Jon Stewart was stunned to see a familiar face in the blasphemous picture President Trump posted to his Truth Social account.
Trump outraged many of his own supporters on Sunday night by posting an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ healing a sick person. Former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene condemned Trump’s post, describing it as “more than blasphemy. It’s an Antichrist spirit.”
MAGA pundit Michael Knowles conceded on X that the post was a bad move. “I assume someone has already told him,” he wrote, “but it behooves the President both spiritually and politically to delete the picture, no matter the intent.”
Many fans of The Daily Show were less interested in the photo’s apparent sacrilege than they were in the appearance of the sickly man Trump is shown healing. The top post on the show’s subreddit on Monday reads, “TRUMP HEALS JON STEWART????”
Stewart himself picked up on the resemblance in his Monday monologue.
“Wait, the guy in the bed,” Stewart said. “Can I just…"
Stewart zoomed in on the sick man’s AI-generated face. For a moment the long-time Daily Show host seemed at a loss for words.
“What the f---?” Stewart said.
He soon joked, “I know I don’t have the vigor and spunk of my MTV days, but I didn’t know we were here already. I didn’t realize my look had reached leper territory.”
Stewart also poked fun at some of the bizarre details in the picture:
“If you look at just the bottom there, it looks like there’s just a guy’s hand,” Stewart said. “Not mine, just some other guy’s hand. Seems to be taking advantage of my infirmity to touch my penis. I don’t know why.”
“This is freaking me the f--- out,” Stewart said.
He jokingly added that Trump’s weight in the picture demonstrated the limits of artificial intelligence.
“I like how there’s only so much AI can do,” Stewart said. “AI’s like, ‘Look, I can give you the fireworks and the healing powers, and I can make you Jesus, but you weigh what you weigh. Sorry.’”
In a rare move, Trump conceded to the backlash over the post on Monday and deleted it. Shortly afterward, he defended the picture to reporters, telling them he had believed the picture depicted him “as a doctor, making people feel better.”
Stewart ripped into Trump for this “incredibly plausible” cover story.
“Why don’t you own it, you big puss bag?” Stewart said. He joked that Trump’s lies used to have a “real spark” to them that this latest one lacks.
Stewart told Trump, “We expect better lies, sir.”
