“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart said President Donald Trump uses outrageous claims, statements and memes to help cover up the worst parts of his policies.
“To get to substantive policy questions, you have to face down the fire hose of his nonsense and bullshit that moves you off track,” Stewart said. “His frenetic nature that means we all end up suffering from a kind of secondhand ADHD, a viral cloud of his unfocused weaving that gives all of us brain fog.”
So Stewart developed a chart to determine “which of the things it’s OK to get upset about, and which things are just him fucking off.”
For example, over the weekend Trump declared that he wanted to reopen Alcatraz ― which is currently a national park and museum ― as a prison for the nation’s worst offenders.
Stewart warned Americans not to “take the bait” on Alcatraz and get caught up in the distraction as Trump intends.
“It’s just a stupid thing to keep us occupied, to lose focus on his actual policies,” Stewart said, adding that it was “OK” to ignore this one.
Then, his voice rising, he took the bait anyway: “But why would you wanna reopen Alcatraz? What the fuck is that?”
He did see one reason Trump might want to move forward with the plan.
“I guess any opportunity for Trump to open a prison and simultaneously close a museum is too good to pass up,” he said.
But one statement broke Stewart’s chart: Trump declaring over the weekend that he didn’t know if he needed to uphold the due process rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
Stewart had to unfold his chart to reveal a new level to show how off-the-chart that claim was.
“Holy shit that’s not OK!” he declared, and rolled footage of Trump at his inauguration taking the oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.
“Preserve, protect and defend, i.e., uphold,” Stewart said. “It’s not optional. It is not an opportunity for you to lawyer-shop loopholes to our nation’s founding document. You took an oath.”
He said Trump uses stories about Alcatraz, and memes of himself as the pope, to distract from bigger issues such as this one ― and more.
“While we’re chasing pope and Alcatraz stories, the Trump administration has gutted funding for America’s food banks,” Stewart said. “They’ve hollowed out the FAA to the point where Newark Airport is basically inoperable, and not in its usual way. And then there’s this.”
He played a news clip showing the Trump administration just laid off nearly everyone at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health ― which, among other things, provides healthcare for 9/11 first responders.
“Motherfucker!” said Stewart, who has long been an advocate for 9/11 first responders. “Do you know how bad you have to be to make the lives of sick 9/11 responders worse? The Trump administration is now number two on the 9/11 evil power rankings. Al Qaeda is still number one, but you’re closing the gap.”
See more in his Monday night monologue:
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