Jon Stewart has skewered the Republican senators and congress members who briefly stood up to President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” last week, only to fall in line and vote in favor of it.
Speaking on Monday night’s installment of The Daily Show, Stewart characterized the bill as a “legislative coup”. He outlined the numerous welfare cuts it contained, affecting everything from Medicaid to renewable energy, student loans, and food stamps, while increasing defense spending and granting tax relief to the wealthy at a cost of an additional $3.4 trillion to the national deficit.
Showing a clip of Republican lawmakers dancing to “YMCA” by The Village People as they sealed the deal, Stewart joked: “I’m sorry, that was the party they had for the Epstein list not being released.”
The comedian went on to explain how the passage of the bill through the House of Representatives and Senate prior to its signing by Trump at the White House on July 4 represented as fine an example of “general Washington bulls***ery” in action as one could ever hope to see.
In a scathing segment, he attacked both the hypocrisy of Republicans rushing it through Congress after previously accusing Democrats of not giving them sufficient time to read consequential bills, as well as the ineffective Democratic response from figures like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
Stewart also lambasted the media for its credulous reporting on the few Republicans that made a point of advertising their opposition to aspects of the legislation – dismissed by Trump himself as self-promoting “grandstanders” – only to then vote “yes.”
The host argued that the arguments they put forward were “scripted to allow certain senators plausible deniability, without putting any part of that agenda actually at risk.”
He continued: “It should have been clear that this bill, like everything else, was going to pass on the day they said it was going to pass, that the ‘no’s’ for the bill were for show.”
Stewart went on to present interview clips of GOP senators Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Tim Burchett, and Lisa Murkowski speaking out before performing complete U-turns in the chamber to wave the bill through.
“It’s all pro wrestling!” the host observed bitterly. “The only difference between that vote and wrestling is that wrestling is fun and takes actual courage.”
Incensed and exasperated, Stewart further derided the senators’ House counterparts, Steve Scalise, Pat Fallon, and Troy Nehls, for pushing through a “bulls*** gospel of austerity” to justify the bill’s passage, noting that Nehls was seen smoking a cigar while backing a bill that deprives American citizens of healthcare and school lunches.
“So that’s the pitch,” he concluded. “Somehow, it is fiscally irresponsible to build a stronger floor for everyone to stand on if it may, in any way, lower the already astronomical ceiling height experienced by the rare few.
“This bill is the most f***ed up performance review our country could ever deliver.”
