Jon Stewart on Thursday shredded Donald Trump’s claim that the media reporting on his health is “seditious, perhaps even treasonous” after an article in The New York Times suggested that the president is showing “signs of fatigue.”
Stewart, in remarks on the latest episode of his “Weekly Show” podcast, joked that Trump is the “healthiest, most robust president” in U.S. history and he’s found that the “thicker the ankle, the better the balance.”
“For Donald Trump, the level of fealty can never rise to a level that is satisfactory for him. There is no level of ass-kissing you can do,” Stewart said.
The Times’ Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman, in their reporting last month, wrote that Trump is working “shorter days” and it’s gotten harder to project an image of “round-the-clock energy, virility and physical stamina.”
Trump’s apparent series of mid-meeting naps as well as talk around his MRI has fueled further questions around his health and cognitive fitness in recent weeks.
The president took to his Truth Social platform earlier this week to rant about the Times’ reporting in a lengthy screed (again), declaring that there’s “never been a President that has worked as hard as me” before adding that his hours are the “longest” and his results are “among the best.”
On his podcast, Stewart said that everything is “seditious” to Trump that falls below Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanking Trump for keeping “the hurricanes away” this year at a recent Cabinet meeting.
“He is angry at Fox News, which is literally like a 24-hour-a-day, ball-washing machine for Trump and is designed specifically to keep him in power,” he said.
“So for him to say something is seditious or treasonous means nothing because the bar of entry to Donald Trump is purely about how deeply you are proving your undying loyalty to the king. Anything below that, obviously, is seditious and none of us measure up, unfortunately.”
Stewart expressed that it’s “sad” and “so hard” to be a billionaire president.
“Money corrupts and power corrupts and to have all the money and all the power — it’s like if ‘Lord of the Rings’ ended where they’re going to drop the ring into the fire and then instead of hitting the fire, he catches it,” Stewart said.
“Think of how hard that is on someone, we don’t feel bad enough.”