Emily Zemler
View all posts by Emily Zemler May 19, 2026
Jon Stewart on 'The Daily Show' Courtesy of Comedy Central On the latest episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart took aim at Donald Trump‘s recent visit to China, where the U.S. leader gushed over President Xi Jinping. “As we all know nobody, and I mean nobody, is as tough on China, rhymes with vagina, than Donald J. Trump,” Stewart quipped. “He’s like a bull in a China shop.”
After claiming that he is, in fact, tough on China, Trump proceeded to fawn over the country’s leader, going so far as to call him “my friend.”
“Take that President Xi,” Stewart responded. “He’s the only leader with the balls to come to your house and say right to your face, ‘Who’s better than you? No one!’ … That’s okay. There’s a lot of ways to negotiate. Sometimes you get more flies with honey. So what did you get Mr. President? Trade barriers down? Help with Iran? Some of them delicious rare Earth metals?”
Instead, Trump claimed the most important thing he got was a “relationship.” “So nothing?” Stewart asked. “You got nothing! You flew to China. What is it, 400 million miles? I don’t know how far it is to China. It’s far! You flew there to personally confront our rival superpower on the escalating trade and geopolitical tensions between us, and all you came back with was his Instagram? ‘The tariffs are in place, but we’re on the Close Friends story now!'”
He added, “You might be watching this and wondering, ‘How the fuck is this guy our president? How? How is this possible?’ He should not have this job and yet he does.”
