Jon Stewart ripped into the president’s “dumbest f---ing” response to the alleged assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
The Daily Show host sarcastically suggested that Trump would use Saturday’s chaotic incident to call for more stringent gun control, but then informed his audience that this would not be the case.
“Maybe this is a moment where Trump will rise up,” Stewart began. “These events clearly point out that we have a problem in this country at the nexus of mental health and the availability of powerful weapons, and maybe, just maybe, this sobering night will spur a movement for some solutions.”
The show quickly cut to the 79-year-old president instead pushing for the completion of his $400 million ballroom.
“It’s actually a larger room and it’s much more secure. It’s got... it’s drone-proof, it’s bulletproof glass,” the president said to reporters at a press conference after the dinner, which was cut short by the shooting. “We need the ballroom.”
Stewart retorted, “Yeah, that’s a great solution to gun violence, for you.”
“What about the un-ballroomed rest of us?” the TV veteran said. “Not every town can have a ballroom. Didn’t you even see Footloose?”
“A ballroom? That’s the solution? That is the dumbest f---ing idea I have ever heard,” he continued. “No one is going to go along with that.” The host then cut to a slew of MAGA voices and panelists echoing the president’s idea, calling it “imperative,” and agreeing that Trump needs a ballroom for protection.
“Let’s build a ballroom, and just all dance like no one’s shooting,” Stewart quipped.
Trump said on Saturday, “We need the ballroom. That’s why Secret Service, that’s why the military have demanded it. They’ve wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons, but today’s a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody’s ever seen before.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, and DOJ lawyer Trent McCotter submitted court documents Monday suggesting the alleged assassination attempt against Trump during Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner proves the vanity project is needed.
However, rather than a standard legal filing, the opening and closing of the document submitted to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon were written in the style of a lengthy social media post by Trump, complete with random capitalization, exclamation points, and phrases frequently used by the 79-year-old president. Trump even shared screenshots of the nine-page legal filings to Truth Social on Tuesday morning.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a lawsuit to halt construction of the ballroom until it passes independent reviews, environmental assessments, and receives approval from Congress.
