Jon Stewart Brings Impression of Sen. Katie Britt’s SOTU Rebuttal to ‘The Daily Show’

Kevin Dolak
·2 min read
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On Monday night’s Jon Stewart-led episode of The Daily Show, the host lampooned the notion that Republicans are somehow more American than non-GOP voters and then closed with a dead-on impression of Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s much-mocked rebuttal that followed Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

Stewart has returned to the anchor chair of Comedy Central’s enduring mock-newscast after leaving in 2015, ending a 16-year stint as its host. He returned in January to host Monday nights until November’s election, and will be executive producer through at least 2025. This week, after opening with some praise for Biden’s feisty address, Stewart pivoted to Britt’s bizarre kitchen table-set rebuttal to the president’s speech from Thursday night. (This week’s Saturday Night Live also kicked off its latest show mocking the Republican response to Biden’s address.)

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“Who smiles when they say the line ‘steeped in the blood of patriots’?” Stewart pondered after airing a clip from Britt’s home-shot rebuttal, as she’d used that vivid phrase to draw a line from present day politics to the American Revolution. This led Stewart down a path discussing the false notion that Republicans are the actual “inheritors of the American revolutionary tradition — that they somehow are more American-y than non-Republican Americans.”

Stewart, who has been playing both sides with some deep criticism of President Biden in recent weeks, went for the jugular on Republicans who claim to be strict administrators of Constitutional rights but at the same time, work to elect a president with a dictator’s ideology who — as one says in a supercut of statements contradicting the values within the U.S. Constitution — “could stand on the front steps of the White House and and commit murder.”

“You want to give them absolute power? You want to be the leader uber alles? You want them to have the right of kings? You do you. But stop framing it as patriotism. Donald Trump is following the tradition of the founders he is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity. That is monarchy shit.”

Stewart’s monologue then closed out with the host’s dead-on Britt impression, as he addressed Trump supporters using her words to Democrats, and in the same wavering whisper heard in last week’s rebuttal: “And I want you to know, we see you, we hear you. Enough.”

The show’s guest on Monday was Tyranny of the Minority author Steven Levitsky, who discussed how the U.S. Constitutiion is in many ways set up to protect and enable an authoritarian minority party.

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