Jon Stewart paints a bleak picture of America's future on a new Daily Show

With Trump flagrantly flouting the law, Congress in sleep mode, and voters gerrymandered out of existence, Jon Stewart assesses where the U.S. is at: "We're fucked."

By Matt Schimkowitz  |  May 5, 2026 | 12:28am
Courtesy of Comedy Central
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Jon Stewart paints a bleak picture of America's future on a new Daily Show

Things aren’t looking great for the good ol’ United States. Now entering its 60th day at war with Iran, a war Americans don’t seem to understand or want, the country is stuck with a president who spends an inordinate amount of time starting wars, threatening wars, and bragging about the cognitive tests his aides and doctors believe he needs to take. Meanwhile, his checks and balances are out to lunch. A comatose Congress is allowing him to run roughshod over the Constitution, a subservient judiciary is pulling us back to the Jim Crow South, and Democratic voting blocs, mostly made of minority constituents, are about to be gerrymandered out of existence. It’s so bad that the King of England had to come to America and start pushing its leaders around to wake them up. Is that really what we want? No, but as Jon Stewart so eloquently puts it in a new Daily Show: We’re fucked. 

Taking the all-inclusive route for this week’s Jon episode, The Daily Show ran down the week’s news, avoiding such travesties as last week’s Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act and the White House posting more Star Wars-inspired Trumpslop. Instead, he focused on the war in Iran, or the military conflict in Iran, which is what Trump would be calling it if he were in any way concerned that Congress would do anything about him breaking the law. As Stewart points out, we’ve reached the 60-day deadline on this “conflict,” which is when Congress is supposed to step in and approve or disapprove of the budget. The rule is supposed to keep presidents from going to war without congressional approval, but that’s never stopped Big D from cutting off America’s nose to spite its face.  

It’s all pretty bleak and kinda funny, in that “Oh, man, we are so cooked” way. To that end, Stewart’s interview with civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill was much more substantive, with Ifill explaining what happened to the Voting Rights Act and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts’ decades-long struggle to kill it. Unfortunately, there’s not much upside to her chat either. Ifill calls on American voters to vote in the midterm elections in massive numbers, which is a big ask. Voting’s what got us into the mess, and it’s still the best option for getting us out. 

 
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