Jon Stewart opened the first new “The Daily Show” of 2025 with a look at the certification of Donald Trump’s reelection. After detailing how no one even had to care about this process before Trump attempted a coup in 2020, Stewart ultimately joked, “it’s amazing how smoothly our democracy can work when you don’t act like a little bitch when you lose.”
Earlier in the monologue, while discussing some of the weirder procedural parts of certification, Stewart quipped that it’s “nice to know that democracy now has pallbearers.”
You can watch the full opening segment on The Daily Show below:
“What a historic day in Washington. DC.” Stewart began. “It is, as many of you know, Jan. 6. It is Jan. 6, and as you can see, once again, a blanket of angry white descending on the capital.”
This was of course a reference to the snowstorm that hit the east coast, but it also was, obviously, a joke about the participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack. Stewart continued, “this white, oddly enough, not as disruptive it did slow traffic, but a lot less bear spray and Confederate flags.”
“It is the day that, traditionally, we now pretend that we knew was a big deal in terms of certifying the elections,” Stewart continued. “Be honest: before that insurrection, you had no idea there was a January 6 ceremony, or what it did, or why it did. Now you just got to act like, ‘Oh, there’s the reading of the record so important.’ But let’s get to it.”
At this, Stewart talked about several stages in the certification process, including when the physical copies of certified vote counts are brought into congress. “It’s good to see them bring it in the boxes… nice to know that democracy now has pallbearers.”
Then he brought up “the ultimate indignity,” the fact that Kamala Harris, the electoral loser, had to oversee the certification of the vote while Republicans cheered. “It’s like attending your own funeral, and even the mourners are [cheering].”
“I can’t imagine anything that would be more uncomfortable standing there while the crowd applauds your opponent,” Stewart added before the screen showed the part where she had to read her own losing electoral vote total.
“Ultimately,” Stewart said, “the certification… went off without a hitch, because it’s amazing how smoothly our democracy can work when you don’t act like a little bitch when you lose.”