Two nights after finding himself caught up in Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner shooting, Robert Smigel’s Triumph the Insult Comic Dog returned to The Daily Show Monday night—wearing a gold medal that read “hero.”
Introduced by Jon Stewart at the close of an extended monologue lampooning the media’s response to its own peril during Saturday’s shooting, Triumph joined Stewart at the desk to spoof that coverage.
“Well, Jon, I’m not the person who likes to throw around the word hero,” he began. “But after Saturday, I can’t help not only throw it around, but put it on a medal and have it printed at Staples.”
When Stewart suggested the self-awarded honor might be excessive, Triumph pointed to CNN’s treatment of Wolf Blitzer—who was pushed into a bathroom by security during the chaos and briefly lost one of his shoes in the process.
“Oh so what, Wolf Blitzer’s a hero?” Triumph shot back. “Ooooh, he reported without one shoe. I’m out there with my balls hanging out.”
Stewart attempted several times to steer the conversation toward the broader issue of gun violence—only to be repeatedly shushed by Triumph, who literally silenced him with an absurd visual gag involving an extended prop paw pressed to Stewart’s lips.
“Jon, Jon, Jon, please don’t do this,” he said after Stewart raised the issue of gun legislation. “Don’t politicize a political event.”
When Stewart later suggested that America needed to “look in the mirror” and “take the temperature down” amid rising political tensions, Triumph once again cut him off.
“Shhh, shhh,” he said. “I have like five more jokes to get through. And then you can talk about temperature.”
Asked by Stewart whether he feared for his life, Triumph quipped: “Yes, but mostly because I didn’t want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to eat my carcass. It’s not the way you want to go, Jon.”
In a social media post Sunday, Smigel confirmed he’d been covering the event for The Daily Show, adding he was “grateful we all escaped unharmed.”
Watch Stewart’s complete Monday night monologue below. Smigel-as-Triumph’s report from the Correspondents’ Dinner—including footage from the red carpet earlier that evening—is set to air on The Daily Show Tuesday night.
