Comedy Central’s Jordan Klepper tried to tie Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show to Halloween by making fun of what he considered to be Republican fearmongering ahead of next Tuesday’s midterms. However, at one point, it was Klepper doing the fearmongering as he noticed a black man in the background of a recent rally featuring Vice President JD Vance and claimed he “might want to slip out a bit early” to escape the supposedly racist crowd.
Klepper introduced a clip of Vance discussing Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed by declaring, “Maybe somebody needs to tell the story in a more gripping way. I mean, JD Vance took a swing at that, and people seemed to be on board, although see if you can spot the moment where he might have lost the crowd a bit.”
In the clip, Vance rattled off several short sentences on why El-Sayed is a radical, “He says that he wants to pass a Green New Scam and kill the auto industry of the state. El-Sayed says that he wants to defund the police and abandon Michigan to crime. All year, Abdul has campaigned with his best friend, Hasan Piker, a man who said that we deserved 9/11. A man who says the United States is worse than Al-Qaeda. A man who says that we shouldn't care about black Americans.”
After each sentence Vance’s audience booed, including the last one, but a combination of laughter from the studio audience and Klepper cutting the video prematurely made it hard to hear. Yet, Klepper reacted by highlighting a black man behind Vance and retorting, “They were very enthusiastic up until that last part. I'm not saying the crowd is racist, but I am saying that that guy in the middle there might want to slip out a bit early.”
As it was, Klepper also continued the trend of not seeing anything wrong with El-Sayed’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, “But I still don't get it. What is it that you actually think will happen if El-Sayed gets elected?”
Sen. Ted Cruz was then shown claiming, “And if I am correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.”
Klepper could only respond, “Yes. Yes! That's scary! That is scary! Yes. I knew this, man stuck halfway into a werewolf transformation, he would know how to scare me!”
Given that Klepper himself has been part of the left-wing effort to try to mainstream Piker, it was also not surprising that he wouldn’t want to deal with the actual substance of the clips he played. Additionally, The Daily Show also has an inglorious history of being especially nasty to black conservatives.
Here is a transcript for the October 29 show:
Comedy Central The Daily Show
10/29/2026
11:07 PM ET
JORDAN KLEPPER: Maybe somebody needs to tell the story in a more gripping way. I mean, JD Vance took a swing at that, and people seemed to be on board, although see if you can spot the moment where he might have lost the crowd a bit.
JD VANCE: He says that he wants to pass a Green New Scam and kill the auto industry of the state. El-Sayed says that he wants to defund the police and abandon Michigan to crime. All year, Abdul has campaigned with his best friend, Hasan Piker, a man who said that we deserved 9/11. A man who says the United States is worse than Al-Qaeda. A man who says that we shouldn't care about black Americans.
KLEPPER: They were very enthusiastic up until that last part. I'm not saying the crowd is racist, but I am saying that that guy in the middle there might want to slip out a bit early. But I still don't get it. What is it that you actually think will happen if El-Sayed gets elected?
TED CRUZ: And if I am correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result.
KLEPPER: Yes. Yes! That's scary! That is scary! Yes. I knew this, man stuck halfway into a werewolf transformation, he would know how to scare me!
