Jordan Klepper is best known for his segments on the ground at Trump rallies and elsewhere for “The Daily Show” but, despite the many he’s been to, the correspondent will readily admit he’s never changed anyone’s mind at those rallies. The only thing that really has, it turns out, is going to prison for Trump.
In a new “After the Cut” segment, in which the sitting host for “The Daily Show” that day takes questions from the audience, Klepper was asked point blank if he’s ever “convinced someone or been able to show them how incongruous their views are compared to their beliefs” at a Trump rally.
“No,” Klepper said bluntly, earning a huge laugh from the crowd. “No, no, I don’t think that’s something I’ve gotten super close to.”
That said, Klepper did recall meeting a woman at his most recent on-the-ground segment in South Carolina who was a former Trump voter and broke away from him. But the turning point, Klepper revealed, was going to jail for her participation on January 6.
“She got arrested for being inside, spent 60 days in jail, and she came out and she changed her opinion. And — give her a round of applause!” Klepper explained. “Great, and now you guys just clapped for an insurrectionist. See how easy it is? Wow.”
Jokes aside, the correspondent admitted that “it was good to talk to her.”
“She was somebody that I did ask, I was like, ‘We don’t run into many people who feel like they’ve been through it, and then come out on the other side,’” he said. “And she said, I think, jail shook her. And I think she started doing her own research, as she said, and a couple of things didn’t line up. And she felt like she was taken in.”
He added, “And so she felt it was her duty to come out to this Trump rally, and talk to people about what she’d been through. They weren’t necessarily great at listening to her. But there’s a little glimmer of hope in there.”
When asked if he thinks there’s any kind of conversation that could change people’s minds, Klepper responded honestly, saying that there probably isn’t — at least in a TV segment.
“Here’s what I think: changing somebody’s mind is hard to do. And I think if you are approaching something like I want to change their mind, you ain’t gonna get anywhere,” Klepper said. “I think the problem we have right now is a crisis of certainty.”
He continued, “I talk to everybody on all sides, who are very certain about their beliefs. And if you actually want somebody to see something that they haven’t seen before, and cross that divide into believing something else, they have to acknowledge that they have a sense of uncertainty.”
“And if they’re being approached by somebody else, you have to acknowledge that you have a sense of uncertainty as well. And so I think in order to change somebody’s mind, you have to be a bit of a loser to begin. It sounds strange, but you have to concede something to get anywhere. And so is it going to happen on a TV show? Doubtful.”
You can watch the full “After the Cut” segment from “The Daily Show” in the video above.