Jon Stewart Says ‘Defensive and Angry’ Trump Officials Exposing Admin’s ‘Fragility’ With Media Attacks on Iran Reports: ‘Beyond the Silliness’
A frustrated Jon Stewart argued the “defensive and angry” position President Donald Trump’s administration has taken with the media over reports on recent Iran strikes plainly exposes their “fragility.”
On The Weekly Show, Stewart mocked Trump officials for lashing out at media outlets for reporting on a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that concluded the strikes on Iran over the weekend set back their nuclear program by months, rather than years as the president has insisted. CNN and The New York Times both reported on this early assessment.
Trump and his officials quickly dismissed the reports as “fake news” and the president even insisted Natasha Bertrand, CNN’s national security correspondent, be fired over the reporting.
“Boy, this has just been everything that is so difficult about this administration just on display in the moment — even actions that it might take that can be successful are fraught with his fragility at all times,” Stewart said in an episode he recorded on Wednesday and released on Thursday morning.
In a Thursday morning press conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed previous statements in which he said Iran’s nuclear sites were “obliterated” and he accused the media of having it in their “DNA” to oppose the president. Hegseth dismissed the early intelligence assessment, saying quick assessments are typically “almost always wrong, almost always incomplete.”
Stewart questioned why Trump officials are so “defensive and angry” if their mission really was a success and they are in the right.
“You just think, hey man, if it’s real and all the things that you said you had accomplished had been accomplished, then it shouldn’t be that hard to not be so defensive and angry all the time,” he said.
The comedian added that Trump officials are falling over themselves to insists Trump is “right about everything.”
“You see a guy who’s the commander-in-chief of the United States and the president of the United States in a situation room with like, ‘Trump was right about everything!’ Like, how many of history’s great leaders had their own merch?” Stewart asked.
The Daily Show host grew so frustrated going through Trump officials defending the strikes and lashing out at media that he rubbed his brow and fought to find words for a moment out of frustration.
“Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt comes out, and they ask her, ‘was it obliterated?’ And she says, ‘everybody knows what happens when you drop [bunker buster bombs].’ ‘Everybody knows,’ is what she said. ‘Everybody knows what happens when you have a precision strike with these kinds of weapons,'” Stewart said. “These weapons have never been used before in the history of the planet! But everybody knows what happened. It’s just beyond the silliness. And if anybody pushes back, they demand 100% fealty and anything beyond that sets off anger and frustration because of the fragility.”
Watch above via The Weekly Show.
