Jon Stewart’s absence from The Daily Show throughout the worst parts of the 2016 election cycle was arguably one of this season’s deepest cruelties. Fortunately, he hasn’t been completely silent.
In an extended interview with Charlie Rose on CBS’s This Morning, Stewart delved into the political fray once more, touching on America’s hypocrisy, Washington’s swamp, and the “not natural” state of America and how it’s exceptional in that way.
“I don’t believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks ago,” Stewart opines. “The same country that elected Donald Trump elected Barack Obama.”
It’s all informed by a larger conversation about the election, Trump, and a forthcoming book by Stewart about his 16 years at the Daily Show, but perhaps his most quintessentially Stewart moment is when he gets a chance to ask the $64,000 question: “One of the things that I think struck me as odd about this election was… nobody asked Donald Trump what makes America great.
“What are the metrics? Because it seems like, from listening to him, that the metrics are a competition.”
Stay tuned for Stewart’s new project, scheduled to hit HBO soon.
H/T Uproxx