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IrelandJordan Klepper takes a flashlight to Ted Cruz's "jihadist leprechaun"
The Daily Show host turns closing midterm attacks into ghost stories, from Trump's school-surgery claim to the campaign against Abdul El-Sayed.
The Daily Show
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Why this story? One of the most watched videos since yesterday, with 1,568,005 views.
GOP Gets Ghoulish in Last-Ditch Midterm Fearmongering | The Daily Show
Video summary
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- 0:30A montage of Republican campaign ads warns of crime, socialism and anti-white bias.
- 1:45Klepper dims the studio lights and grabs a flashlight to tell the claims like ghost stories.
- 2:08Trump claims children undergo transgender surgery over several days at school; Klepper questions school budgets.
- 4:28Commentators and politicians pronounce Abdul El-Sayed's name with sinister overtones.
- 7:45Ted Cruz warns about El-Sayed and calls him the "jihadist leprechaun."
- 9:15Robert F. Kennedy Jr. carves pumpkins with children and describes his yearly pirate costume.
The studio lights go down, Jordan Klepper picks up a flashlight, and the Republican closing argument for the midterms becomes a round of campfire tales.
That is the conceit of "GOP Gets Ghoulish in Last-Ditch Midterm Fearmongering | The Daily Show," a ten-minute segment under the show's "Indecision 2026: The Midyssey" banner that drew about 1.6 million views since yesterday. The description pitches the timing plainly: scare stories, just in time for Halloween.
After a montage of campaign ads about crime, socialism and anti-white bias, Klepper plays Donald Trump describing a child who leaves for school and returns days later having had transgender surgery. Klepper's rebuttal is about the budget, not the culture war: "Do you really think public schools have the budget for transgender surgeries?" Trump's rally warning that Democrats would cancel Christmas gets a similar shrug.
The longest stretch is about Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan. Clip after clip shows commentators and politicians pronouncing his name as if it were a threat, and Klepper names what he sees underneath: "It's not scary just because he's Muslim!" Bernie Moreno says El-Sayed does not believe human rights come from God, JD Vance runs through his associations, and Ted Cruz suggests Americans will die if he wins, then offers his nickname for him: "the jihadist leprechaun." Cruz also brings in "blue-haired, transgender witches."
The comment section moved at nearly three times the pace of a usual first day for the channel's regular videos. Much of it fixes on Trump's idea that children stay at school for days at a time.
The show is having a strong stretch overall, with daily views running at roughly twice their usual level. Klepper closes this one on a rapid montage of Trump's grimaces and odd noises at rallies, and a deadpan warning: "Be afraid. Be very afraid."
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- Channel
- The Daily Show
- Subscribers
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- Channel views, last 7 days
- 71,467,419
- Channel views, pace per day
- 17,821,706 (on a normal day: 8,551,846)
- Video published
- October 30, 2026
- Video views so far
- 1,749,344 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 1,568,205
The numbers
A late-night segment with a big first day, arriving while the whole channel runs at about twice its usual daily pace.
💡 Test your knowledge
Which costume does Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say he wears every Halloween in a clip from the segment?
In the pumpkin-carving clip, Kennedy describes his annual pirate Halloween costume.