The cast of Veep is holding an auction for a set visit, with proceeds going to charity, and in order to gin up a little attention for the campaign, stars Timothy Simons (better known as Jonad) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (the veep herself) held a Facebook Live Q&A session yesterday. The resulting video shows the sort of easy comedic rapport you’d expect from the show’s cast—Simons repeatedly makes Louis-Dreyfus clarify what her name is, and every time she reminds him that it has a hyphen—but the questions return again and again to the horrifying events unfolding in the real world.
Early on, one viewer asks, “How do you even begin to do political satire now that actual fascists are in the White House?” Louis-Dreyfus responds, “It’s tricky! It’s tricky to keep your sense of humor these days. That’s an honest answer to that question. In this case, Selina Meyer is out of the White House this season, so that makes it slightly easier.” Simons adds, “Day to day, I haven’t found a lot of stuff funny.”
Not all questions end with such deflating answers. Later on they’re asked who is worse: transparent enemy of the press and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer or Veep’s bumbling Mike McClintock, to which both Simons and Louis-Dreyfus agree: Spicer. “It’s amazing that someone worse is out there,” Louis-Dreyfus says, before going on to guess that Spicer’s reported habit of swallowing large quantities of gum is a “window into the stress of that gig to begin with,” adding that gum-swallowing sounds “like a real Mike McClintock move.” The pair also discusses favorite scenes from the show and (kind of) reveals what’s in Gary’s precious bag. You can bid on the visit to the set here.