So, word on the street is that Jon Stewart is back hosting The Daily Show. I never watched the show in its prime, nor when Trevor Noah took over. I also have no intention of watching it now that Jon Stewart is back. But there's a lot of buzz about his return, and even people on the right are talking about it and praising it because he hit "both sides" in his debut.
They're wrong for doing so.
Here's how it went down: Stewart attempted to appear evenhanded by criticizing Joe Biden and Donald Trump for being too old to be president.
"These two candidates — they are both similarly challenged," Stewart asserted. "And it is not crazy to think that the oldest people in the history of the country to ever run for president might have some of these challenges."
Stewart went on to show clips of Biden administration officials insisting that Biden is "sharp" "smart," "focused," and "on top of his game." The final clip was of Kamala Harris talking about how she's observed Biden at meetings and how he was "in front of and on top of it all, coordinating and directing leaders who are in charge of America's national security, not to mention our allies around the globe."
To which Stewart replied, "Did anyone film that?"
"If you're telling us this guy … is sharp and full of energy, and on top of it, really controlling and leading, you should film that. That would be good to show to people."
Then he switched gears and spoke of Trump.
"Of course, when it comes to Republicans, they've got a different strategy for their 77-year-old candidate," he said, before showing a clip of Kari Lake saying that Donald Trump is "not an old man."
"He is an old man," Stewart insisted. "He's objectively an old man! On a human scale! Trump is objectively — Oh, if he was a tortoise, I would tell him as a tortoise at 77, 'Oh, young man, go off and enjoy college.' But he's not a tortoise. He's not a tortoise. That is not being ageist, that is being human life span-ist."
Related: Did Kamala Harris Just Make Things Even Worse for Joe Biden?
"One thing we know for certain is this: We have two candidates who are chronologically outside the norm of anyone who has run for the presidency in this country in the history of this country. They are the oldest people ever to run for president — breaking by only four years the record that THEY SET last time they ran."
Are we really supposed to credit Stewart for being equally critical of Biden and Trump? I've seen comments on social media from conservatives arguing just that. But they are wrong. Stewart wants us to believe he's being evenhanded here, but what he's doing is missing the point entirely. Biden’s age isn’t the real issue, and frankly, it never was.
This is the issue:
Here are five straight minutes that show exactly why the special counsel noted Biden's diminished mental fitness pic.twitter.com/u1ToosAKyz
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 11, 2024
For months, the left has persistently attempted to blur the lines between Biden and Trump regarding the age issue. This strategy involves conflating Biden's cognitive decline with Trump's age in an effort to create a false sense of parity. Note that Stewart didn't show clips of either man to prove his point. Why not? Because there are no Trump clips that raise the same level of concern as the frequent and alarming instances of Biden's cognitive decline. I've seen liberals try, and it never works.
Stewart wasn't being fair by hitting Biden and Trump; he was helping Biden by suggesting that the two men's ages are indistinguishable. He's essentially trying to take the "age issue" off the table in the 2024 election with a false equivalency. Don't fall for it.
