Jon Stewart dragged Mary Trump on Monday’s episode of “The Daily Show” after the former president’s niece called the TV host a “danger to democracy” after returning to the late-night talk show after a nine-year hiatus.
Stewart kicked off his return to the hosting chair by taking aim at both Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s ages as part of a 20-minute dialogue on the 11 p.m. Comedy Central show.
Stewart — who is slated to be back on a part-time basis through the election season — called both presidential frontrunners “chronologically challenged” as he dubbed the upcoming season “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction.”
The comedic tirade outraged left-leaning viewers, including Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who responded to the episode with an X post that read: “Not only is Stewart’s ‘both sides are the same’ rhetoric not funny, it’s a potential disaster for democracy.”
“I know Donald, and the media has to stop with the both sides bullshit,” she added in a subsequent post.
Mary said that she couldn’t put all her thoughts on “The Daily Show” on X, so she “wrote a free newsletter about it.”
Titled “Jon Stewart’s Danger To Democracy,” Mary said that Stewart “brought back his 2015 ‘Indecision’ tradition — the both-sides-are-problematic ‘joke.’”
A week later, Stewart made a joke out of the backlash while a screenshot of Mary’s post hung on the screen.
“I guess as the saying goes, ‘Democracy dies in discussion,’” he added, referencing the slogan of the left-leaning Washington Post — “democracy dies in darkness” — and triggering an influx of laughter from the studio audience.
Mary — the author of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” about her uncle — has penned opinion pieces for The Washington Post.
“I’m sorry,” Stewart added jokingly after airing clips of 77-year-old Trump at multiple events saying “I don’t remember,” and adding that “the leading cause of dementia is being deposed.”
The 61-year-old Stewart also quipped that Biden should “fire everyone” following his recent debut on TikTok, saying the commander-in-chief “looks older” and dubbing him the “chocolate chip cookie guy” after his bizarre comments in his inaugural video.
“It was never my intention to say out loud what I saw with my eyes and then brain. I can do better,” Stewart sarcastically declared on the latest “Daily Show” episode.
“But I don’t even know where to start with that. Where do I go to study the particulars of unquestioning propaganda?” the 61-year-old host questioned to conclude his nearly three-minute monologue on the criticism of his previous episode.
He also cited negative reaction from sports commentator-turned-news podcaster Keith Olbermann, who said: “Well after nine years away, there’s nothing else to say to the bothsidesist fraud Jon Stewart bashing Biden, except: Please make it another nine years.”
Tennessee election commissioner Chris D. Jackson added: “Wow. So you basically say because Biden is old, he is basically as bad as Trump. Why the F do we never learn as a country? Sorry, but I won’t be watching you either.”
Stewart’s return to the Comedy Central program comes after Trevor Noah left in 2022 after hosting the news show for seven years, during which it struggled to be the ratings smash hit it was when Stewart was in the hosting chair between 1999 and 2015.
In the year since, the network hasn’t been able to find a new face of the topical satire news show, though rumors have suggested that actor and Barack Obama White House staffer Kal Penn, as well as Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Chris Rock’s names, have all been floated.