Jon Stewart is also frustrated with President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden, but not for the same reasons as most Democratic pundits.
On Sunday, President Biden announced he would be pardoning his son, even though he previously said he would not “interfere” with the decision-making process of the Justice Department. Earlier this year, Hunter was convicted of three federal firearms-related felony charges and indicted on one count of tax evasion and two counts of filing false returns.
“Fine. It’s his right. He’s an 82-year-old man. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life visiting his son in prison. Republicans get away with this s–t all the time,” Stewart said on “The Daily Show” on Monday night.
The Comedy Central host went on to say that “hypocrisy isn’t illegal” nor is it “unusual” in politics. “It’s not like he’s ever going to run again. So why not take care of your kid, even if you said you weren’t going to?” Stewart asked. “I respect it. I don’t have a problem with it. The problem is the rest of the Democrats made Biden’s pledge to not pardon Hunter the foundation of their defense of America, this grand experiment.”
Stewart went on to say that Democrats made Biden’s promise a case for “why Americans should believe in our system.” That, he argued, is a problem because these sorts of arguments backfire again and again, putting the alleged moral high ground of the party into question.
“At every turn, Democrats keep getting caught in a purity test for a system that they can’t seem to pass themselves,” Stewart explained. To back up his argument, he showed a clip of Biden rebuking former President Donald Trump for keeping classified files in Mar-a-Lago before defending himself for keeping files in his garage. Stewart also pointed to when Biden fist-bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after speaking out against the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as when he barred asylum seekers despite saying he would never do such a thing.
“The distance between the system Democrats say they are revering and the one that they’re using when they need to is why people think it’s rigged,” Stewart concluded. “Use the rules. Use the loopholes. F–k the norms. But also, use it to help the people, not just those people related to you. All of us are somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter. And we all need that break, too. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, especially this weekend, it’s that everyone deserves a chance to fly.”
If you didn’t assume Stewart tried to sing those last six words, this is clearly your first time here. Watch the full monologue, above.
