

Last weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was the first one in years without a comedian. In the Donald Trump era, comedians have struggled to adjust—are things too serious? Too biased? Too absurd? Is any of it funny anymore?

Jordan Klepper has been on three very different political-comedy shows in three years. He was a fake-news correspondent on The Daily Show, then a parody conspiracy theorist on The Opposition, and now plays himself in a new documentary series called, simply, Klepper. He joins the Atlantic staff writer Edward-Isaac Dovere to discuss the state of political comedy (and why he went from parodying Alex Jones to getting strip-searched in Georgia).

Listen for:

  • How political comedy has changed during the Trump presidency

  • Why Klepper chose to go from telling very fake stories on his parody-conspiracy-theorist show to telling very real stories of underrepresented groups (and how he turns that into comedy)

  • What led to him getting arrested and strip-searched for one of his episodes

