Jon Stewart: Donald Trump ‘is a man-baby’
Jon Stewart had the pulpit of “The Daily Show” to satirize the rise of Donald Trump. But Stewart says he isn’t sure the presumptive Republican nominee should even be allowed to run for president.
“Are you eligible to run if you are a man-baby?” Stewart asked David Axelrod during a live taping of Axelrod’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” in Chicago on Monday. “He is a man-baby. He has the physical countenance of a man and a baby’s temperament and hands.”
Stewart also weighed in on Trump’s likely opponent in the fall, Hillary Clinton, who he called “a very bright woman without the courage of her convictions, because I’m not even sure what they are.“
"When I watch her campaign, it reminds me of … Magic Johnson’s talk show,” Stewart said, referring to the NBA Hall of Famer’s short-lived stint on syndicated television. “It never seemed authentic and real to his personality.”
"That’s not to say that she is not preferable to Donald Trump,” he added, “because at this point I would vote for Mr. T over Donald Trump.”
Stewart’s absence from late-night television has been noticeable in the 2016 presidential campaign — especially among Trump’s rivals.
“You know what Donald ought to be happy about?” Ohio Gov. John Kasich said in March, “Jon Stewart’s not running ‘The Daily Show.’”
But the former Comedy Central star, who stepped down from that show in early August after nearly 16 years as host, says he doesn’t regret sitting out this election cycle, in part because he doesn’t think it’s as crazy as the media makes it seem.
“We talk about it as though it’s something incredibly different, but in truth, how different is it, really?” Stewart said. “The media is, as usual, focused on the wrong things, and abdicating responsibility for the general filtration of toxicity. You have enormous amounts of money flowing in to crazy people who are channeling populists of years past.”
Even Trump’s climb to the top of the GOP ranks hasn’t particularly surprised him.
“He makes sense if you view it through the prism of talk radio,” Stewart said. “I like to drive, so I listen to talk radio. And it is 24/7 of 'your country is being taken away from you.’”
But Stewart also blames the Democratic party for Trump’s ascendance.
“The door is open to an a**hole like Donald Trump because the Democrats haven’t done enough to show to people that government that can be effective for people, can be efficient for people,” he said. “If you can’t do that, then you’ve lost the right to make that change, and someone’s going to come in and demagogue you.”
