Jon Stewart on the Audacity of Donald Trump Calling His Fraud a Victimless Crime

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 26, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 26, 2024 |

One of my favorite all-time The Daily Show segments came in 2012 when Jon Stewart took Fox News to task for the way the network characterized poor people as lazy, sponges, and leeches and how the network had the audacity to suggest that poor people aren’t actually poor, because they can afford luxuries like … refrigerators. “They have things, what they lack is a richness of spirit,” is an actual quote from a Fox News anchor.

In this week’s Jon Stewart segment, he reaches back into that reservoir of angry self-righteousness to take on not just Trump, but Fox News for suggesting that the $456 million fraud perpetrated by the former President is a “victimless crime.” Nevermind that it hurts banks that provide the loans (who cares?), or that it robs the state of much-needed tax dollars. The audacity is in calling a crime that netted Donald Trump $450 million “victimless” on one side of the mouth while going after poor people for robbing the government of tax money through the use of food stamps out of the other side of their mouth.

“I will guarantee that there are not just financial consequences for those lies but criminal ones,” Jon Stewart says. “But don’t tell that to the investment community because in their minds, in the pursuit of profit, there is no rule that can’t be bent, there is no principle that can’t be undercut as long as you and your f**king friends are making money. And the only immoral practice in a capitalist system is to use that money for people who may need it.”