Emily Zemler
View all posts by Emily Zemler September 9, 2026
Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show' Courtesy of Comedy Central After a month’s break, Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show. During his monologue, the late-night host questioned whether he had missed anything during August before playing a quick-fire reel of all of the things Donald Trump did while Stewart was away.
These included rolling back childhood vaccine requirements, threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center, and attacking mail-in voting. “God, it never ends with this dude Trump,” Stewart said. “I’ve never seen one person work so much and fix so little. It’s exhausting.”
After discussing the dire situation on the USS Abraham Lincoln, which Trump has refused to acknowledge, Stewart noted that the president’s “relentless denial of reality” is one of the elements “eating away at the foundational load-bearing structures that hold this country together.” He also spoke about the escalating trade war with Canada and Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America.
“That’s not how things work!” Stewart exclaimed. “You don’t settle complicated international agreements by writing just a new name on the map and expecting everyone to just follow along.”
Later in the monologue Stewart likened Trump aide Natalie Harp to incarcerated Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, pointing to the viral trailer for Nathan Fielder’s upcoming documentary, You Can See Everything. “Donald Trump has an aide whose whole job is to reinforce his warped reality,” Stewart explained before sharing a news clip about Harp sending Trump “love letters.”
