“The Daily Show” host and senior correspondent Desi Lydic had nothing but praise for Hillary Clinton’s speech at the opening night of the DNC. But, as is always the case with Lydic, that praise came with a bit of a barb.
“I thought Hillary’s whole speech was very moving. In fact, she killed it,” Lydic said on Tuesday night. “Although, it will be ruled a suicide.”
As she maintained a straight face and adjusted her tie, the audience rippled with laughter as more and more people caught onto the joke. They then erupted into applause and cheers for the Comedy Central host.
If you need a refresher in political conspiracy theories, Lydic’s aside was a reference to the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster. In July of 1993, Foster’s body was found in Fort Marcy Park outside of Washington, D.C. His death was ruled a suicide.
The ensuring investigation found that Foster was panicked over accusations regarding the White House travel office controversy that happened under Bill Clinton’s administration. Known as the first major ethics controversy during this presidency, it started when seven employees of the White House Travel Office were fired, a rarity when it comes to executive level positions. The Clinton administration claimed the firings happened due to an FBI investigation that uncovered financial improprieties, but critics of the move pointed out that friends and campaign donors of the Clintons took over these vacated Travel Office jobs. Hillary Clinton in particular became a central figure in the scandal, though independent counsel Robert Ray ultimately sought no charges against her.
This complex political scandal paired with Foster’s death gave birth to the conspiracy theory that the Clintons were involved in killing Foster. It was then further perpetuated by the widely criticized 1994 documentary “The Clinton Chronicles,” which the Washington Post once called “bizarre and unsubstantiated.”
That wasn’t the only Clinton joke Lydic made Tuesday night, though it was the most pointed one. The late night host started her Hillary Clinton segment by referring to the former Secretary of State as “the reason why you have a trauma response when you hear ‘This Is My Fight Song.’” Lydic also noted that, at one point in Clinton’s speech against Donald Trump, “she also sort of became him?”
“The Daily Show” then played a clip of Clinton stating that Trump is the first person to run for President with 34 felony convictions. She was barely able to get through the next part of her speech as the crowd chanted “Lock him up,” a genderbent inverse of the chant Trump supporters used against Clinton for years.
“Well, well, well. Looks like the lock-them-up-ee has become the lock-them-up-er,” Lydic said. Watch the full monologue above.
