John Oliver Returns to ‘The Daily Show’ to Celebrate the End of American Democracy — Watch
John Oliver returned to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” to “welcome America to its monarchy era.” He had no real words of wisdom for us. No, no, no. Oliver showed up to “gloat.”
“America had it’s little fun, didn’t you? Experimenting with democracy. You fought so hard to get away from us — acting up, throwing all of that tea into the harbor,” the HBO “Last Week Tonight” host said while standing behind Jon Stewart, his former boss. “You told everybody that you were gonna be different. You weren’t going to turn out like your mean old dad, who was so horrible to you growing up. So we stepped back. We let you spend your wild teen years experimenting with your ridiculous ideas of checks and balances because deep down we knew that once you got that nonsense out of your system that you’d be back.”
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“Let me be the first to welcome America to its monarchy era,” Oliver continued.
Yes, President Trump has been acting like King Donald in just the first few weeks of his second (though nonconsecutive, he lost to Joe Biden in 2020) term as POTUS. There have been enough executive orders to fill a small library and absolutely no indication that Trump will leave office when his four years are up in early 2029, Constitution be damned. Evidently this is all making America great again; to Oliver, it is making America Great Britain again.
Stewart said thanks but no thanks to Oliver’s vision of America as an empire.
“Oh really, the imperial model isn’t for you?” Oliver said. “Have you seen anything America’s done over the last 15 years? Because for a country that doesn’t want to be an empire, you’re doing a pretty fucking good impression of one right now: Invasions, economic exploitations, and now suggesting turning Gaza into a beachfront casino? Even King George would have been like, ‘I dunno guys. Feels like the situation is a bit more complicated than that and I’m literally dying of medieval brain disease.'”
Stewart continues to host “The Daily Show” on Mondays. Its News Team of Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta, and Desi Lydic with Troy Iwata, Josh Johnson, and Grace Kuhlenschmidt, share the duties over the rest of the week.
“The Daily Show” airs weeknights at 11 p.m. ET/PT on Comedy Central and is available to stream the next day on Paramount+.
Watch the full first segment of Monday’s episode here:
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