This Week's News | Jon Stewart on Trump's Alternate Reality & Michael Kosta on Mamdani's "Penghazi"

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_3 (1:01)

You're listening to Comedy Central.

Jon Stewart (1:08)

Folks, I am re-energized. We've been gone for the month.

For the entire month of August. I assume the same for yourselves. Now that we are all as a country synced up on the French calendar, we all took the month off. Because I think we learned from experience. August is a dead zone. We go on vacation, the news ticker slows to a crawl. Just a series of Black Bear and Swimming Pool videos.

So I checked out, rejuvenated. Just out of a kind of morbid curiosity, did I miss anything at all?

SPEAKER_5 (1:43)

President Trump rolling back decades of childhood vaccine guidance.

SPEAKER_6 (1:46)

Threatening to demolish the Kennedy Center.

SPEAKER_7 (1:48)

Trump's attack on mail-in voting.

SPEAKER_8 (1:50)

Suggesting that he'll take over the midterm elections.

SPEAKER_7 (1:53)

President Trump siding with North Korea.

SPEAKER_9 (1:55)

Crisis at sea aboard the USS Lincoln.

SPEAKER_6 (1:58)

Conditions so bad, there are reports of sailors attempting to jump overboard.

SPEAKER_10 (2:01)

Trump threatening to wipe out Iran.

SPEAKER_11 (2:03)

Threatened to bomb Oman, a US ally.

SPEAKER_10 (2:05)

Saying that he was going to use the US military against the bond market?

SPEAKER_9 (2:09)

No!

SPEAKER_3 (2:16)

Oh, no, I'm old again!

Jon Stewart (2:26)

I love that we thought, I needed a beard to look old again.

SPEAKER_8 (2:32)

Oh, no, pretty!

Jon Stewart (2:37)

God, it never ends with this dude, Trump. I have never seen one person work so much and fix so little.

It's exhausting in a way that's difficult to articulate, which is why one of the stories from this past August did resonate with me so much more deeply, and that's the plight of the USS Lincoln.

SPEAKER_13 (3:00)

5,000 US sailors and Marines serving on the USS Lincoln, stepping on dry land for the first time in more than nine months. The once gleaming aircraft carrier docking in Thailand after 286 days at sea, covered in rust after a record-setting deployment.

SPEAKER_12 (3:18)

Did you see it? Look.

Look.

Michael Kosta (3:22)

Look carefully.

Jon Stewart (3:24)

Do you see? Let's do the before. Let's do the after. Do you see the metaphor? This ship, a symbol of American might, ingenuity, technical know-how, patriotic determination, laid low by prolonged exposure to relentless corrosive elements, reckless mismanagement. This ship, do you see?

It's not the USS Lincoln. It's not. It's just US. It's just. It's us.

We're the ship. This is what we look like as Americans inside after 18 months of this presidency. Worn. And by the way, we don't get the one-week Thai sex trip to try and paper it all over.

We just have to suck it up. I want you to look at the picture of this rusted ship. Look at it! Don't look away. I want you to think about the visible, tangible, actual, indisputable, factual signs of corrosion on this ship. This is the president discussing it.

SPEAKER_15 (4:46)

People on the Lincoln, they say it's beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.

SPEAKER_13 (4:51)

It's not!

Jon Stewart (4:54)

It is obviously not!

SPEAKER_3 (4:57)

Look at it!

SPEAKER_1 (5:00)

Look at my precious.

Jon Stewart (5:04)

The actual Abraham Lincoln is in better shape than this ship.

Beautiful!

A beautifully maintained, beautifully taken care of ship doesn't look like the abandoned bridge near my high school where we used to smoke weed. It doesn't! And it's this, the relentless denial of reality, that it's just one of the elements eating away at the foundational load-bearing structures that hold this country together. Us. And the other corrosive element by God, the other? The memes.

SPEAKER_12 (5:50)

Make it stop.