Returning to hosting duties on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart addressed everything from President Donald Trump’s spat with the Vatican to the electoral defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The POTUS recently took umbrage with Pope Leo XIV’s message of peace amid the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, but Stewart urged him to reconsider: “And look, President Trump, I know the Vatican’s been critical of your policies, but you gotta remember that at the end of the day you and the Catholic Church both historically care deeply about the same thing — covering up sex scandals.”
Though the GOP leader’s comments against the sovereign pontiff upset many of Christian faith, the late-night host assured “please don’t worry, it gets worse” as Trump posted and then deleted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ.
The photo depicted Trump in messianic garb, healing a figure that eerily looked like Stewart. The comic spent some minutes zooming in on and squinting at the photo, putting his hand on his head to ascertain the resemblance.
“I know I don’t have the vigor and spunk of my MTV days, but I didn’t know we were here already,” Stewart quipped. “I didn’t realize my look had reached leper territory. I mean, from the picture, it looks like it was touch-and-go with me for a while.”
He added, “This is freaking me the fuck out.”
After the image drew intense backlash, Trump was asked by a reporter to comment on the matter, at which point he defended the photo as a depiction of himself as a doctor.
“Do you even care about lying to us anymore? Is it over? [Has] this relationship gone still? Your lies used to have a real spark: ‘They’re eating the cats and dogs, Venezuela stole the 2020 election.’ And now the best you’ve got is: ‘Oh, was it Jesus? I’m a doctor.’ You need to find your happy place, and fast. We expect better lies, sir,” Stewart said.
Toward the end of his monologue, Stewart addressed far-right populist and Trump ally Orbán’s decisive defeat, noting that the Hungarian citizenry’s celebratory mood symbolized hope and modeled where the United States could be soon.
“Please, God, let the dam be breaking,” he stated. “Folks, this has been a truly shit year, as we have all been at the mercy of the mercurial whims of a megalomaniacal man-baby. And we are tired. The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the people. But I’m telling you: There is hope. The air of Donald Trump’s invincibility is being slowly eroded by world events and his own heart’s ability to clear liquid from his capillaries.”
