With all of the ongoing turmoil in this country, which only continues to grow now that actual Nazis have become empowered, one voice sorely being missed in the fray is Jon Stewart. Although thankfully, when the former Daily Show host (who also has a stand-up special forthcoming) does pop up, such as from literally under Stephen Colbert’s desk earlier this year, it’s always worth the wait.
Such was the case when Stewart dropped by Dave Chappelle’s Radio City Music Hall residency Thursday night, where he weighed in on Charlottesville, and President Trump’s abhorrent remarks about what happened. Sopan Deb, culture reporter for the New York Times, happened to be in the audience and helpfully transcribed Stewart’s words.
“It wasn’t so much that there were Nazis. It was really the reaction by certain presidents,” Stewart said, as he started off his set. “To the presence of two sides? There are two sides? Motherfucker? Two sides?” He continued, “Two sides! I believe they are called the Allied powers and the Axis powers. This motherfucker signed a treaty that I don’t think any of us knew about.”
After cracking some jokes about the physical fitness of today’s contemporary Nazis, Stewart went after Trump directly: “This is — I don’t even know what the fuck to say about a situation like this … I knew it would be bad because, and in the president’s defense, he is a terrible person.” He added, I don’t think everybody who likes him is a Nazi but everybody who is a Nazi sure does seem to like him.”
Stewart also pointed out that Trump’s anti-Semitic views are nothing new, recalling their infamous 2013 Twitter fight, in which the president inexplicably tweeted about him changing his name from Jonathan Leibowitz, “basically saying to people, ‘Just so you know, he’s a Jew.'”
“Like, this face doesn’t give that away. People are going to look at this face and be like, ‘I’ve seen that on a yentile program,'” he continued. “So basically it goes back to an old white supremacist trope, which is ‘Jews amongst us.’ The crypto-Jew. So what Donald Trump was saying was — he was signaling to the underworld that Jews are amongst us. And one of them has a show on Comedy Central. How about that? Honestly, if Jews controlled the media why wasn’t I on a network?”
You can read Deb’s full transcripts below:
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/898390536742219776
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/898401899359068160
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/898404892305272833
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/898408927569747968
(Via THR)