“The Daily Show” took aim at the Trump administration for denying that the new spot is a campaign ad, pointing out that it uses the “exact same footage” from the president’s 2024 campaign.
During Tuesday’s monologue on “The Daily Show,” host Jordan Klepper weighed in on the controversy surrounding the new spot, quipping that President Donald Trump shouldn’t be spending taxpayer dollars on ads but on getting “water in the reflecting pool.”
“Keep at it, boys,” he quipped. “We are close to cracking it.”
As Klepper went on, he took a closer look at the spot in-question, highlighting the “questionable artistic choices” – including the “six-second close up of a storage closet.”
“I mean, is that supposed to be a metaphor for where they’re going to lock up the deep state?” he ripped. “Or is that like the closet Stephen Miller sleeps in during the day? Or is it just where they’re storing the footage they shot that doesn’t have a f–king storage closet in it?”
He continued: “The point is, spending taxpayer money on a campaign ad is clearly indefensible. So, let’s see how the White House defensibles it.”
At this moment, “The Daily Show” editors played the Trump administration’s explanation, in which they defended that the spot was “very clearly not [a] campaign ad” since “Trump is not on the ballot and there’s no call to action.”
“Right. Right. It can’t be a campaign ad because Trump is not even on the ballot. It’s just, I feel like I heard someone say something different,” Klepper noted before calling back to Trump’s midterm convention speech, where he advised voters to “pretend” he’s running.
“He didn’t just say it. He said it three times in a row,” Klepper said. “He’s trying to Beetlejuice himself onto the ballot.”
Klepper then called out the similarities between the new ad and one from Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.
“But there is one other thing that makes me think this is a campaign ad, which is that this is literally a campaign ad they ran two years ago. It’s the exact same footage,” he noted. “And you’d think, even just to cover their ass, they would film a new ad. Unless they thought about it and were like, ‘You know, we can’t do a new ad. That shot of the storage closet is just to f–king good. You know, we’re never going to top it.’”
Klepper then roasted the White House for failing to update the ad’s language, which noted, “We will expel the war mongers from our government.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. That war monger’s line hits different in 2026, doesn’t it?” he said. “Major OJ Simpson looking for the real killer vibes on that one.”
Watch Klepper’s full monologue above. A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
“The Daily Show” airs weeknights at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.
