The Daily Show host Jon Stewart accidentally slashed his hand open when he smashed a coffee mug while pounding his desk during a tirade opposing the cuts in federal expenditures being uncovered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Stewart started the segment acting as if he supported government cost cutting, but then suggested that it was corporate subsides and defense spending that should be cut, instead of the cuts that DOGE has identified to date.
“How about we just take $3 billion in subsidies we give to oil and gas companies that already turned billions in profits? How long did that take? Oh, wait. How about we just close down the carried interest loophole on hedge funds? That’s $1.3 billion a year,” he exclaimed.
He went on, ranting, “Oh, how about we stop the $2 trillion we’ve given to defense contractors to build a fighter jet that blows when everybody knows the next war is going to be fought with drones and blockchain, whatever that is.”
“Holy shit! I can’t believe it,” the comedian yelped. “I just saved us billions of dollars in 11 seconds! Just call me Big Balls!”
Stewart next targeted pharmaceutical companies for “allowing” Americans to engage in negotiating drugs prices after taking billions in subsidies.
“It would be embarrassing if it was a small drop in the bucket and that the American people didn’t expect that we should negotiate for all their fucking drugs because we’ve already paid for them with our subsidies! Fucking thanks! Come on!” he yelled as he pounded the table.
But as he pounded the table, his fist came down on a ceramic coffee cup, smashing it to pieces and slicing open several of his fingers.
“I’ll be going to the hospital,” he then said sheepishly after glancing down at his bloody fingers.
But, before all that Stewart also attacked the whole idea of DOGE as being built merely on “hate.”
Before slashing his fingers on the cup, Stewart indicated that he thinks DOGE is “rash” and “animated by malice.”
“Even if this project of DOGE is animated by malice for administrators and is seemingly rash and occasionally cutting off critical government functions out of haste the savings alone will be worth it on the Doge website, they posted $16 billion saved just in cancelled contracts interesting if true,” he exclaimed.
Stewart did not give any examples of “critical government functions” being cut by DOGE because there are no such examples.
Further, his suggestion that defense spending should be cut before funding studies that addict Japanese quails to cocaine belies the fact that spending on defense is an actually legitimate constitutional expenditure, whereas funding studies that addict birds to cocaine is not.
Of course, DOGE has already noted that defense spending will be investigated. So, Stewart has no leg to stand on with the point.
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