Jon Stewart went live on The Daily Show Tuesday to share his instant reaction to the big debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. He marveled at Harris’ ability to make a simple argument in a way Joe Biden failed to do in his showdown with Trump and compared Trump to Grandpa Simpson for his unhinged rant about immigrants eating dogs. But what really got under Stewart’s skin was Trump’s evasive response to his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump repeated his ongoing claim that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the chaos that day, and said that he “had nothing to do with that, other than they asked me to make a speech.”
Stewart shot back, “You spent two months riling up your base, [saying] that our country had literally been stolen from them through fraudulent means, that you could never even get a whiff of in a court of law, and let yourself just abuse them. You pressed on. You abused their trust.”
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“You showed up for a speech?” Stewart said. “You f---ing tweeted ‘Join me on January 6…’ ‘It will be wild!’”
The host continued, “One thing will always be true, and it is the quality of the former president I respect the least: Whenever he is cornered and forced to face even the smallest of consequences for his own mendacity and scheming, he reverts to the greatest refuge of scoundrels.”
“As Shaggy would say, ‘It wasn’t me!’” Stewart mocked.
The Daily Show host then shared a message directly with Trump’s supporters: “This man, who constantly professes to be your champion, who says they’re going to have to go through him to get to you, will always, when the boat is going down, be the first into the lifeboats, because in that moment, he will always say the same thing: ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’”
“In any other country,” Stewart said, “That lack of accountability would be disqualifying.”
