Jon Stewart Takes Aim at Tucker Carlson’s Putin Interview: ‘You’re Such a Dick’
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Tucker Carlson recently visited Russia to interview the country’s president/dictator Vladimir Putin and Jon Stewart has some thoughts. The Daily Show host addressed the Carlson incident after explaining the backlash he received about his show last week from Democrats.
“It was never my intention to say out loud what I saw with my eyes and then brain,” Stewart said, apologizing to those he upset with his “both sides rhetoric.” He added, “I can do better. I can haz learning. I can haz it. But I don’t even know where to start with that. Where do I go to study the particulars of unquestioning propaganda? I would need mentorship.”
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He then cut to footage of Carlson in Moscow, calling him “professor.” Stewart broke down Carlson’s reporting, taking notes on important components of journalism like “disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based in freedom.”
“Now, obviously Tucker’s strategy is going to work when there’s some ambiguity in what Putin says,” Stewart noted. “But what if Putin starts saying shit like ‘World War II was Poland’s fault because they forced Hitler to invade them’?” He cut to footage of Carlson replying “Of course” to Putin’s assertion.
“You know, that’s so hard to do when your face says, ‘What the fuck?’ and your mouth says ‘Of course,'” Stewart said. “How do you do that? By the way, Poland started World War II? Why would a country whose navy has submarines with screen doors want to instigate a war?” He added, “Well, this has been an incredible primer into the delicate dance of speaking ‘of course’ to power.”
After showing footage of Carlson praising the Russian subway system and marveling over the grocery store carts that won’t be taken to a “homeless encampment,” Stewart affirmed, “I know I’ve said this before: you’re such a dick. Really, truly, a dick.”
Later, Stewart pointed out the true cost of these grocery stores and fancy subway stations: political repression. “Because the difference between our urinal-caked, chaotic subways and your candelabra-ed, beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom. But the goal that Carlson and his ilk are pushing is that there’s really difference between our systems. In fact, theirs might be a little bit better. The question is why. Why is Tucker doing this?”
Stewart temporarily returned to The Daily Show last week as one of the late-night show’s rotating hosts. During the episode he slammed both Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, firing off at both 2024 presidential candidates for their age-related blunders.
“These two candidates, they are both similarly challenged,” Stewart said. “And it is not crazy to think that the oldest people in the history of the country to ever run for president might have some of these challenges.”
Many liberals were shocked and aggrieved at Stewart’s return to the show after almost nine years. Independent journalist Aaron Rupar complained that the host’s material was “basically the New York Times op-ed page in TV form,” adding, “both sides are not in fact equally bad!” Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann called Stewart a “bothsidesist fraud” and hoped that the talk show host would take another nine-year hiatus from the Daily Show.
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