Wilmington, NC, USA - April 14, 2022: Actor turned Activist Jon Stewart gives remarks at a PACT Act rally to support funding for veterans who are victims of burn pit-related illnesses. (Photo credit: Darwin Brandis / Shutterstock)
Jon Stewart used Monday's Daily Show to unload on Mitch McConnell, mocking the ailing senator's long-awaited "proof of life" photo before pleading with him, only half in jest, to stay retired.
The 84-year-old Kentucky Republican resurfaced over the weekend with a hospital-bed image after a month out of public view. The picture drew immediate skepticism online, and Stewart became the latest in a chorus of voices who weren't buying the wholesome framing, sarcastically presenting the photo as proof McConnell was "the happiest boy in the hospital."
The host compared the senator's beaming grin to a Make-A-Wish child, then twisted the knife with a jab at McConnell's health care record. He went on to imagine a run of increasingly ridiculous follow-up shots — the senator and his wife riding Splash Mountain, scaling the Empire State Building, and taking in a World Cup match.
Stewart also marveled that Sen. Lindsey Graham, whose sudden death at 71 reverberated through the weekend, had died before McConnell, given how much time the Kentuckian has spent in and out of hospitals.
The roast sharpened when Stewart read McConnell's weekend vow that he still had "unfinished business" and intended to finish "the job you elected me to do."
"Don't!" Stewart shot back, to uproarious laughter. "Don't finish it. We're fine. You don't have to finish the job."
He then seized on the phrasing, cracking that vowing to stay over "unfinished business" is "literally ... what a ghost would say" — before slipping into a ghoul impression threatening to haunt Americans' food stamps.
Stewart made a more serious argument about the aging Congress, play a clip noting Graham was the sixth member to die this term and that too much power rests with lawmakers "this old and frail."
"What the f---?" a bewildered Stewart exclaimed, adding: "If this were any other business, they'd shut it down to figure out what the f--- is going on!"