Back from Vacation, Jon Stewart Takes Aim at Trump’s Bill—And His Own Bosses

What do you say when you drift away for a while from all the political noise for a quiet vacation and return to find the satraps in DC doing the “YMCA” dance to celebrate their success in ripping away health care and food assistance from the poor so they can lavish more wealth on billionaires?

If you’re Jon Stewart—and as engaged as ever as a leading voice of “The Resistance”—you have so much to say you don’t even get to the U.S. airstrikes on Iran or the dozens of people, including children, tragically drowned in a flood calamity that seems far too connected to the administration’s attacks on the nation’s weather forecasting system.

The Daily Show host returned from a two-week vacation last night, and his message about Donald Trump and his party’s big spending bill was not subtle. “This bill was the most f*cked up performance review our country has ever delivered.”

He boiled it down to the “bullsh*t gospel of austerity.”

He called out the hypocrisy of the same people who once whined about not being able to read a bill before it passed a Democratic Congress now pushing through a massive bill before anyone could read the whole thing. He also criticized the media for falling for the idea that passage was ever in doubt.

He said, “The problem in our country isn’t the sliver of able-bodied people who are somehow coasting on the medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work f*cking hard at full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance. That’s the system that’s broken. That system! What are we talking about?”

He even cited the successful primary win of Zohran Mamdani in New York City as a sign of how fed up people are becoming with a system “where working people struggle so much.” Stewart added an ominous-sounding warning that for all the people worried about Mamdani’s socialist tendencies, he’s “the best-case scenario, because this system is not sustainable. And if this doesn’t change there’s gonna be more drastic action.”

Up the revolution.

Welcome back to late night, Trump II edition, where the imperative is less focused on extracting laughs than on calling out the latest perceived parade of damage being done to the country by the reckless power of the executive branch.

Stewart came back to The Daily Show because he had things he wanted to say—things he was apparently not getting a full opportunity to say on his Apple TV+ show. He’s saying them now, and he’s not holding anything back.

The other major target in Stewart’s post-vacation return to his Monday night pulpit was the pusillanimous surrender of his network’s parent company, Paramount, to naked extortion by the president against the crown journalistic jewel of CBS News (and basically all of television news), 60 Minutes.

Stewart opened his monologue with a cry of outrage at the “shameful settlement,” only to be faux-interrupted by an old-fashioned “Please Stand By” card faux-sponsored by Arby’s (because of course it was): “For when you want a sandwich commensurate with your company’s shame.”

That sent the message directly: Stewart was suggesting that however Paramount’s expected new masters from Skydance might seek to mute the journalistic freedom of CBS News or 60 Minutes, they would have no success trying to intimidate or silence him.

That point was only underscored by the show’s first booking back from vacation: Steve Kroft, an illustrious alumnus of 60 Minutes. The embarrassment of paying off a ransom to Trump over his threats to sue the program for a ludicrous, legally unjustifiable reason was the sole topic on the table in the interview segment.

Kroft, whose retired status leaves him freer than current 60 Minutes correspondents to call out Paramount for agreeing to settle the frivolous lawsuit, called it several times a “shakedown” and “tribute to a king.” He tied it to Paramount’s imminent multi-billion-dollar sale to Skydance, currently held up by a threat to CBS’s broadcast license from Trump’s FCC.

Stewart and Kroft went all the way there in describing the threat—not just to 60 Minutes, but to journalism itself and even, Kroft said, the First Amendment.

Again, not especially light-hearted late-night banter.

To be fair, Stewart, for all his outspoken passion on behalf of those who might not be able to pay medical bills or eat lunch in school, does not ignore a joke target sitting on a fence just waiting to be shot down.

A couple of Stewart’s favorite whipping men, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, got belted around again. Schumer, whom Stewart has carved up regularly since his return to TDS, was mocked again for his feckless response to the Republican bill, where he seemed to take a victory lap because he got the once–“Big Beautiful” bill’s name whittled down to “The Act.” Stewart asked, “Are you trying to suck? Is that what this is?”

Jeffries walked into his burn by posting a picture of himself brandishing a baseball bat, accompanied by the promise to keep fighting the bill. “Hakeem Jeffries answered with imagery, imagery that sends a clear message to Republicans,” Stewart said, “that Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats are waiting for their Moms to pick them up from T-Ball.” He finished him off by suggesting Jeffries insisted to the photographer, “Make sure you get the upholstery and my leather love seat.”

Stewart especially scored with his analysis of Republican Representative Troy Nehls, who dismissed a reporter’s question about people being hurt by the bill while smoking a big cigar with both hands inexplicably bandaged. Stewart noted he could account for the bandages only by assuming it was a “friction burn from too much celebratory masturbation.”

Yes, funny; but also completely on message. Jon Stewart was on vacation. He came back refreshed and re-inspired.

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