Politics'Daily Show' Rips Donald Trump's 'Emotional Support' CEOs on China Trip: 'Not Exactly The Rat Pack'
Jordan Klepper criticized Donald Trump’s China entourage.
May 19 2026, Published 6:35 a.m. ET
Jordan Klepper turned President Donald Trump’s trip to China into a punchline, focusing less on diplomacy and more on who came along for the ride.
On The Daily Show, Klepper mocked Trump’s entourage of top CEOs, reframing the high-level summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping as something closer to a billionaire hangout than a traditional state visit.
‘Not Exactly the Rat Pack’
Jordan Klepper compared the group to a failed bachelor party.
Trump arrived in Beijing for a three-day summit joined by executives including Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang.
“That’s your crew? Those are your boys? Not exactly the Rat Pack here, is it?” Klepper joked. “That’s the kind of bachelor party that makes a stripper want to get her life back in order.”
Turning Headlines Into Punchlines
Donald Trump clashed with reporters before flying to China.
Klepper tied the trip to Trump’s recent clashes with reporters, including a moment where the president snapped over a question about the ballooning costs of the White House ballroom.
“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person. Double the size! You are... you are not a smart person,” Trump said in the clip.
Klepper responded: “Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, Mr. President. Go to your happy place.”
He then flashed an image of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein, adding, “Well, not literally. That party is over, and your wingman is MIA.”
A Summit Reduced to Sound Bites
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Jordan Klepper reduced the summit to awkward sound bites and jokes.
The host also took aim at Trump’s remarks about Chinese restaurants outnumbering fast food chains in the U.S.
“That’s my president! Putting his understanding of geopolitics into fast food terms,” Klepper joked. “He gives a summit speech like a third grader who got assigned China for his geography project.”
'What Happened in There?’
Klepper’s sharpest moment came after Trump gave a delayed, awkward “Good” when asked how his meeting with Xi went.
“Holy s**t! What happened in there?” Klepper said. “That was like asking Tiger Woods how the drive home went.”
He added, “What happened in the meeting that made him really not want to talk about Taiwan?”
Thucydides Trap
Xi Jinping’s Thucydides Trap remark became late-night material.
Klepper also took note of Xi referring to the Thucydides Trap during a speech. The sociopolitical theory describes the tension between an established world power and a rising one.
“Tough talk, President Xi!” Klepper said.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you’re talking to America, the country that’s just about to start kicking Iran’s a-- any day now,” he joked. “And if you want to step up to us with all this Thucydides c---, then why don’t Thucydides nuts?”
