready? Let's go. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, platinum selling artist, Denity King alum Aubrey O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Aubrey O'Day is sitting next to us here. You are, as we sit here, right up the street from where the trial is taking place.

Some people saw that you were going to be in New York, and they immediately started jumping to conclusions. So can you clear that up? First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy Trial? Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise based on her first-hand knowledge. From her days on making the band as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamour. It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey y'all, it's your girl, T.S. Madison, coming to you live and in color from the Outlaws Podcast. On this week's episode, we're talking to none other than Chaperone and Sasha Colby. And let me tell you, no topping is off limits, honey. We talk about the lovers, the haters, and the creator. I worked at Scooter's Coffee drive-thru kiosk. And you are from the Midwest.

Mm-hmm. And in the Midwest, they told you, well, just be humble. Like, you've heard this countless times. You, too, right? Oh, yeah. It's very, like, big in Hawaii. Mine was, I think, wrapped up in, like, Christian gel.

Oh, yeah. We definitely had, like, some Jehovah's Witness guilt there. Yeah. Wait, were you Jehovah's Witness? Yeah. So you were Jehovah's Witness. there. Wait, were you Jehovah's Witness? Yeah. So you were Jehovah's Witness? I grew up that, yeah, my family still has hair.

Or no, fine. Listen, she may have been working the drive-through in 2020, but she's the name on everybody's lips now, honey. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. So that we can have some commentary on it. Comedy is disarming. It is.

That's the thing that a lot of the journalists don't have. 100%, yeah. And at its best, it cuts to the quick faster than trying to argue with somebody else. When you do something like the MAGA, the next generation, do you ever leave the rally thinking, damn, maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it? I, you know, I mean, I think think I always leave it with a little bit more

empathy towards the folks that I'm talking with. Because for every five minutes on camera, there's two minutes off camera where you're talking about something that's not political and you connect with them and they're interesting, they're compelling. You find music that you both care about or something. I think that softens what you think about the people and the interactions that you have with those people.

I think I usually feel pretty steadfast in my opinions. That being said, I do think, no, nobody has the certainty that they pretend to have on camera at these rallies. No, there's a lot of complexity to many, many issues, but nobody has the guts or the vulnerability to be open about it usually in front of a camera. Now you said you want to bring peace and harmony. God, did I say that? Yes. Oh really? Is that true? Oh boy, when did I say I want to bring

peace and harmony? They said you want to bring peace and harmony but how was that when every time a Magma member comes you give them a little joke? You give them just a little bit. You know what, yeah, I try to deliver peace through the lovely delivery mechanism of a joke. I, you know, I'd love there to be some peace and harmony, but it is a constant balance of, you know, I wanna empathize, I don't wanna just be mean out there when I talk to other people, but also it's, I think life is pretty serious right now,

and I think when I go to some of these MAGA events, you see Donald Trump playing to the masses in a way that emboldens him to do pretty cruel things. And so, I don't mind pushing back hard in that direction. But I often think the people I talk to, I have sympathy for because I think they're being weaponized by other people who are trying to manipulate them. So that's where my empathy tends to lie.

Do you have a struggle with where satire ends and responsibility begins? Yeah, I mean I think like that activist conversation is a tough one. I don't love the hat. I do think like John is somebody who always says like, you know, this is not activism. We're comedians. And I think like in some ways that is a safety net. But you also sort of need that to like not approach work every day to think of like,

what am I trying to change in the world? I understand where that comes from, but it's like the job of the show is to find comedy, to follow your passions, the things you care about, where you CBS, call it out, but also find a way to make it funny and interesting and reformat it. I think that is the job. You get in tough territory when you're like,

I need to be an activist in that moment. I don't think that is the place. But I think you have to be honest with your desire to be a part of that conversation, but also be honest with what your skill set is and what your platform is. Have you ever spoke to somebody where you actually changed their mind

by the things that you said and they understood what you were saying? No. Okay. I do tell the story though. It doesn't happen in front of the camera. People don't change their minds in front of the camera. But off camera it gets close.

I was heckled at a rally by a man who was dressed in a brick suit, a suit that looked like Trump's wall, a bespoke suit, he had a handlebar mustache. He's known as the brick suit guy. Trump brings him up on stage at lots of his rallies. He's famous there. He trolled me at a rally. He livestreamed during our interviews to try to get people not to talk to us. He was a pain in the ass. We get snowed in and all

of us have to fly out the next day after this rally on different flights. And I show up at the Green Bay Airport, very tiny airport, alone. There's a three and a half hour delay and Brick Suit guy is there. He's not in the Brick Suit still. He's not in the Brick Suit. He's wearing a MAGA hat. He's got two extra hats on his case, but no Brick Suit. Civilian clothes. And he's like, do you want to talk?

And of course I don't want to talk, but we're there at an airport for three and a half hours and we get into it. And I don't change his mind. He doesn't change his mind. He doesn't change my mind, but he is remarkably open about the things he's unsure about with Donald Trump. He's unsure, he wishes Donald Trump didn't go on and on about the 2020 election being stolen, which is a huge thing to show any kind of weakness.

Like I don't believe Trump was honest about that. In the MAGA movement, you can't say that in front of the camera, he says that to me off camera. He talks about like where he comes from and frankly, he's like a libertarian guy who likes to troll people online. You'd like to think that the handlebar mustache guy who dresses in bespoke brick suits is an idiot, not an idiot. Smart guy, feels like a history buff, like the kind of person who has too many World War II books.

But a smart guy has his own topics. We literally laugh. Somebody recognizes me as we're talking and asks for a selfie and he takes the photo, which is like, he's open to all of this stuff. We talk all the way up until I get on the plane and I'm in an exit row and the woman who takes the ticket, I ask if I'm willing to accept the responsibilities of being in exit row, I say yes.

And then I turn to him and I was like, I hope this fucking freaks you out, man. And he laughs. And I'm like, that's it right there. Like, you're not intimidated by me. I'm not so offended that I made a joke. You laugh. It's humor, it's disarming.

And it's, for most of the people who I'm friends with, even who I disagree with, you find things you can laugh at. And that happens all off camera. And I'm not entering that conversation to try to change his mind. That's not gonna happen. But I'm entering it with like an amount of uncertainty

of like, here's the things that I'm unsure about what the left says, or here's things that I think are okay about what Trump does. And he's like, here's things that I doubt about what Trump does. You're like, oh, there's the human behind that. Even in the caricature of a guy from The Daily Show mixed with the caricature of a person from the Trump universe, like,

they can talk, they can meet somewhere of an understanding. And usually it's fricking away from those cameras in a Green Bay airport. You think you're a caricature? Well, in that moment, I think he sees me as a caricature. I bet he sees me as somebody who's like, you're on this show that I see as a progressive leaning show as a comedy guy. But I think I have an agenda and I have a bias. I think everybody should see people on their screens as having those things.

And my agenda feels right to me. I'm looking for comedy and hypocrisy. But I'm sure he's like, oh, this guy is just gonna try to twist me into progressive loopholes. I remember when you had your late night show, didn't they have you playing a character of like a conservative right wing? I was playing like an Alex Jones style right wing character. And so that was, and at that time too, it was like Infowars was so huge and big and

the conspiracy mindset, which thankfully has gone completely away. We don't see it anymore. But that was me playing a caricature to find humor in going over the top. Quite frankly, as comedy has evolved and the politics situation has evolved so much over the last 10 years, like I think that's still a space to play in.

There's still humor to be found, but I think audiences are like so tired of extreme caricatures. You have one in the White House that like I think they're connecting more with comedians on a more authentic level. And so that's sort of in some ways where the finger the pulse stuff has come out of.

Trevor was big on that. He was just like, go out there. You're not playing a parody of a journalist. You're yourself bringing your wits about you and your opinions, find humor in that, but don't lean on the character. Also, people are dumb. So they'll believe you.

They'll be like, I didn't know you were playing a character. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We had at the opposition, we had Carter Page, who was a foreign advisor to Donald Trump. And it was the center of the news cycle at one point, because people were wondering if he was a Russian asset,

because Russia had manipulated him in the past. He was working for the Trump administration and he reached out to our show and took a meeting at our show because he wanted to work on our show as someone. He didn't see it as a satire. He saw it as an opportunity, which was hard for us to swallow. Where do you think satire fits in today's media landscape?

Are people numb to it? Are they addicted? Are they still to it? Are they addicted? Are they still reachable? Do they understand it? I mean, I think what has shifted so much is like the formatting of it all, right? I think like satire is all about context and that's hard if you're taking in seven second chunks

on like TikTok. I think it's easier if you have a 30 minute chunk, if you have an eight minute rant. I think people are drawn to comedy. In many ways, it is like the language of, I mean, it's a language of humor, but I think like it's the quickest way to get to a truth. So I do think, I think satire is in a boom. I think people are drawn, but I think, but that being said,

the social media landscape has shifted the ways in which we consume all this stuff. And that has kind of like, it is made for long form capabilities, long podcasts. But that being said, the social media landscape has shifted the ways in which we consume all this stuff. And that has kind of like, it has made for long form capabilities, long podcasts. I think that has shifted where comedy lies and short form as well, which is more about the soundbites. Now, speaking of future of MAG, what do you think the future of MAG is going to look like, especially in 2028? Oh, boy, I think that, I think Trump is such a singular character that they think it can be passed on and that we've seen no proof of that yet. Donald Trump has been famous his whole life. He's referenced in rap songs when I was coming up in a way that he is equated with wealth. And I think that is, nobody else has that. And so I think they're going to try to pass it off.

Maybe that's to Chady Vance. Maybe it's to somebody who's even farther right. But right now it's still a cult of personality that he's going to try to build around him. We'll see if that baton goes anywhere else. It's interesting when people say that though, because to me, it's not even about the individual of Donald Trump. There's clearly a whole system that is perfectly okay with him doing everything that he's doing.

So that is what scares me. It's the system that is allowing him to exist because they will allow somebody else to exist in that same way. Yeah, they've attached a system and there's people behind it who have gotten good at understanding how to use Donald Trump. I think this Project 2025,

the world of Steve Bannon's like, okay, he's going to come in here. He has a singular character in his ability to charm half a nation, 40 some odd percent of a nation. I think that is hard to pass off. But I think you have a conservative movement who has sort of lost any desire to make a moral argument and just found a way in which to attach their wants

to somebody who will just bulldoze all the way through. The Trump doctrine is he likes to make deals and he wants whatever is good for him. And if they can attach conservative things onto the things that are deals and good for him that make him look successful and popular, then they will ride that and he has no problem riding that. What's the moment, I have a couple more questions. What's the moment that actually made you emotional while doing one of your Man on the Street segments?

I mean, it's not to get dark about it all, but we cover news day in and day out. And when I was hosting the show specifically, like mass shootings. Like, oh, how do you find humor? We find humor, but like when you are, when it's your responsibility, late night has shifted into a place where people come to it to feel

like a connection to what has happened during the days. And we have such a mass shooting epidemic in this country. And especially when I was hosting a show, we're like, what happened today? Well, the big news is there was another terrible shooting in a school. And we had people come on, and I've covered, like, the gun movement with specials in the past as well.

And I've talked to parents, and I've talked to students who were affected by all of this. And it's such emblematic of what is wrong with our country. Like, most people just want safe, basic guidelines to try to stop this. And there's such inaction on a federal level that it's constantly infuriating. And there's such inaction on a federal level that it's constantly infuriating.

And so as that keeps happening and continues to happen, like it's so heartbreaking. Also as someone who has a kid who's in school right now, it's so scary to think of that happening to parents. And beyond that, it's so infuriating because it's like the system is broken when you have people who scream out from the rafters, 80 some odd percent of people are like,

we just need basic stuff to try to help kids in schools and yet you have like a system of government that can't respond to that. Like that always, it always pisses me off. What's your dream field piece that you haven't gotten to do yet? Barbados. Send me to a nice place, nice place on a beach. I'm in Pennsylvania all the time at Trump rallies in the heat, fighting with people

about whether JFK Jr. is still alive. Send me to someplace beautiful. Give me a puff piece. So how do you decompress after a day of absorbing conspiracy theory to 90 degree heat? You know what? It's booze. Booze helps real quick. It's booze, the NBA and being a dad. I think that helps out

Yeah Well, tell them how they can see this special they get they can check it out a paramount plus or YouTube It's up on both those places right now. That's right fingers the pulse MAGA the next generation on the dailies YouTube Jordan clever Ladies shows YouTube. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. The Breakfast Club is Jordan clever Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast, Betrayal.

Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. How far would he go to cover up what he'd done? The fact that you lied is absolutely horrific. And quite frankly, I question how many other women are out there that may bring forward allegations in the future. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. You're part of the show and you can get a chance to jump in share your opinions and be part of the conversation like never Before and trust me you never know where we might pop up next So listen to the K factor starting on April 16 on I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast This isn't just a podcast is a kpop experience. Are you in? Let's go go Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, Denity King alum Aubrey O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation.

It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine.

My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. And returned. When we step beyond the edge of what we know, and return, Alive Again, a podcast about the strength of the human spirit. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.