Jon Stewart Mocks Donald Trump’s Return to Power

Jon Stewart gave his take on the “historic vibe shift” of Donald Trump’s second inauguration Monday night.

Stewart took on Trump’s news-filled inauguration day (full video below) during Monday’s episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. During Stewart’s 15-minute opener, he mocked the tech billionaires in attendance, President Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons of his family, Elon Musk’s controversial crowd salute and, of course, Trump’s speech.

— On all the tech titans bending the knee to Trump: “A plethora of bald billionaires who all seem to go to the same bio-hack life extension clinic and say, ‘Give me the Lex Luthor’ … These six guys who control maybe 20 percent of the world’s wealth and 100 percent of your nudes. Shouldn’t this gathering be happening in a volcano’s lair near Zurich? Or are we just open source Illuminati? Now, where’s the conspiracy fun in that? Honestly, there is not a useful app of communication not controlled by at least one of these individuals. And you may not be concerned that they’ve all ponied up a million dollars to be sitting there and are kissing the ass of a president who openly threatens non ass kissers. But trust me, shit’s going to get weird.”

— On Elon Musk’s emphatic hand gesture, which many have said looks rather similar to a Nazi salute (Musk has mocked this claim): “Okay, charitably, I’m going to say that was just an awkward ‘my heart goes out to you’ gesture. It’s a one off gesture. Please try not to use it again” [Then Stewart played Musk doing it a second time to the crowd behind him]. “I’m just going to be generous and say maybe that was Elon’s attempt at dabbing on the haters.”

— On Trump not actually putting his hand on the Bible during his swearing-in: “Because one or the other would burst into flames. Perhaps both.”

— On Trump dissing Biden as the former president sat right behind him during his swearing-in speech: “[Biden’s] right behind you! Luckily, I don’t think he can hear you. The inaugural speech followed the American tradition of a passive-aggressive transfer of power — the incoming president gets to completely shit on the outgoing president, in front of that president and hopefully his spouse.”

— On Biden giving last-minute pardons to his other immediate family members just as Trump took the stage: “Biden, you’re at the inauguration! Did you auto-schedule your pardons? What the fuck man? You’re just pardoning your whole family? It’s not a good look. Like any good captain, as the ship is going down, he gave the order: ‘That lifeboat is for my family!’ The rest of you can do just a Jack and Rose thing.”

Concluded Stewart: “The take away of this entire day was a man who tried to overthrow the government has been peacefully handed the reins of power, and the outgoing president has started a new tradition of blanket pardoning everyone in his orbit. The two men created a magnificent snake sucking its own dick, a cycle of no accountability.”