Jon Stewart mocks Katie Britt over SOTU response: ‘We see you, we hear you. Enough’
Jon Stewart joined the mocking of Alabama’s US Senator Katie Britt for her response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union, calling her rebuttal “objectively terrible.”
Ms Britt, who was chosen to deliver the Republican Party’s response to the president, sat at her kitchen table and condemned Mr Biden on a series of issues, even saying that the “American Dream” is becoming a “nightmare.”
“President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border wall, and announced a plan to give amnesty to millions,” she argued.
She also addressed people watching, adding that the Republican party “sees you, we hear you, and we stand with you.”
“If you’re going to stand with me, could you stand a little bit further away?” Mr Stewart joked.
“Imagine if one of her kids just came downstairs and was like, I’m sorry, mom, I just came down to get a bowl of cereal; I didn’t realise you were losing your f****** mind,” the host quipped. “I’ll come back when the Xannies kick in.”
While Mr Stewart acknowledged that everyone was having a go at Ms Britt, he said that one part in particular had not been getting enough attention.
He then showed a clip of Ms Britt saying that people need to “get into the arena” for their children and grandchildren and told them to “never forget: we are steeped in the blood of patriots who overthrew the most powerful empire in the world.”
“Two things,” said Mr Stewart reacted before a long pause.
“One: Who smiles when they say the line ‘steeped in the blood of patriots’? And number two: This is just one more entry in the Republican mythology that they are the inheritors of the American revolutionary tradition. That they are somehow more American-y than non-Republican Americans.”
He then showed clips from Fox News and Fox Business saying that they are “real Americans” and that the “Democrat elite hate America.”
“I don’t think they hate America,” Stewart replied. “They hate room-temperature yoga.”
“It’s an article of faith that Republicans love the Constitution. They give speeches in front of the Constitution. They cover their buses in the constitution. They dress up like people who wrote the Constitution,” he said all in one breath.
“Do you? Communists? With your unconstitution buses and zero-cornered hats,” he joked.
Despite this, Stewart started to highlight the irony in this commitment to the Consitution by referring back to the time that Donald Trump said he said he would become dictator for a day, and when he allegedly said that peaceful protestors should be shot in the legs.
He has also been battling for his own interpretation of the Constitution lately and has repeatedly claimed he is “immune” from prosecution over any action he takes while in office.
“Yes, it is the bedrock of the American constitutional principle; the President must be above the law,” Stewart said sarcastically.
“Remember ‘We the people’? You know there’s more words after that, right? Smaller font, still binding.”
Stewart concluded by criticising the comparison of patriotism and Mr Trump’s support: “If you want to love Trump, love him. Go to the rallies, buy the sneakers. You want to give him absolute power? You want him to be the leader über alles? You want him to have the right of kings? You do you. But stop framing it as patriotism.
“Because the one thing you cannot say is that Donald Trump is following the tradition of the Founders,” he continued. “He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity. His words not mine, That is monarchy s***. And it’s your right to support it. But just do me a favour for historical accuracy: Next time you want to dress up at the rallies, wear the right f****** coloured coats.”