Back for his first Monday night episode of The Daily Show this year, Jon Stewart dragged President Donald Trump and his MAGA base for their course reversal on non-interventionism following last week’s toppling of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Catching up with the headlines after the holiday break, the political comic said the POTUS “removed a dangerous foreign dictator from power,” and then proceeded to flash images of various international autocrats on screen, including Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (“not that one, they’re actually friends, and quite frankly, I think, business partners”), Russian President Vladimir Putin (“they’re also quite close”) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (“I believe these two have more of a Heated Rivalry vibe, if you know what I mean, so it’s not that one”), as well as Stranger Things arch-nemesis Vecna (“no, that wasn’t us”).
Stewart quipped the GOP leader instead “reverse-ICE‘d and actually imported [Maduro] to a jail in Brooklyn.”
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“No one knows how this operation is gonna work out, but based on the United States’ track record, my guess is we’re going to be really happy about this for a couple of weeks and then, 30 years from now, there will be a Venezuelan leftist revolution, and the new government will point to this moment as the reason our embassy there is on fire,” the host said, drawing similarities between the present and 1979’s Iranian Revolution. “And it will absolutely ruin a Democrats’ presidency.” (Stewart previously likened recent military actions to the failed Iraq War.)
Stewart also ridiculed Trump’s about-face from perceived anti-foreign war candidate to warmonger, as the president has made no secret of his interest in the South American nation’s rich oil reserves as his casus belli.
“Generally, in American history, when we intervene in another country, whether true or not, we come up with a high-minded pretense: liberating a people, spreading democracy, introducing baseball to the Japanese — they complained at first, but it was totally worth it. On what moral foundation will this conflict be framed?”
He continued later, mocking Trump: “We can’t even be conspiracy theorists now! ‘I think they did it for the oil.’ ‘Yeah, no, I did it for the oil.’”
After playing a clip of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick “going full conquistador” for citing Venezuela‘s steel and minerals as further reasoning for U.S. intervention, Stewart also questioned Trump setting his sights on Colombia, Cuba and Mexico next.
“Anything else you want to take over? I think there’s still some time to go after Warner Bros. Discovery,” he said wryly. “I mean, America doesn’t have Netflix money, but we will after we get that sweet oil.”
And while Stewart was back in top form, playing catchup with pop culture references and fresh zingers tonight, he did miss an opportunity for a Pluribus joke with this one: “There is no material on Earth more malleable than the hive-mind connection between Donald Trump and his acolytes.”