Jordan Klepper

I expect a lot from this country.

I want us to live up to those ideals that they taught me when I was 14 and 15.

And it seems day in and day out that those are few and far between.

We're farther away from those than I think we've been in quite some time.

That being said,

Like, I do find hope in going out into the field.

I talk to people.

Like, this special, the last couple weeks I've been out and about, I've been talking to kids, 18- or 19-year-olds.

And to be totally honest, I thought going to talk to kids who are 18 to 19 who are in, like, the MAGA sphere at these UFC events and what have you, I thought that most of the people I would talk to would be die-hard far right, there'd be an element of cruelty, they'd be celebrating what's happening with the deportations.

Like, what you're seeing at the highest level to me is inherently cruel and inherently anti-American.

And I thought that would be reflected in the youth of America.

But when I talked to these kids, it wasn't.

I was taken back by how kind and thoughtful they were.

They were right wing.

They liked Donald Trump for the reasons a lot of people like Donald Trump.

He gives them an identity.

He seems tough.

But when I pushed them on stuff, what they cared about was the image

and the attention around Donald Trump, they really weren't attracted to the crueler elements.

And in fact, when we would go to these campuses, they were reaching out to people in that sphere, the Charlie Kirks, the older people who would come into those spaces and preach the cruelty of MAGA.