“What Donald Trump wants is for us to stop calling his cruelty, and fear and divisiveness wrong. But to join him in calling it right. This will not do. By not yielding we will prevail,” he urged the CBS late-night audience.
After President Donald Trump slammed three late-night hosts in one rally speech earlier this week, Jon Stewart made a surprise appearance on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to offer his own fighting words to the president.
“Hello, Donald. It’s me, the guy you made sure everyone knew was Jewish on Twitter,” the former Daily Show host comedian began. “I know you’re upset about all the criticism you’ve been taking with the fake news and the fake late-night show, it’s just that we’re all still having a hard time adjusting to your presidency as it goes into its’ 500th year.”
The comedian then began explaining that “everything is off its axis” amid Trump’s presidency which has made things “unusual,” such as Putin and Kim Jong Un being “notable intelligent role models” and Canada being “just a bunch of giant assholes.”
“You’re redoing the post-world alliances, only this time we’re with the Axis powers,” Stewart said.
Stewart then argued that there’s a “hallmark” to Trump’s presidency that many have found to be difficult: “No matter what you do, it always comes back with an extra layer of gleeful cruelty and dick-ishness. It’s not just that you don’t want people taking a knee. It’s that they’re sons of bitches if they do. It’s not just denying women who accuse you of sexual assault. It’s saying they’re too ugly anyway. You can’t just be against the media. They’re enemies of the people.”
Stewart also said that anyone in the Republican Party who chooses to speak against the president must feel “‘humiliated,’ even if they have a terminal disease.”
“Which brings us to immigration. Boy you f—ed that up! It’s the example of the Trump doctrine,” Stewart argued. “Donald, you could’ve made a more stringent border policy that would’ve made your point about enforcement. But I guess it wouldn’t have felt right without a Dickensian level of villainy.”
After criticizing the president for separating families, Stewart said the act made him realize something. “You may be orange. You may like hamburgers. You may be a clown, but you are no Ronald McDonald.”
To put an end to the “gratuitous dick-ishness,” Stewart opted to negotiate with the businessman-turned-president. “You dig the dictator thing. How about we give you a giant building with gold toilets with your name on it?” After Colbert whispered to Stewart that Trump already had those buildings, Stewart opted for another possibility. “How about we give you a whole news network that spend 24 hours a day praising everything you do?” Colbert then mentioned Fox News already serves that purpose. “Let’s just go full on arch-villain. How about we have a volcano destroy a large portion of the home state of your enemy, Barack Obama?”
After Colbert explained that Hawaii has endured erupting volcanoes, Stewart yelled, “He fucking destroyed Hawaii?”
“Clearly, we’re not going to be able to negotiate or shame you into decency. But there is one place where I draw the line. I won’t allow you or your super fans to turn your cruelty into virtue … The majority of the American people aren’t assholes,” Stewart said.
Concluding his rant, Stewart encouraged the public to “prevail” against succumbing to the president’s ideology. “What Donald Trump wants is for us to stop calling his cruelty, and fear and divisiveness wrong. But to join him in calling it right. This will not do. By not yielding we will prevail.”
The rant was not the first time Stewart has publicly called out the president. According to a report in The Daily Beast, the comedian was asked about the Samantha Bee controversy centered on an Ivanka Trump slur during a Q&A session. The former Daily Show host was quick to argue that it was all part of a “game” that the political right in the U.S. play. “They don’t give a shit about the word ‘c—,’” the Daily Beast quoted Stewart saying, alluding to the Trump administration.
Stewart also joked that Donald Trump, famed for his use of vulgar language in private, probably used the c-word instead of “please.”
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