In the days leading up to the election, Jon Stewart wants the media to focus on Donald Trump, instead of the “terrible jokes” others told at his rally at Madison Square Garden.
“The media is focused on the terrible jokes that have been made. Focus on Trump, who would have the power,” Stewart said in a new one interview with VanityFair. “Focus on the guy who says, ‘I’m going to deport everyone using the law we used to intern the Japanese.’”
On Monday’s “Daily Show” episode, Stewart discussed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s controversial stand-up set, who endorsed Trump and told jokes on stage at the rally. One such joke, in which Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico “a floating island of trash,” caused a media firestorm and caused several high-profile Puerto Rican artists to voice public support for Kamala Harris. Trump’s campaign later distanced itself from the comment.
“Clearly, in retrospect, having a roasted comedian come to a political rally a week before Election Day and roasting a key demographic group … probably not the best decision of the campaign politically. But to be honest, the guy just really does what he does,” Stewart said on “The Daily Show” before moving on to jokes Hinchcliffe made earlier this year on Netflix’s “Roast of Tom Brady.”
Stewart laughed at the clips, saying, “Yeah, yeah, sure, terrible, boo. There’s something wrong with me. I think that guy is really funny. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you.”
But much of Stewart’s “Daily Show” segment focused on comments Trump himself has said, including his deportation plans. He told Vanity Fair that he decided to take up the immigration issue because “a core tenet” of Trump’s campaign “points to migrants as the cause of our dystopian present.”
“Instead of working on what is, I think, a quite feasible and not so complicated idea to set up an immigration system, they have decided to take a slightly different route, which is: ‘I’m going to take an amount’ of people I don’t know the number of and forcing them to leave,” Stewart said.
He added: “Instead of taking a big boy approach and sitting down and rolling up your sleeves, this is what he does: build a wall. … Deport them all. Okay, what’s that going to look like? In short, it will be a stop-and-frisk for all of America. And it’s terrible. There is a way to protect the nation’s sovereignty and still treat everyone as a human being. There doesn’t seem to be an attempt to balance that because that’s not good demagoguery.”