Late-night hosts examine each party\u2019s role in the ongoing government shutdown and Donald Trump\u2019s deployment of the national guard for nonexistent emergencies.<\/p>\n
Jon Stewart<\/p>\n
Returning to his Monday night slot on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart<\/a> looked into the ongoing government shutdown. For a week now, Republicans and Democrats have been gridlocked over a congressional budget bill, which requires 60 votes for passage.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n With the tiniest bit of leverage, \u201cDemocrats have come forth with a laundry list of demands to force,\u201d said Stewart. \u201cI\u2019m just kidding. They want like two things.\u201d That would be the reversal of Medicaid cuts and the extension of Obamacare subsidies, which would prevent health insurance premiums from spiking for millions of Americans. Republicans have claimed, baselessly, that such allowances would force taxpayers to pay for healthcare for \u201cmillions of illegal aliens\u201d, to quoteMarkwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma senator.<\/p>\n Stewart examined the Democratic response, starting with Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, who assured in a press conference that \u201cDemocrats are adamant that we must protect the healthcare of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n Stewart interrupted: \u201cIf you had stopped there, that would be great, but you\u2019re gonna keep talking aren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer continued, joking with Amy Klobuchar, a fellow Democratic senator: \u201cNew data came out today from KFF, and that is not Kentucky Fried French Fries. KFF \u2026 That\u2019d be Kentucky French Fries, hmmm?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho is that joke even for?\u201d Stewart fumed. \u201cSix-year-olds who watch C-Span? What the fuck are you doing?!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChuck Schumer is a human flat tire,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou just can\u2019t \u2018Kentucky Fried French Fry,\u2019\u201d Stewart joked, impersonating Schumer\u2019s voice. \u201cLook at Klobuchar! Poor Klobuchar. That is the face of someone who talked to their dad, who said, \u2018Just please don\u2019t do your Indian accent in the restaurant. That\u2019s all I\u2019m asking.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But Stewart still compared it favorably with the Republicans, who continue to claim that they are the party of healthcare access and that the shutdown is not their fault. Stewart showed a clip of the House speaker Mike Johnson, who argued that \u201cthe president takes no pleasure in this\u201d.<\/p>\n Stewart called BS: \u201cThe president takes no pleasure in this? The president takes only pleasure,\u201d he said. \u201cGiven the president\u2019s vascular condition, this might be the only thing keeping him hard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis only reason for getting up in the morning is vengeance,\u201d he continued. \u201cTrump has been steamrolling over the Democrats and the law so consistently since day one of the presidency, the nation\u2019s pundits and legal experts are running out of ways to describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cApparently, Republicans won\u2019t be satisfied with 99.8% domination. They must have it all. Ice went from deporting \u2018the worst of the worst\u2019 to throwing grandmothers onto linoleum and zip-tying American children, and everyone\u2019s just supposed to be cool with the new masked, incredibly well-funded paramilitary group. And Democrats are just reduced to petty gestures of restroom resistance,\u201d he added before a clip of someone refusing Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, entrance to a restroom in Illinois.<\/p>\n \u201cLook, I\u2019ve given Democrats an enormous amount of shit for their poor leadership, lack of specific and actionable plans, terrible messaging, abysmal wordplay \u2013 did I mention poor leadership? But standing up for 75 million Americans in this moment, to defend the rights of people to go into a little less medical debt, seems like the least they can fucking do,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd perhaps, maybe, that will remind the Republicans that their mandate wasn\u2019t 100%. They\u2019ve just caught a constitutional, administrative and logistics break.\u201d<\/p>\n Seth Meyers<\/p>\n