For Jon Stewart, the most shocking part of Donald Trump’s military invasion of Venezuela is how obvious the president has been about his true motivation.
At around 2 a.m. on Saturday, Trump deployed the U.S. military to not only bomb Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas, but also abduct its president, Nicolás Maduro, alongside his wife—all without any congressional approval.
“Generally in American history, when we intervene in another country, whether true or not, we come up with a high-minded pretense,” said Stewart, who was famously critical of the George W Bush administration’s reasons for invading Iraq in 2003.
Stewart asked Trump, “On what moral foundation will this conflict be framed?”
Stewart showed a clip of Trump explaining bluntly to reporters on Saturday, “We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be.”
“Seems a little on-the-nose,” Stewart observed.
“Oil [is a] precious commodity, certainly, but not the reason a country, formed 250 years ago on the ideas of liberty and self-determination, would go into a country and snatch a man at night,” Stewart continued. “There must be a slightly more noble pretense.”
The Daily Show host then played a montage of Trump repeatedly clarifying that he is indeed invading Venezuela mainly for the oil. Stewart showed Trump even admitting that he briefed various oil companies about the attack before he briefed congressional Democrats.
“Is this your first war?” Stewart demanded to know. “I mean, what the f--k!”
“I can’t even be a conspiracy theorist now,” Stewart joked. “‘I think they did it for the oil.’ ‘Yeah, no, I did it for the oil.’”
“The people I feel sorry for are the Trump defendants,” Stewart added. “The defenders, the sycophants, who haven’t received the memo that we no longer have to frame our adventurism in the ideals of our great country.”
Stewart showed a montage of MAGA pundits defending Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, finishing with a clip of Fox News host Brian Kilmeade declaring, “The president doesn’t want [Venezuela’s] natural resources. We don’t want their oil.”
“Oh, poor sweet Brian Kilmeade. Sweet, sweet Brian,” Stewart said. “Trump already explicitly said he wants their oil.”
Stewart predicted how the MAGA world will react long-term to Trump continuing to intervene in Latin American countries despite having campaigned so strongly on an “America first” platform.
“It’ll play fine!” Stewart said. “They’ll love it. Their fervor against intervention will only be matched by their delight in this intervention.”
“There is no material on Earth more malleable than the hive mind connection between Donald Trump and his acolytes,” the Daily Show host concluded.
