Liberal comedian Jon Stewart thinks that former President Donald Trump is “doing us a service” by uncovering political and corporate corruption at the highest levels.
He delved into a discussion about Trump, the election, and democracy in general on his new podcast, The Weekly Show, a riff on his satirical current events Comedy Central program, The Daily Show.
During his conversation with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker, and Noah Bookbinder, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, he said that Trump’s conviction and ongoing legal battles have exposed the “crony capitalism.”
Which he said coupled with the “reality of transactional corruption,” is at the core of corporate and political America.
If we have anything to thank Trump for, it’s exposing the cracks in our democracy and showing us exactly where repairs are needed.
Check out the first episode of The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, out now with guests @JaneMayerNYer and @NoahBookbinder.
Listen wherever you get… pic.twitter.com/nxTrWN0heS
— The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart (@weeklyshowpod) June 6, 2024
“In some ways, he is doing us a service,” Stewart commented, likening Trump to a “white hat hacker” who identifies system vulnerabilities.
Stewart questioned whether Trump’s recent criminal convictions related to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels have revealed the dark underbelly of how the country is run.
“Is he exposing a reality?” Stewart asked. “I’m not saying he’s not pushing the limit of it.”
“I’m not saying he’s not exploiting it,” he continued. “But isn’t he exposing at some level a reality of crony capitalism, a reality of transactional corruption that is the heartbeat of corporate and political America?”
Stewart noted how Trump had “pushed for” Georgia’s Secretary of State Bryan Raffensperger to “find him 11,000 votes” and pressured Ukraine to investigate President Joe Biden in 2019.
Mayer responded by noting that while corruption has increased, “it wasn’t awlays this way,” and not all government officials are corrupt.
“There are incredible numbers of people in Washington who are really dedicated to doing the right thing for the right reasons, both Republicans and Democrats,” she said.
“They’re just, they’re interested in policy, they’re interested in serving the country,” Mayer defended. “And, [Trump’s] really bad-mouthing that whole possibility.”
In the wake of Trump’s guilty verdict, he criticized Biden and claimed the verdict was a “rigged decision” intended to harm a political opponent.
Biden has seemingly proved his point by labeling him as a “convicted felon” during a campaign event shortly after Trump was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
“For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency,” Biden said at a Connecticut fundraiser.
“But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.”
He insisted that Trump has become “unhinged,” and claimed that after the 2020 election, “Something snapped in this guy for real. It’s literally driving him crazy.”
Meanwhile, Stewart said that he believes Trump is solely self-interested, and cares for little beyond what affects him.
“An election result that is rigged, is one where he doesn’t win,” he elaborated. “The deep state is rigged if it gives a decision against him, the court system is rigged if it goes against him.”
Stewart pushed back at Mayer, pointing out that despite the presence of government workers with moral values, Trump has revealed “vulnerabilities” in the system, and both can exist at the same time.
“There are a lot of really good, dedicated policy people and good-hearted with great integrity people working in Washington every day to make the country work better,” he began.
“The system is so removed from the needs of its people and so insulated and isolated within the Beltway and within that very peculiar system within the Beltway, that it can’t actually accomplish the goal even those good-hearted people of integrity want it to.’
He suggested that the system needs to be “reverse engineered” based on the issues Trump has showcased.
“Now he’s not doing it for our benefit, he’s doing it to exploit it,” Stewart concluded.
“But what I’m saying is, what if we take the information that he’s delivering us which is, here are the vulnerabilities in your system that I can exploit, can’t we reverse engineer that?”
Meanwhile, fellow late-night host Bill Maher tore into President Joe Biden’s executive order as an “before-the-election Hail Mary pass.”
On Friday’s episode of HBO’s Real Time, Maher criticized Biden’s new immigration policy, insisting it’s “not gonna succeed” with voters.
Tuesday saw Biden reveal an executive action that restricts the number of migrants at the border claiming asylum to 2,500 per day.
“If Biden loses this election, it’s going to be because of two things: He’s old… and immigration,” Maher remarked.
“I mean, just on a political level, I don’t think they could have handled it worse.”
Ironically, Biden is employing the same authority Trump used when implementing bans on migrants coming over the southern border.
“He’s finally, after saying he couldn’t do anything, he’s gonna issue an executive order—by the way, this is the same executive order Trump tried to get through the courts and they didn’t let him do it,” Maher pointed out.
“But he’s gonna finally try it six months before the election, which says we will put a cap of 2500 now, asylum seekers coming in,” he explained about the recent executive order.
NEW: Bill Maher shreds President Biden’s border policy and blasts Democrats for having ‘no balls’ to confront the border crisis.
I haven’t heard Maher say one thing he likes about Biden yet he will vote for him anyway.
“If Biden loses this election, it’s gonna be because of two… pic.twitter.com/adZPZ8Hb3c
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 8, 2024
“If it passes 2,500, if it’s 2,501, then we automatically close the border,” he quipped. “Fire marshall says ‘No more!’ He’s gonna come here and close the club! And if you don’t have a stamp on your hand, you can’t get back in!”
Maher referenced statistics indicating “more than nine million migrants have entered” the U.S. since Biden assumed office in January 2021, which he noted was the more than the entire population of Nicaragua.
“The question that Democrats don’t seem to be able to have the balls to answer is just how many is too many? And like, infinity is the answer,” he jabbed.
“If you don’t give that answer, you’re a racist. That’s their essential problem with this issue.”
Maher compared the executive order to “surge-pricing with Uber,” because when the number of migrants crossing drop down to 1,500, standard asylum procedures resume.
“It’s a bizarre scheme that of course has pleased nobody. It looks like a last minute- it looks like he did nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing,” he added.
“But now it looks like this is his last minute before-the-election Hail Mary pass, and it’s not gonna succeed.”