Jordan Klepper has spent a lot of time in the MAGAverse for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” having even witnessed the Jan. 6 insurrection firsthand. And yet, nothing prepared Klepper for what happened as he filmed his latest special, “The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give The Man a Prize,” which premieres Monday night after “The Daily Show.”

Klepper and his “Daily Show” team were filming a naked bike ride in Portland, Ore. — meant to be a joyful, irreverent way to protest the ICE invasion of their city — when things got violent.

“Because Donald Trump had crafted this idea that Antifa are the only people protesting, the people in Portland decided to shed all of their clothes as an image of non-violence in front of these agents,” he says. “As we were doing talking to people, we watched ICE agents consistently shooting these pepper bullets into the crowd. We watched them shove a musical band dressed in banana suits, knock a clarinetist to the ground, shove her face into the ground — where she was then taken across state lines for two days. It was terrifying. Mere seconds after a joyous, comedic protest coming down the street to try to stop some of the cruelty taking place inside. It was really something to behold that I’ve never experienced anything like.”

That moment rattled Klepper in ways unlike anything else he’s covered for the show.

“The violence I saw was so performative, was so reckless, and there was such an intention to provoke,” he says. “It was peaceful protesters, who simply were there to provide a counterpoint to the images and the things that we heard about happening inside. But it was gross. It makes you disgusted to see American servicemen being used to literally attack people in banana costumes playing classical music. Our cameraman has disturbing footage, as he was right up there. I was on the outskirts of it, and we all had to leave because we were choking on pepper spray.

“And yet, 45 minutes earlier, in a park just outside of there, I went from being aghast at being surrounded by hundreds of naked people to being kind of inspired by the joy that these people brought,” he adds. “Like, ‘we are going to get naked as a show of show of solidarity, because we are so frustrated with what we’re seeing. But we’re not going to approach it through anger. We’re going to approach it through humor. We’re going to approach it through action, to the point that we’re going to be so vulnerable we’re taking everything off.’ I was so moved by it.”

Of course, footage with all that nudity is making the Portland segment of tonight’s edition of “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse” a bit hard to edit. (And that’s partly why screeners for the special were not available in advance for critics or reporters.)

“You wonder why you haven’t seen it yet, it’s because I’ve been in edit bay with an editor, swearing at the screen, looking through network notes about blurring this dick, that dick, this boob, that boob,” Klepper says. “Our editor’s going insane right now, just blurring every dick. And you have to zoom in. The network sends in notes, they’re like, ‘you missed a dick. There’s a dick behind the blurred dick, and there’s a boob behind the bike. Check the boob by the bike.’ That’s been the last few days.”

That mix of absurdity and violence sum up “America 2025” in a nutshell, he says. “There was nudity, dongs, protests, ICE agents, pepper spray, violence, all in one day,” he says. “This is what America feels like right now. Absurdity and cruelty and violence all into one.”

Klepper and crew were in Portland because this edition of “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse” centers on Donald Trump’s campaign to land a Nobel Peace Prize — and the irony that the president is demanding this honor while at the same time sending troops into U.S. cities and undermining democracy.

“’Fingers the Pulse’ always starts with, what is the word on the street, and what is the MAGAsphere talking about,” he says. “And in the moment, we were seeing images of protests and ICE deportations and federal troops being sent into Portland and Chicago. At the same time, Donald Trump was openly advocating for getting the Nobel Peace Prize. We were like, alright, this feels meaty. How do we want to put shape to the question, what does peace look like in America right now, and the rubric that Donald Trump wants to be judged on.”

Klepper and team talked to Trump supporters in Mississippi, as well as Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has nominated Trump to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Klepper also flew to Norway to interview Nobel committee members about what the peace prize entails.

“We essentially end the special in Portland, where what we learn in Oslo, Norway, from the Prize Committee is, that a big part of Alfred Nobel’s desire for giving out the Peace Prize was to instill peace, lowering the standing armies across the globe,” he says. “But democracy is at the heart of peace, and in places like Portland — where we saw the naked bike ride be confronted with ICE agents that turned violent in front of our very eyes, where we literally walked away choking on pepper spray — this democratic experiment here in America is tenuous right now. It’s so antithetical to this idea of peace that we heard about in Norway.”

“The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give The Man a Prize” reps the next special from Klepper and team following “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: MAGA: The Next Generation,” which won an Emmy for outstanding writing for a nonfiction program. This is his seventh special for Comedy Central, which also includes “Jordan Klepper Fingers The Pulse: Rally Together,” “Jordan Klepper Fingers The Pulse – Moscow Tools,” “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Midterms – America Unfollows Democracy” and “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Globe – Hungary for Democracy.”

Like many of those other specials, the rapidly changing, never ending news cycle means that Klepper and his crew are having to edit and re-edit the content right up to airtime.

“It’s been a couple months of working on this, and we keep getting updates about the wars that we could be in,” Klepper says. “Venezuelan boats? Well, we’re talking about peace, so we need to update that that’s happening. Somalia? OK, who did he just threaten? Great, let’s look into that as well. I can’t stay briefed on these decisions, which are big decisions we should all be aware of. But it all moves at the speed of lunacy.”

“The Daily Show Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse: Give the Man a Prize” premieres after “The Daily Show” on Monday, Dec. 8 at 11:30 p.m. ET on Paramount+, The Daily Show’s YouTube Channel, and om VOD starting Dec. 9.