Jon Stewart still can’t believe that Donald Trump is president.
The 63-year-old Comedy Central host was exasperated on The Daily Show on Monday, as he looked back on Trump’s trip to China, from which the 79-year-old returned with little to show.
“So what did you get, Mr. President?” Stewart asked. “Trade barriers down? Help with Iran? Some of them delicious rare earth metals?”
He then played a clip of Trump saying, “I think the most important thing is, uh, relationship. It’s all about relationships.”
“So nothing,” Stewart said. “You got nothing. You flew to China—what is it, 400 million miles? I don’t know how far it is to China, it’s far!—You flew there to personally confront our rival superpower on the escalating trade and geopolitical tensions between us. And all you came back with was his Instagram? ‘The tariffs are in place, but we’re on the Close Friend’s story now. Well, he’s on mine.’”
He then cast aspersion on whether Chinese President Xi Jinping had really said the U.S. was “the hottest country anywhere in the world.” He was also left with his jaw on the floor by Trump’s big takeaway from the trip: that Xi is a tall man, despite racial tropes.
He also mocked Trump’s admiration for China’s Great Hall of the People, which Trump used to push for his own ballroom extension, being built where the East Wing of the White House used to stand.
“What are we doing?” Stewart asked. “You might be watching this and wondering, how the f--- is this guy our president? How? He should not have this job, and yet he does. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe it’s time to stop being exasperated by this, by Trump, and maybe it’s time to see if we can glean lessons from Trump’s rise.”
China, however, may have gotten what it wanted from the meeting.
Taiwan’s independence was at the top of the agenda during last week’s visit. China has claimed the island as its own since the Chinese civil war of 1949, when the former Chinese government retreated there after losing to Mao Zedong’s communists.
The U.S. has long stood with Taiwan and is its most powerful ally, bound by law to give its government and people the means to defend themselves from China.
But under Xi’s leadership, China has pushed harder to gain control of Taiwan, and he has described “reunification” as an inevitability.
Last week Xi told Trump that the “Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” and said that if diplomacy on it did not go down well it could set the two superpowers on the road to war.
“If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy,” Xi said, according to readouts given to the press after the summit.
“‘Taiwan independence’ and cross-Strait peace are as irreconcilable as fire and water. Safeguarding peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is the biggest common denominator between China and the U.S.”
Trump’s remarks suggested he had at least partly acquiesced. “I’m not looking to have somebody go independent. And, you know, we’re supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that. I want them to cool down. I want China to cool down.”
Despite Trump saying that things had gone well in China, Xi this week welcomed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who is struggling to keep up his war on Ukraine.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
