Jon Stewart was enraged at one especially brazen tactic the MAGA world has used to downplay the fatal shooting on Saturday of Alex Pretti.
Stewart played a montage of Trump administration officials claiming that the ICE agent had the right to fatally shoot Pretti because the 37-year-old was carrying a gun. Pretti had a license to carry, and footage of the incident appears to show that the gun had already been taken from him before he was killed.
“Are you f---ing kidding me right now?” Stewart said in response to the montage, which included statements from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
“Are you saying that the problem was the guy had a gun? Are you saying”–a dismayed Stewart paused, his hands clasped to his face–“that the guns are the problem?”
Stewart continued, “Is everyone on the right coming together to say carrying a legal firearm was the problem? Am I hearing things?”
“This is blowing my f--ing mind,” Stewart said.
Stewart showed a picture of Kyle Rittenhouse, then a picture of the group that tried to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and then one of the January 6 rioters.
Stewart pointed out that the right had painted these figures as “f---ing heroes,” but are now suddenly “telling you the big mistake was letting a citizen legally carry a gun.”
Stewart told the MAGA movement, “Listen, I wasn’t shocked when you guys gave up the First Amendment...” He showed a headline regarding Trump’s FCC chairman targeting Jimmy Kimmel Live! in September.
“And I wasn’t shocked when you gave up the Fourth Amendment...” Stewart said, showing a headline about immigration officers being allowed to enter citizens’ homes without a warrant.
“But the second?” Stewart asked, in mock surprise. “Isn’t that kind of the load-bearing law of the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag?”
The most shocking part for Stewart isn’t that Republicans have seemingly given up on so many of their core principles, but that they did so on Trump’s behalf.
“The right has jettisoned the entire integrity and belief of their political worldview, the entire foundation of it, for a guy who really doesn’t give a f---,” Stewart said.
He showed a few of Trump’s Truth Social posts over the weekend, one of which showed the president complaining about a lawsuit against his White House ballroom project.
Stewart told Republicans incredulously, “This is who you threw it all away for.”
