Jon Stewart Has Perfect Response to Trump’s Obsession With ‘Merit’

Jon Stewart thinks he knows the real reason why Trump is so fixated on “DEI.”

“What they’re trying to do is make the default setting on competence in America a white guy,” the recurring The Daily Show host argued in his Monday monologue.

“That’s what this is: a reset to the factory default,” Stewart said. “Because of course, these two are there purely based on merit."

He pointed to an image of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who was nominated by Trump despite his minimal qualifications, his sexual misconduct allegations and his history of alcohol abuse.

The image also included Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who like Hegseth, also appears to have gotten his job due to his pro-Trump rhetoric as a Fox News commentator.

Stewart’s monologue came in response to Trump’s rhetoric around the fatal collision in D.C. between a military helicopter and a passenger plane. Stewart showed clips of Trump, Hegseth, and Duffy all blaming the incident on DEI.

“That’s the irony of this whole thing,” Stewart said. “The people standing next to Trump on that terrible night, blaming DEI and trying to reinstall white guys as the only non-suspect pool of hires, are themselves DEI hires.”

Stewart argued that Hegseth and Duffy were hired “for one particular identity that they possess: the ass-kisser.”

Stewart played a montage of the two secretaries aggressively complimenting Trump during press briefings after the D.C. crash.

“DEI!” Stewart responded. “D--k-sucking Ego Inflation.”

“It undercuts every Black person, person of color, woman in this country [to argue] that the job that they have, they don’t deserve,” Stewart said about the Trump administration’s rhetoric on DEI. “It’s the mantra in the Republican Party that gives you brain-turning moments like this...”

He showed a clip of RNC chairwoman Lara Trump proudly declaring, “In the United States of America, we get ahead and succeed by merit and merit alone.”

“Yes, merit and merit alone, says RNC chairwoman Lara—hold on, let me get my glasses—Trump,” Stewart joked. “It was a blind submission, never saw her name on the application.”