Jon Stewart Skewers Aging Congress After Lindsey Graham’s Death, Mitch McConnell’s Hospitalization: ‘This Is Not Right’
Jon Stewart tore into Congress’ aging members Monday after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death and Sen. Mitch McConnell’s hospitalization, stating that lawmakers were “falling apart” from not just a lack of “political will,” but “bone density.”
The comedian addressed the big updates out of Washington, D.C. during Monday’s monologue for “The Daily Show,” where he sounded off on the “national frailty in our lawmaking.”
After learning that Graham, who was 71, was the sixth member of Congress to die this term and that 84-year-old McConnell was determined to return to work after a health crisis had him in the hospital for a month, Stewart suggested it was time to “figure out what the f–k is going on.”
“What the f–k?! This term? He’s the sixth member of Congress to die this term? Six? If this were any other business, they’d shut it down to figure out what the f–k is going on,” Stewart railed. “Six of them are dead. My god, those are PETCO gerbil numbers.”
He continued: “What, do they just come into Congress every morning with a shovel? What the f–k is going on down there? It’s not like the job is dangerous. They’re just sitting there.”
As Stewart went on, he highlighted that D.C. was filled with geriatric players, including 80-year-old President Donald Trump.
“And not to put too fine a point on it, but the last person to speak to Graham is our 80-year-old president. The governor who chooses Graham’s replacement is 79,” Stewart noted. “One of the candidates being considered is 78, but he backed out because he’s too important at his current job in the House of Representatives, all to save the Todd Blanche hearings, which are being co-run by 92-year-old Chuck Grassley and whippersnapper Dick Durbin, 81. The entire f–king Congress is falling apart due to a lack of not just political will, but bone density.”
While Stewart conceded that “people age differently,” he did wonder why we are “tolerating this level of national frailty in our lawmaking.”
“And it’s not just anti-old people. It’s not disrespect to ask this — in Japan, they revere the elderly,” he said. “But the one thing they don’t do is put them in charge of everything.”
Regarding the argument of “experience,” Stewart defended that the economy has gotten worse under an older government.
“The irony is that this ‘long past retirement age’ government has policies that force everyone else to have to work long past retirement age,” Stewart said. “Mostly, though, without a healthcare plan that covers a mysterious month in the hospital. Because we don’t have a system that rewards experience, and competence and performance. We have a system that rewards incumbency.”
He added: “These people aren’t brilliant. They’re f–king barnacles, utterly incapable of addressing a world moving much faster than the speed of ‘Matlock.’”
Stewart later bemoaned that the aging Congress “is not right,” defending that “the stakes are too high.”
Watch Stewart’s full monologue above.
“The Daily Show” airs weeknights at 11 p.m. ET on Comedy Central.