The Daily Show: Ears Edition

The Precap | Jordan Klepper on "Don't Believe Your Eyes" Week

Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Matt O’Brien
Guest: Jordan Klepper

Episode Overview

This "Precap" episode features Daily Show correspondent and current week’s host, Jordan Klepper, joined by Matt O’Brien. The episode takes a satirical and incisive look at ongoing and upcoming news stories, with a recurring focus on the theme “Don’t Believe Your Eyes.” Klepper and O’Brien wade through the week’s tragic, bizarre, and politically charged events—ranging from a police shooting in Minneapolis, U.S. intervention in Venezuela, the fifth anniversary of January 6th, to the newly inverted RFK Jr. food pyramid. Throughout, they highlight the distortion of fact and reality in America’s current moment, blending biting critique with comedy.

Key Discussion Points

1. Theme for the Week: "Don't Believe Your Eyes"

• Klepper establishes that this week’s narrative is one of disbelief:
  • "This feels like the narrative this week is the 'don't believe your eyes week.'" (04:50)
• Matt and Jordan return repeatedly to the idea that, despite overwhelming evidence, people prefer filtered narratives over reality:
  • "Everybody's seeing the same video and to see such starkly different interpretations of it is kind of baffling." (08:31)

2. The Minneapolis ICE Shooting

• Real-time reactions to tragedy and the partisan 'narrative war':
  • The hosts discuss the killing of Renee Nicole Goode by ICE in Minneapolis, noting the rush to politicize and weaponize the tragedy before facts emerge.
  • Klepper calls out the loss of empathy:
    • "The reaction in real time is a reaction of partisanship and blame with no information. And it jumps over this very human space that we used to have that you would fill with empathy or sympathy when tragedy took place." (05:35)
  • Memorable advice:
    • "Log off and feel. If you're at this point where you feel like you have to choose a side. Log off and feel." (07:42)

3. U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

• Satirical parallels with corporate takeovers:
  • The U.S. kidnapping Venezuela’s president and seizing oil is likened to a private equity firm’s hostile acquisition.
  • O’Brien quips:
    • "It feels like a private equity firm coming in and firing everybody—in this case, kidnapping—and saying, okay, we’re going to take it over." (10:09)
  • Klepper notes the disappearance of the need for democratic justification:
    • "Donald Trump feels zero need to do that. In some ways, it's believe Donald Trump. He's telling you what he's going to do." (12:16)
  • Discussion on betting markets labeling government actions as something other than ‘invasion’—underscoring reality distortion. (13:16)

4. American Expansion: Greenland and Beyond

• Trump’s empire-building mentality mocked:
  • Talk of annexing Greenland, Cuba, Colombia, Panama, and Canada is dissected.
  • Klepper: "The man wants his name on something...He sees these lands right now." (15:42)
  • Satire on Trump’s age and focus on legacy-by-branding rather than substantive policy. (16:02)
  • The shifting window of possibility (the Overton Window) is explored as absurd ideas become normalized:
    • "We sent Don Jr. back in the day to try to create a propaganda video to make people believe that Greenland wanted to be a part of the U.S. …now the conversation is happening." (17:35)

5. Fifth Anniversary of January 6th

• Reality-denial as performance art:
  • Discussion of the White House's revisionist timeline and the strange refusal of Republican lawmakers to acknowledge widely available evidence.
  • Klepper with biting candor:
    • "It was the most photographed and videotaped crime in the history of the world." (19:18)
    • Shares an anecdote about interviewing a J6 participant who, even after admitting and serving time, blamed 'Antifa' instead of himself:
      • “I asked him who did January 6th? And he said, Antifa...The human brain is an amazing thing. It does these contortions and shuts off at times. The desire to believe, the thing you want to believe overrides the desire to understand what is happening every fucking time.” (21:34)

6. RFK Jr.'s Inverted Food Pyramid

• Comedic critique of health guidance ‘wars’:
  • Kennedy’s new food pyramid, placing red meat and rotisserie chicken at the apex, is analyzed with Midwestern, pharaonic, and dietary humor.
  • O’Brien:
    • "I love that there’s a giant rotisserie chicken at the top. And I love the idea of Americans saying, I haven’t had my daily rotisserie chicken." (24:32)
  • Klepper:
    • "Is there a war on protein right now? If you have any perimenopausal friends, you know there is not a war on protein. If anything, there is a new acceptance of the importance of protein." (25:10)
    • Mocks the constant escalation: "RFK Jr. will come out and say some fairly rational things...and then he always throws in like, and then don't forget to eat an entire elk." (27:05)
  • O’Brien lampoons the rhetorical slide into conspiracy: "Tap water makes you gay and causes gender dysphoria. Okay, well, can we just focus on that first part?" (27:07)

7. Looking Ahead: Supreme Court Tariff Decision and More

• Possible Supreme Court ruling on tariffs could upend U.S. economic policy.
  • O'Brien suggests Trump’s approach resembles Silicon Valley ‘move fast and break things’—enact policies and dare anyone to undo them after the fact. (29:38)
  • The military budget is briefly mocked: "You cut spending by spending. I think that's what it is. You have to spend your way through it." (31:09)
  • Both note how major scandals like the Epstein files get sidelined amid perpetual “bigger” news. "It's a curious thing...that when you kidnap a president, you recklessly police the streets...somehow people stop talking about the Epstein." (31:34)

8. Show & Tell: Personal Anecdotes

• Klepper shares he’s reading ‘Ulysses’ with a book club, comparing the reading experience to unscrambling fuzzy cable signals:
  • "It feels like when I was in, like middle school...but you'd, like, go to the channel that had Cinemax...just all the squiggles. And then every so often, the squiggles would, like, unsquiggle, and you'd see, like, a nipple. That's what reading Ulysses is like..." (35:47)
• O’Brien describes his family’s accidental snail infestation thanks to a “no snail guarantee” gone wrong at Petco. The ethical dilemma of killing baby snails is played for deadpan laughs. (37:08–40:16)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On reactionary outrage and media filter:
  • "We're being asked to not believe the things that you see, believe the administration, believe your partisan leanings, don't believe your eyes, which I gotta tell you, that is put that on a T shirt. This administration loves to put that out there." —Klepper (08:08)
• On Trump’s unapologetic approach:
  • "He doesn't feel that need to be kind in those moments that even if a leader wasn't earnestly kind, they felt they had to be performatively kind because that is what the office engendered..." —Klepper (12:16)
• On January 6th denial:
  • "I asked him who did January 6th? And he said, Antifa. To be clear, he did January 6th...The desire to believe, the thing you want to believe, overrides the desire to understand what is happening every fucking time." —Klepper (21:34)
• On the inversion of the food pyramid:
  • "You look at the average carriage...if you walk through an airport or an amusement park, the idea that you'd think these people need to eat more red meat...feels. Again, I'm not a doctor...that seems to contradict." —O’Brien (25:09)
  • "RFK Jr. If you're listening, talk to your perimenopausal friends because they'll tell you protein is alive and well." —Klepper (25:30)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:50] — Introduction of “Don’t Believe Your Eyes” theme.
• [05:35] — Loss of empathy in media reactions to tragedy.
• [07:42] — Klepper’s advice: “Log off and feel.”
• [12:16] — Trump’s transparency about motives, contrast with predecessors.
• [15:42] — The expansionist, branding impulse of Trump.
• [19:18] — The 'Rorschach test' of January 6th.
• [21:34] — The J6 choir/interview anecdote, denialism.
• [24:32] — Mockery of the new food pyramid.
• [27:05] — Satire on healthy eating rhetoric gone off the rails.
• [29:38] — Supreme Court, tariffs, and Trump’s rule-breaking style.
• [31:34] — Epstein files sidelined amid chaos.
• [35:47] — Klepper’s “Ulysses as Cinemax squiggle” analogy.
• [37:08] — O’Brien’s snail infestation saga.

Tone

The conversation is quick-witted, irreverent, and darkly comic. Both host and guest blend frustration and incredulity at current events with comedic banter, inviting listeners to find catharsis—and maybe a little clarity—in the absurdities of modern news.

Summary Takeaway

This Precap episode skewers the current era’s penchant for “reality distortion,” examining how political partisanship, official narratives, and media filters make it nearly impossible to agree on even the most incontrovertible facts. With caustic wit, Jordan Klepper and Matt O’Brien dissect the week's chaos and look ahead, promising “Don’t Believe Your Eyes Week” and a “War on Protein” with skepticism and humor. The only certainty: The world’s gotten hard to recognize—but it’s still worth laughing at.