Late-night hosts talk Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter and Donald Trump’s choice of Kash Patel as his new FBI director.
The Daily Show
Back at his Monday night guest hosting perch on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart addressed Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter on federal on federal gun and tax charges. The “full and unconditional” pardon covers offenses Hunter “has committed or may have committed or taken part in” over the last 11 years.
“Eleven years is a very specific and not rounded amount of time,” Stewart noted. “I didn’t know pardons could cover crimes you may have committed. I’m surprised Biden didn’t include the phrase ‘on Earth 1 or any of the Earths in the multiverse.’”
Republicans have, unsurprisingly, pounced on the move. “Obviously, Republicans are going to criticize, but Biden did make this line of attack particularly available, seeing as how he spent so long saying that he wouldn’t do it because of how much he respects the system,” said Stewart.
Still, “hypocrisy isn’t illegal,” he argued. “Nor is it particularly 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 weren’t gonna. 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,” he said before several clips of Democratic lawmakers using Biden’s promise as a moral example.
“The Democrats made this case an example of why Americans should believe in our system,” Stewart continued. “And it’s hard – Democrats have the tougher road of defending our institutions and systems as being flawed but still valuable. Republicans just run on blowing this shit up. But at every turn, Democrats keep getting caught creating a purity test for a system that they can’t seem to pass themselves.”
Stewart cited several examples of Democrats using rules, loopholes and norms to their advantage. “The distance between the systems Democrats say they are revering and the one that they’re using when they need to is why people think it’s rigged,” he concluded. “Use the rules, use the loopholes, fuck the norms, but also use it to help the people, not just those people related to you. All of are somebody’s son or somebody’s daughter, and we all need that break, too.”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also touched on Biden’s pardon of his son. “I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but you certainly earned that World’s Greatest Dad mug,” he quipped.
“I think this pardon proves that with less than two months to go, Joe is officially out of malarkeys,” he added. “And by malarkeys, I mean fucks.
“I think he should go full bucket list. Just pardon everybody,” he continued. “Pardon all the January 6 people before Trump can do it, that would really burn him up.”
Colbert also described the pardon, which legal experts have described as sweeping, as “less a blanket pardon, and more of a tarp”.
In other political news, Donald Trump nominated the loyalist Kash Patel as his FBI director, despite the fact that Patel said in a September podcast appearance that he would “shut down” the FBI’s headquarters on day one and “reopen it the next day as a museum of the deep state”.
“Wow, that’s going to be a weird gift shop,” Colbert joked.
Patel has also promised to come after perceived enemies in the media. “Oh really? You see me shake, Kash?” Colbert retorted with mock bravado. “Let me help you remember me, ok? I’m the middle-aged, brown-haired white guy with an 11.30 network show. And I will never bow down to authoritarians or my name isn’t Jimmy something.”
Jimmy Kimmel
And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also tore into the outrage over Biden’s pardon. The president “dropped the pardon out of nowhere, like it was a Kendrick Lamar album”, he said. “I’m not a presidential historian, but I believe this is the first time a US president has pardoned both his son and a turkey in the same week.”
Kimmel referred to Biden’s statement on the pardon, which said the charges in Hunter’s case were “politically motivated” and that he was “selectively and unfairly prosecuted”.
“In other words, the Biden presidency has now officially entered the ‘grandpa doesn’t give a damn about what you think’ phase,” Kimmel joked.
“I wonder if Joe now has to get Hunter anything for Christmas,” he added. “This is good enough, right?”
“And of course, the rightwing media is going so nuts over this, you’d almost think they have a tape of Biden calling Georgia asking for 11,000 votes,” he noted before several clips of Fox News host decrying Biden as a liar.
“They have to be kidding, right?” he laughed. “Everyone who voted to let a 34-time convicted felon off the hook is very mad about Joe Biden letting his son off the hook. I don’t necessarily disagree – the guy committed crimes – but let’s take a stroll through reality here.”
