Jon Stewart Delivers Thursday Night ‘Daily Show’ Monologue From Golden Trump-Esque Set
The late-night stand against Donald Trump pulling Jimmy Kimmel off ABC is underway, with everyone from Greg Gutfeld to Stephen Colbert spending some of their increasingly precious screen time to discuss the latest authoritarian escalation. Mild or scalding, everyone had a take. But no one set such a clear visual tone for the evening like Jon Stewart at The Daily Show.
On his atypical Thursday night appearance, Stewart appeared on a redecorated set. Gone was the typical blue-and-red digital backdrop. Instead, everything was gold. If you’ve been paying attention, the change in graphics looks awfully familiar to Trump’s aesthetic preferences. The president has begun an expensive overhaul of the White House that seems to be largely inspired by the tastes of infamous French King Louis XVI. Fitting, considering the rapidly growing divide between the haves and have-nots of today mirrors the economic divides of back then.
The gilded TDS set wasn’t the only change. The introduction was tweaked as well. In a nod to Trump’s insistence that he gets to have a say in television, Thursday’s episode started with “From Comedy Central, it’s the all-new, government-approved Daily Show! With your patriotically obedient host Jon Stewart!”
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This was paired with the images that Republicans like to use when they’re trying to deregulate healthcare and gut social programs (a man and child on a farm, the American flag, a lady soldier) and a fair amount of trumpeting.
Stewart then started the segment looking scared and not entirely confident in what he was about to say (a good Jimmy Fallon impersonation, honestly), before he started listing his many dictatorship-friendly qualities.
“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart opened. Then, he lectured the audience on their reactions, urging the crowd not to get him in trouble.
“We’re coming to you tonight from a real shithole, the crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City,” Stewart continued. “It is a tremendous disaster, like no one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place. Am I right?”
Fortunately, this over-compliance bit doesn’t continue for much longer before Stewart dives into Trump’s weird trip to the U.K. and Kimmel’s firing. But even as the jokes move on, that hideous golden set remains, forever delivering a silent middle finger to Trump’s tyrannical aesthetics.
