It’s grad season, and The Daily Show‘s Monday night host Jon Stewart has you covered on how to ace that new job interview as you step into the real world post-college.
“Maybe the advice that we’ve been giving them all along — about honesty and hard work and all that other gay shit — is completely wrong,” he began. “Maybe, we should all be students at Donald Trump University, which, obviously, you can’t be because it was a fraud and got shut down, but metaphorically…”
Addressing the Class of 2026 — “everybody gather around … your phone, brain chip, smart fridge, however you’re watching this” — Stewart then jumped into a satirical crash course on how to get hired the “Trump way.”
First, the handshake: “Young grad, you walk into the room. And what have we always told you to do? ‘Eye contact, firm handshake, settle in.’ But that’s what losers do. What you want to do is set the terms of the battle in the interview,” Stewart said, as the screen showed a number of clips of Trump manhandling various politicians’ arms during greetings. “‘Yeah, I will take your fucking hand! I will— Give me your fucking hand! Give it to me! It is now my— Oh, I want your hand! Give me your fucking hand!”
“And if you come out of that interview with a hand that looks any less grotesque than this one, you did it wrong. Don’t look away! Look at it! That is a hand that won the interview!” Stewart quipped as an image of Trump’s severely bruised hand flashed beside him.
After playing a video of Trump declining to delineate his cons, Stewart commented, “In the interview, ‘what are your weaknesses?’ ‘I don’t know. Hire me, and you’ll find out. I got a lot of ’em. I’m reckless, I make decisions on impulse. I do very little planning. I’m corrupt as a motherfucker. But that’s gonna be my little secret until I get this job… Oh, here’s one of my weaknesses: I make all the women in the office incredibly uncomfortable.’”
Stewart then played a supercut of Trump’s hostile and derogatory outbursts to female journalists before saying: “So for you graduates, I know that this advice and behaving in the way you just witnessed seems counterintuitive. ‘Why would I alienate the very people that I’m appealing to, who are just doing their job and asking reasonable questions?’ And my answer to that is: I don’t know. I don’t know why this works. I don’t fucking get it. But here we are, and here he is. And he’s president, and I’m on basic cable. I don’t understand!”
He added, “Chances are, at this point, once you hit them with the ‘that’s a stupid question, and you’re evil,’ the interview is over. Because you’ve aced it.”
But wait, there’s more. In today’s digital world, employers may do a sweep of your online activity, and while prior wisdom dictated being prepared with a “cogent” and “believable” reason for questionable social media posts, that’s really not necessary, as exemplified by Trump, when asked about his AI-generated Jesus photo.
“Because, apparently, even though the Bible is Trump’s favorite book, he doesn’t know the difference between Robby Robinavitch and Jesus. Wow!” Stewart exclaimed.
The late-night host concluded, “Great job in the interview. So far you’ve been: arrogant, self-centered, narcissistic, ignorant, quick to claim credit, quicker to deflect blame, petulant, short-tempered, vulgar, corrupt — name any sin from Trump’s favorite book, you’ve been it. And apparently, in the Upside Down that is now our country, that’s the way to do it. So congratulations, you’re hired. The only thing left to do now is blatantly steal from whoever it was that hired you.”
The monologue then wrapped with news of Trump’s $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies and Jan. 6 rioters — to be paid for with taxpayer dollars.
