Jon Stewart devoted the bulk of Monday’s “The Daily Show” to the chaotic economic havoc caused by Donald Trump’s tariff policies. And in the end, it led him to declare that the current stock market problems are just like what happened during COVID — if Trump was personally responsible for the virus.
“It’s your lab leak,” the “Daily Show” host said.
The commentary started with Stewart mocking the business and finance leaders who seemed thrilled about Trump’s election, particularly over the end of ‘woke,’ who are now panicking. He then laid into the Republicans generally and Trump specifically for how they’ve justified these policies and defended themselves as things get increasingly worse.
And near the end, after mocking the weird notion pushed by several Trump supporters that voters need to “believe” in the policy to keep it from disaster, Stewart zoomed in on one who specifically cited Trump’s book (which he didn’t really write), “The Art of the Deal,” to support the claim Trump’s policies are sound.
“We’re supposed to trust this guy because he wrote ‘The Art of the Deal.’ You ever say, I got the book, I got the book. ‘Art of the Deal.’ Yeah, that’s why we’re supposed to trust him. You ever look at chapter nine,” Stewart asked. “It’s about how smart Trump is about his casino in Atlantic City.”
“Oh yeah. Chapter nine, ‘I built a casino in Atlantic City. I’m a business genius.’” Stewart said, his heavy sarcasm nodding to the fact that Atlantic City was already a gambling town.
“Whatever happened to the casino, Donald,” Stewart asked as footage of the casino being demolished after Trump ran them into bankruptcy.
Stewart then tore apart the quickly-debunked justifications for these policies. “Look, you make a big announcement, but your reciprocal tariff formula was just the trade deficit divided by imports equation, and when you got busted on that, you threw out this ridiculous calculus problem that’s just shapes. It boils down to the trade deficit divided by imports, which is the formula that got the rich country of Lesotho hit with 50% tariffs,” Stewart said.
“But we continue to blame everybody else in the world that we designed and policed after World War Two. We’re the richest country in the world, ever, we’re not the world’s victims,” Stewart continued. “If we have inequalities in this country that’s on us. It’s not a supply problem, it’s not unfair trade for the most part. It’s an investment and distribution problem. It’s our fault, and I’m not saying we can’t make adjustments. And renegotiate things, but it didn’t have to be this reckless. You killed the hostage and then went, ‘so ransom?’”
Stewart then ran a supercut of news footage explaining just how bad the mess is, and pegged his conclusion to the news that one of the stock drops last week was the worst since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Worst day since June 2020, during the COVID pandemic. Financial destruction not seen since the pandemic, and this time, there’s no controversy over how it all started,” Stewart declared. “There’s no wet market. You, Trump, released the contagion. It’s your lab leak, and it’s right out in the open. This is like if the researchers at the Wuhan Institute of virology walked out to the great lawn with a Tupperware and went, we have an exciting announcement.”
At that, Stewart mimed releasing the virus outright. Watch the whole commentary below:
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