Jon Stewart walks through the "general Washington bullshittery" in big, beautiful episode

Not to mention Comedy Central parent company Paramount's "shameful settlement"... Whoops! Technical difficulties.

Jon Stewart walks through the
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Thank goodness someone like Jon Stewart exists to record the metric fuckton of “general Washington bullshittery,” to borrow his painfully on-the-nose phrasing, that we have flying at us every day. And oh boy, did this week throw a lot of it.

The major headline, of course, is Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (or, “The Act” in Chuck Schumer’s “feckless” name-changing rebuke). Stewart went long on the bill, which he deemed a “legislative coup” and “the most fucked up performance review our country could ever deliver.” But if you think the commentator is unfairly biased against a political party that thinks it’s “fiscally irresponsible to build a stronger floor for everyone to stand on if it may, in any way, lower the already astronomical ceiling height experienced by the rare few,” don’t worry—he had some praise for them as well. “You somehow managed to severely cut the safety net and expand the deficit,” he said. “That’s impressive!”

Of course, MAGA’s “big victory” wasn’t the only thing that happened this week. The Epstein files made a reappearance (or, rather, didn’t), which Stewart noted with a short attempt to hypnotize his audience into believing they never existed at all. (Sound familiar?)

All that news came on top of Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump, which was of particular interest to Stewart as an employee of Comedy Central, a network owned by—you guessed it—Paramount. Stewart put a Daily Show spin on 60 Minutes‘ previous on-air callout of the shows’ shared parent company at the very top of his monologue. “Our parent company Paramount’s shameful settlement,” he began, before the feed cut out for “technical difficulties.” Luckily, everything was in order later, when Stewart interviewed former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft on the “devastating” settlement, which Kroft characterized as a “shakedown” by Trump in exchange for approval of the company’s pricey Skydance merger. “The $16 million was a tribute. That’s how he looks at it,” Kroft concluded. “A tribute to the king.” 

You can watch both clips below:

 
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