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Jon Stewart has called out the White House’s “spin” of Joe Biden’s disaster debate as “blatant bulls***” as calls continue to grow for the president to exit the 2024 race.
Following a brief hiatus across the late night shows, hosts are finally weighing-in on the first televised debate of the 2024 election which took place in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27.
In the debate, the president tripped over his words and, at points, appeared to lose his train of thought altogether as he went head-to-head with Donald Trump on stage.
On Monday night, The Daily Show host Stewart said that he’s sick of Biden’s “get onboard or shut the f*** up” rhetoric about his future in the race.
“For a campaign based on honesty and decency, the spin about the debate appears to be blatant bulls***” the host said.
Biden’s team has claimed that his performance was simply one lacklustre night, citing a litany of excuses ranging from a cold to jet lag.
“He’d been home for almost two weeks,” Stewart said. “He was jet-lagged? How big is that f***ing jet?”
Stewart went on to argue that “the redemption tour hasn’t gone that much better” than the disastrous debate.
“We’re told that the threat of Trump is so great and the stakes are so high that even bringing up these absolutely legitimate concerns about the president’s ability to do the most vigorous job in the world for the next four years is enabling fascism,” he said.
“Yet even the president doesn’t seem particularly alarmed.”
He added: ″‘Get On Board Or Shut The F*** Up’ is not a particularly compelling pro-democracy bumper sticker.”
Stewart also shut down the campaign’s claims that it would be too late to replace Biden on the ticket.
“Four months is for f***ing ever,” he said, pointing to other recent elections.
“Britain just held an election in two months. France had two in one month, defeated fascism, and still had time to have an affair with Denmark,” he said.
“Are you telling me ― you sons of b***hes ― are you coming to my house and saying to my face that the United States of Bruce Springsteen’s America can’t hold an election better than the f***ing French? Is that what you’re telling me? It’s four months. Four months!”
While Stewart did not explicitly ask for the 81-year-old president to step aside, he said it’s not too late to “stress test this candidacy”.
Eleven House Democrats – six publicly – have so far called on the president to drop out of the race for the White House, while an additional 18 current and former senior party members have publicly denounced that the 81-year-old could defeat the Republican presidential candidate.
Despite the calls, the president has continued to stake his claim in the White House and, in last Friday’s ABC News interview, he told George Stephanopoulos only “Lord almighty” could usher him away from office.
Biden told the ABC News anchor that he’s happy as “long as I gave it my all,” which Stewart furiously retorted on Monday: “There are no participation trophies in endgame democracy.”
On Monday, congressional Democrats received a two-page letter from the president declaring that he is “firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump”.
Stewart voiced his concerns that a potential rule which Trump might bring isn’t the only threat to democracy.
“An arthritic status quo, unable or unwilling to respond in any way to the concerns of voters,” might be equally crippling, he said.
The Daily Show host’s disdain was echoed by other late show hosts on Monday evening with Late Show host Stephen Colbert giving an equally devastating assessment on the Biden affair.
“I don’t think that’s fair, I think Biden debated as well as Abraham Lincoln... if you dug him up right now,” he said.
