Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Moscow Tools (FULL SPECIAL) | The Daily Show

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- We're in Estonia, they're training to fight the Russians.

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Do you have any more camo?

No? Okay, that's cool.

I'll just...

Are you using all these leaves?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah. Okay, sorry.

- We're crawling.

- The crawling helps the leaves,

it looks like you're a moving bush.

Yeah, yeah, no, I got it, I got it.

Yeah, yeah.

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America is heading into an election nobody wants,

and the world has serious problems

that demand serious conversations.

However, after years of Trump rallies,

the only people I know how to talk to

about the state of the world

are old pals, like MAGA Edward.

- We may already be in the middle of World War III,

it just hasn't gotten real hot yet.

You could blame Biden,

but we all know who's runnin' this country.

- Who is running this country?

- Barack Obama, this is his third term.

- Do you think the world would be safer

with Donald Trump returning to the presidency?

- 100%.

- I know without a fact, it would.

- Without a fact,

it would be a safer world. - Yes!

- [Jordan] But as the MAGA faithful

wait for Trump to return us to safety,

they found a surprising model for their perfect society.

- I would like to see America be more like Russia.

- [Jordan] Yes, Russia.

- It's clean, everybody looks healthy.

I mean, it looks like they take care of their people.

- You see the streets in Russia,

people are walkin' around and they all seem to be happy.

Their country really looks like they've got things together

a little bit.

- Putin is a valued leader who runs his country.

He's a respectful person towards his country.

- What do you like about Vladimir Putin?

- The way he's leadin' his country, it's all for freedom.

I used to watch his videos fishing, horseback riding,

back in the day.

- (laughing) You would do it just for fun,

you'd watch Putin horseback riding videos?

- Yeah.

- Who's a better leader, Vladimir Putin or Joe Biden?

- Putin.

- [Jordan] This guy, the one with a terrifying track record?

- [Reporter] Littering the landscape with violent deaths,

mystery illnesses, and dubious suicides.

- [Jordan] The one who meddled in our election, in 2016?

The one who is "meddling" in Ukraine?

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What do they see in a guy who creates so much chaos?

- He's strong, he's well-mannered, he speaks well.

- Putin is well-mannered,

right? - Absolutely.

- He knows where the fork goes, where the knife goes,

which window the journalist goes out of.

- (laughing) Yup.

- I think he's a calm person, I think he's methodical,

I think he thinks about things beyond today,

and I think he sees into the future for his country.

- It looks like he's thinking two steps ahead, right?

- Yes.

- It's almost like he knows what the next territory

that he wants to infiltrate with his own perspective.

- Right, right. - Right?

Who do you think started the war in Ukraine?

- Joe Biden and his son.

- This war was started so that Biden could remain President.

- That is what's happening. - Wartime president.

So, how did Biden

manufacture Putin sending tanks into Ukraine?

- Ooh.

- That's a good question.

- But you do think it was manufactured by Biden.

- Yes, yes. - Yes, well-

- Yeah, obviously.

- [Person In Black Trump Hat] Yeah.

- But how he did it...

- How does he do a lotta things that he does?

- That's a way to evade it, for sure.

Wait, people are giving Putin a pass here,

at a Trump rally in a field, in rural Pennsylvania,

next to the most American vehicle in history,

a monster truck with a "tits" license plate.

The Republican party used to talk about Russia like this:

- Mr. Khrushchev understands only strength and firmness.

They are the focus of evil in the modern world.

- Russia, I indicated, is a geopolitical foe.

- [Jordan] But this ain't your daddy's GOP,

it's Vladdy's GOP.

Nowadays, more than half of republicans

think Vladimir Putin is a better president than Joe Biden.

And it's not just out here, it's everywhere.

Tucker Carlson recently went to Moscow

to marvel at ciabatta loaves and mass transit.

- How does Russia have a subway station

that's nicer than anything in our country?

- [Jordan] And the Russian fandom

goes all the way to the very brain trust of the GOP.

- The Ukrainian Government is attacking Christians.

Russia is not doing that.

- Putin is smart, our leaders are dumb.

- [Jordan] How did the Republican party become Moscow tools?

- The explanation for that stems largely from Donald Trump.

- [Jordan] This is John Bolton,

the most republican of republicans.

He served under three Republican presidents,

including Trump, sold the invasion of Iraq,

and did some light geopolitical meddling.

- As somebody who has helped plan coup d'etat,

it takes a lot of work.

- Imagine Ronald Reagan is caught in amber, in 1988.

I'm using "Jurassic Park" technology.

He wakes up now, unthawed,

what does he think of the modern GOP?

- Well, certainly the Trump wing of it,

he would be appalled by.

It's just antithetical

not just to the philosophical beliefs of Ronald Reagan,

but to the positive attitude about America

and its prospects.

- So Reagan wakes up and he's shocked.

- Right.

- And he's also like, "What is this internet thing?

Maybe we should send Steven Seagal over there

to kick Putin's ass.

Wait a minute, Steven Seagal already lives there.

This is all too confusing,

let's just go back to ignoring AIDS." (laughing)

- I think he'd be stunned that the Republican Party

had anything to do with Donald Trump.

- What is Trump's infatuation with Putin?

- Well, I think he has a fascination

with authoritarian leaders, generally.

I think Trump would like to be a big guy,

but I don't think he's smart enough to be a dictator.

- So is Trump... What's the term, an idiot?

- Well, I think Rex Tillerson

had the iconic two-word description of Trump.

The first word, I won't repeat even on your show,

the second of which was "moron."

- Okay, I'll throw it in there, (beep).

- That's pretty much on point,

that's right. - Yes, a (beep) moron.

- Right.

- Can a (beep) moron still be a useful idiot?

- I think the answer to that's yes,

and I think Vladimir Putin understands it.

- Yes.

For Putin, Trump is like one of those dogs

that the Russians shot into space:

obedient, useful, and utterly disposable.

But if Putin's puppy actually wins,

what does that mean for things like NATO,

an alliance of Western nations

which has been a thorn in Putin's side?

- Well, I think there are two main points

that Putin will be concerned about

if Trump wins in November.

One, the most immediate point will be the war in Ukraine;

and second, related to it but broader, the future of NATO.

- Does Trump know what NATO does?

- He doesn't understand alliances.

- How important is having an alliance

with perhaps somebody you don't agree with but connect with

so that you can push together a common goal

for geopolitical safety?

- Well, I think NATO's the most successful

political military alliance in human history.

So before we give that up, people oughta think about it

a little bit more seriously than Trump does.

- [Jordan] So the stakes of this election

couldn't be higher.

The only way to stop an existential threat

is through alliances, a unified front for the common good.

So picking between Trump and Biden must be a no-brainer.

- I'm not gonna vote for either one,

I wrote in a name in 2020, I'll do that again this year.

- A wise man once told me that sometimes,

it's important to make alliances

with people that you may not agree fully with

in order to have some sort of global stability.

But maybe, tell me more

about writing in an unnamed candidate for president

with 0% chance of winning?

- I don't think either prospect is very appealing, frankly.

- [Jordan] Great.

So in the race between a current president

and a former president,

it looks like the winner will be the Russian President.

The GOP's softer stance on Russia

was giving me flashbacks to 2016,

when Putin tried to influence our election.

- I mean, it could be Russia,

it could be somebody sitting on their bed

that weighs 400 pounds, okay?

- [Jordan] But Russia would've to think we're fools

to fall for that again.

- This is the traditional image of Americans

that Russians have in their minds,

that we're stupid, that we're gullible,

that we smile at everyone like total idiots.

You concede information in their head,

and they will parrot the information that is useful to you.

- [Jordan] This is Russian-born American journalist,

Julia Ioffe.

As a correspondent in Moscow,

Ioffe covered Putin and the Kremlin,

so I wanted her to help me

parse through what I'd been hearing at rallies.

- There was an amazing Washington Post report

by Catherine Belton, an investigative reporter,

who got her hands on some secret Kremlin documents.

So this is a pitch

for a "partisan" media campaign in the US.

The targets of this campaign are Republican Party voters.

We wanna echo what they're saying, which is that,

I'm just reading from the document here,

"Colored, perverts, and invalids get all the privileges."

- It sounds like a Toby Keith lyric.

(Julia laughing)

- This will sound familiar to you, "The danger

of criminality of colored people and immigrants"-

- Yeah, I've heard a thing or two there.

- I used to live in Milwaukee,

and there's places in Milwaukee that you can't go to,

because me as a little white guy,

I wouldn't feel safe bein' there.

You see the streets in Russia,

it looks like their infrastructure in their country

looks a whole lot nicer than ours does here.

- The murder rate is twice as high in Russia

as it is in the United States.

- I didn't know that, guys.

I mean, well, thank you for informing me.

- The best political influence campaigns

are the ones where you don't invent anything,

you just take the facts on the ground and you amplify them,

right?

And so what you see these fake accounts amplifying

are arguments that I'm sure you've heard on the trail

and at these rallies, which is that,

"Democrats are globalists

who care more about Ukraine than about the southern border."

It's, "Russia's good, and Ukraine is corrupt."

- It is corruption.

They're taking advantage of the situation what they created,

it's by design.

- They're pumpin' money over there

and we know it's coming back to politicians' pockets here.

- Now, it goes into the means of spreading this information.

- How they gonna do it?

- Well, you're gonna use social media.

But it says,

"The only place where they can spread this information

without any censorship is," I'm gonna let you guess.

- Where can they get the vitamins,

where are you sellin' T-shirts?

- I'm Red Pill Ken, on Truth Social, @redpillken.

- [Jordan And Julia] Truth Social.

- Yes.

- The most useful of the idiots

can be found on Truth Social.

- (laughing) Or owning it.

Connect these dots, how Zelenskyy is benefiting from this.

Where (stammering)-

- Because he has yachts, he has plenty of money!

And guess what Zelenskyy does?

He sniffs cocaine right in front of y'all!

- So the yacht story

is that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine,

took money that the US sent him for weapons,

siphoned it off, and bought two luxury yachts.

The story is completely false.

But then researchers were like, "Where did this come from?"

- It came from a little website called DC Weekly,

which is from not actually here in Washington DC!

DC Weekly is allegedly run out of here, Moscow.

Then, the story spreads across the internet

and makes its way to there, to (beep) there!

Yup, it was shared by Marjorie Taylor Greene and J.D. Vance.

- There were people who would cut Social Security,

throw our grandparents into poverty.

Why,

so that one of Zelenskyy ministers can buy a bigger yacht?

- [Jordan] Meanwhile,

military aid for Ukraine hung in the balance.

- Not another penny will go to Ukraine.

- [Jordan] Congress eventually gave Ukraine

a whole lotta pennies,

but aid was stalled for seven months.

- In that time,

Ukraine suffered tremendous battlefield losses.

So people are actually dying because members of Congress

are parroting fake Russian bullshit.

- So is that a win for Putin?

- 1,000%.

- [Jordan] Yes, Putin was winning,

but it wasn't just because of disinformation.

- What's happening in Russia

is basically a Republican wet dream.

They have banned the international LGBT movement,

They're restricting abortion.

Vladimir Putin invokes

a lot of what republicans call "wokeness."

It just seems that Maga heads, they're much more comfortable

with that authoritarian persona,

especially when the guy is white, male, Christian-

- Shirtless, hairless.

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Clearly, a big Putin fan.

- Well, it's like a souvenir.

- Meet Kline Preston.

That's the Founder of the KGB.

- Yes.

- He was a lawyer for future GOP Senator Marsha Blackburn,

he attended the NRA convention in 2015

with a convicted Russian agent, and in 2020,

he fought to overturn Biden's election results in Michigan

to help Trump.

And he knows all about election integrity

because he's been an official observer

of seven Russian elections.

- So in Russia,

they have legislation that allows for foreign observers.

- What do you say to the critics who might say

maybe they're choosing outside observers

who are biased to be a little pro-Russia?

- Well, I wouldn't say that I'm pro-Russia.

- From a decorating perspective, perhaps.

- Well, I mean,

I could see how someone would make such a comment based on,

you know, knowin' my background.

- Or your furnishings.

- My furnishings and, you know.

- Yeah, or your knickknacks.

- (laughing) Yeah.

- Your oil paintings-

- A long interest- - Weaponry on the wall.

- Yeah, um-

- The bust. (laughing)

Who do you point the finger at for that Russian invasion?

- The West.

When Russia invaded in 2022, in February,

it was a defensive move.

- Putin's a victim here.

- Well, I mean, to some degree Russia is.

The fact is, and American politicians hate this,

Vladimir Putin's done a very good job for his country

and he's really popular.

- Some people claim that he controls the media,

he controls and/or executes his enemies.

- I mean, who?

- Well, Navalny.

- But there's no proof that he killed him.

- Right, okay.

Yevgeny Prigozhin?

- Prigozhin, okay.

Um, his plane blew up or whatever.

- What about somebody like Nikolai Glushkov, Putin critic?

Is that suspicious to you, his death?

- Yeah, it's suspicious, absolutely.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But can I say that Vladimir Putin did it? No.

- Huh.

- Litvinenko, you remember him?

- I don't.

- Well, let's just say he had a penchant for polonium.

- Right.

- Especially in his tea.

He died a horrible death.

- It seems like the Oscar's-style in memoriam

for all the opposition leaders and journalists

who have died under Putin's watch,

it's just like, I don't know if John Legend

has the stamina to complete that.

As we were talking, Kline got an unexpected call.

- Oh man, I gotta do it.

- You got a call?

- Yeah, RT, the...

- That's Russian television that's calling?

- Yeah.

- I mean, I have to ask, are you a Russian asset?

- (laughing) well, if I am, I'm a bad one.

- [Jordan] Wait,

was Kline about to feed the propaganda from the Kremlin

back to Russian State Television?

- There's nothin' democratic today about Ukraine.

- Oh no, was I the biscuit in a propaganda circle jerk?

Putin has a clear set of goals

beyond decorating his US assets offices.

He also wants to stop funding for Ukraine and weaken NATO

so he can expand Russian territory.

And Donald Trump is playing right into Putin's hands

by threatening to leave our allies to fend for themselves.

- You didn't pay, you're delinquent.

I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want,

you gotta pay.

- If Trump wins a second term, what happens to NATO?

- I think Trump will withdraw from NATO,

I think that's his intention.

- How do you stop something like that from happening?

- The best advice I can offer for people in a second term,

since I won't be part of it, is keep distracting Trump.

- He's like a cat.

Get a laser pointer into the White House, right?

Jesus Christ, it's the only way to save nuclear apocalypse?

- Well, I hadn't thought of that,

but that might do the trick.

- If we do pull out of NATO, who is the most screwed?

- Well, I think any country

that borders on Russia or a former part of the Soviet Union.

- So if I were booking travel into the Eastern Bloc

to say Estonia maybe,

slow down or at least get the trip protection?

- I was gonna say go now.

- [Jordan] If you say so, John.

When has following John Bolton's advice on foreign affairs

ever gone wrong?

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This is Estonia,

a NATO member country of just over 1,000,000 people

that sits on the border of Russia.

Since the invasion of Ukraine,

Estonians have been wondering, "Are we next?"

To see how people here

are feeling about being in Putin's crosshairs,

I sat down with Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas,

who has been described as the Iron Lady of the Baltic

for standing up to Russia.

- Apparently,

I'm the only leader that is on Russia's most wanted list.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- (stammering) You're on the most wanted list?

- I am.

- I'm not in danger, right?

- No.

- I'm a brave fake journalist,

but I'm only so brave and mostly fake.

As Putin has gotten bolder,

Kallas has become one of NATO's most vocal supporters.

- We shouldn't dismantle NATO,

NATO is the strongest military alliance.

We don't have war here because we are in NATO.

- An America Presidential candidate is arguing

that if everybody's not paying their fair share in NATO,

then why should we be facing the brunt of it?

- First, we are paying more for defense, I mean Estonia.

- You guys are?

- Yes, we are spending 3.2% of our GDP on defense.

It's more than the United States is spending (laughing)

in terms of percentage.

- Nice flex.

- How I explain NATO to school children,

I always say that, you know,

"If you have a school bully and you are weaker physically,

the bully doesn't bully you when you have big friends,

and this is how NATO works."

- So what happens if one of your big friends

also happens to be a bully who's talking about

just becoming friends with the other bully,

and then bullyin' all the little people?

- Well, that is definitely going to be more complicated.

- Yeah.

- If Russia will succeed in Ukraine,

then their appetite will grow because, you know,

they have expanded their empire and colonized the country.

Aggression pays off.

Every next step, they're bolder,

"Okay, nothing happened to us, we can do this."

They have built up their military

to colonize another country.

- Just, and for clarification,

how close is Russia to us right now?

- It's 320 kilometers or something.

- I'm from New York, how many city blocks is that?

- It's three-hour drive.

- Three-hour drive.

Okay, so that's a good seven city blocks in New York.

That's congestion, New York is intense that way.

It turns out we're so close that Estonian civilians

are training in the woods in case of a Russian invasion.

These are our guys?

- Yeah. - Okay.

If Russia were to attack while I'm with you guys,

I gotta be honest, I'm not really the fighting kind.

(vehicle rattling)

This is the Estonian Defense League,

they're an all-volunteer army

of about 30,000 regular Estonians.

What do you do, what's your day job?

- I'm a choir conductor, studying for that.

- You were a choir conductor?

- I was studying for it, yeah.

- How do you go from studying to be a choir conductor

to in the middle of the Estonian woods

holding a AR of some sort?

- The Russian-Ukraine war changed everything for us, so.

- Yeah.

When Americans gather like this, they're usually training

to keep a barber shop open during COVID.

And you guys are training to?

- To repel Russians.

- Right. - It's simple.

- We don't have any illusions.

Even today, when we see what's happening in Ukraine,

we understand that all Estonians has to stop Putin.

- And there's a reason these soldiers are concerned.

I got your six, or whatever it is in metric, 12?

Russia brutally occupied Estonia until 1991.

So while MAGA world turns a blind eye

to Putin's plan to expand Russia,

people who lived under that occupation

have a different view of it.

- Everybody's for peace.

But we understand

what peace under Soviet or Russian occupation means.

You had mass atrocities, mass deportations.

My own mother was deported to Siberia

as a six-months old baby.

There were mass killings.

They were suppressing our culture,

trying to erase our language.

This is what "peace" under occupation means.

That doesn't mean that the human suffering will stop.

- [Jordan] If only we could get that information

to go viral on Truth Social.

For the past few months, I've been wrestling

with my country's susceptibility to propaganda.

Are we just useful idiots, or is the harder truth

that some of us might actually want autocracy?

(Tucker cackling)

And if it's Russian autocracy,

do Americans really even know what that looks like?

- I love Moscow, it's the place I was born,

it was one of my favorite cities in the world.

But it's now become the center of totalitarian repression.

It's almost total police surveillance.

People are being sent to jail

for what they say in private phone conversations.

And what I would tell these MAGA voters

is that a great metro is not worth your personal liberty.

- Yeah, it's quite the price to pay for a fancy subway ride.

- We have a Russian minority in Estonia.

It is interesting,

those that are living closer to the border,

they can see the life on the Russian side,

(laughing) and they can see

that it's not better than on the European side.

Whereas people that are further away from the border,

they may also believe what the Russians are telling.

- That makes sense.

I was in Green Bay, Wisconsin,

and I heard about how great life in Moscow is,

and I think that's 5,000,000,000 kilometers away.

I have to learn this metric system eventually,

I gotta get into this.

- Yeah, yeah, we all have to.

It's complicated.

- It is.

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So if we want folks in Pennsylvania to pay closer attention

to the realities halfway across the world,

maybe I could help make the rest of the world

look a little more like Pennsylvania.

(soldier laughing)

It says, (clearing throat) "Ride for tits,"

it's a traditional American license plate.

Everybody has 'em in America.

If you have a a giant monster truck

and wanna flex in America,

ya gotta throw a "ride for tits" on it.

- It's illegal here.

- Is that illegal here? - Yeah.

- For recruitment, you put this thing on a military truck,

these numbers are gonna go up 20%.

- Yeah, can't put it to car though, yeah.

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- [Jordan] My failure at novelty license plate diplomacy

made me feel like an idiot.

Well, at least I'm not a Moscow tool.

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