Jon Stewart took aim at Donald Trump for accepting a luxury jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar on the latest episode of The Daily Show.
After discussing the government’s plans to potentially suspend due process, the late-night host launched into a series of news clips about the jet, worth $400 million. The clips explained that the plane would be used by the president during his term and “then transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation shortly before he leaves office.”
“What? Qatar is giving us a plane that Trump gets to keep? He’s like the reverse Oprah,” Stewart responded. “‘I get a jet! And that’s it. I get a jet. For my library!’ Why does his library need a jet? Why would your presidential library need—‘Yeah, hello, I’m calling from Europe, and I need a book about Trump, by morning! And the book must travel in the comfort and style one can only get from Qatar.’”
Stewart then played another clip detailing the amenities onboard the jet, which include nine bathrooms and the largest bedroom in the sky. “Holy crap,” Stewart noted. “That is not a plane. That is a flying fuck palace. I’m not going to tell Trump how to run his business, but I would steam the shit out of those carpets.”
He added, “But hey, it’s a jet from Qatar. We can trust them. They’re not suspect like Canada. Or working to undermine us like all of our other democratic allies in Europe.”
Stewart reminded viewers that Qatar is considered an ally of Iran, China, and Hamas. “Oh, Trump’s going to take a $400 million jet from people he would expel from Columbia University,” Stewart said. He then showed a clip of Trump defending the gift and proclaiming, “They’re giving us a free jet.”
“It’s not a free jet,” Stewart responded. “That’s the point. You know the expression ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch?’ That’s about being skeptical of the motives of someone who gives you a sandwich. A sandwich! A BLT! Imagine now that the BLT has an engine, nine bathrooms, and funds proxy wars!”
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Elsewhere in his monologue Stewart commented on Trump’s plan to reduce pharmaceutical prices, which he noted doesn’t quite add up “mathematically.”
“I would like to think the tenacious pleading of progressive leaders like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders helped make this possible,” Stewart said. “Unfortunately it turns out credit for the biggest, most important announcement in the history of this presidency goes to someone else.” Stewart shared a clip of Trump talking about a “seriously overweight” business friend of his who inspired the move.
Stewart noted that since Friday “we’ve had the largest bribe ever given to an American president, the seeming surrender of a trade war we started, and the socializing of our pharmaceutical industry.”
“What even is this country?” he inquired. “Four months ago we were a standard issue democratic constitutional republic. Now we’re some kind of anarcho, klepto, socialist, communist, Silk Road reality show. The only foundational unchanging edict that we can even hang out hats on anymore is that whatever we are now as a country that country is closed to any refugees.”
That is, of course, except to white South Africans. “What?” Stewart said in mock fury. “You already have one! You know what Mr. President? You don’t need 30, 37 South Africans. Now you’ll make do with just one or two.
From Rolling Stone US
