Jon Stewart’s prediction for the end of the Donald Trump era got particularly dark on Friday, when he explained why he envisions Trump “burning our f—ing country down for insurance money.”
Stewart made the comments on The Bill Simmons Podcast, where he explained why Trump’s 60 Minutes lawsuit is the perfect example of his “pay tribute to the king” edict.
“What you’re seeing now is, ‘All must pay tribute to the king.’ And the price of peace is different,” Stewart said. “ABC had to pay $15 million, Bezos had to pay $40 million for a documentary on Melania. Zuckerberg had to pay. They just put money into the pot so that hopefully they get” what they’re paying for, he explained. “It’s protection money.”
The pattern suggests a particular conclusion: “Ultimately at the end of this, does Trump burn our f—ing country down for insurance money? Like, where are we headed?”
Trump’s lawsuit against CBS and its parent company Paramount Global over Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview, as well as top executives’ desire to settle to get on with its planned merger with Skydance Media, amounts to “bribery,” the Daily Show host added.
“Imagine paying $50 million for f—ing nothing, just to get somebody to approve a merger,” Stewart said.
The likelihood of the CBS settlement with Trump over the Harris interview, which staffers have insisted underwent a standard editing process and was not politically motivated, has caused internal tension and shocking exits at the comedy. 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens stepped down amid the legal battle, after which the CBS News President Wendy McMahon followed suit. McMahon said she and the company didn’t agree on “the path forward.”
Stewart unpacked her exit statement Friday as he argued that Trump sees his presidency as a cash grab that anyone with “integrity” would never go along with.
“The reason they all left is part of the deal is they have to apologize,” he said. “And in that moment, these people who have built careers on their excellence and their integrity had to look and go like, ‘Alright, well I hope I’ve done well enough that I can weather this, but there’s no f—ing way that I’m going to apologize for doing my job the way it’s supposed to be done, just because this one guy is offended by it.’”
Trump’s demands are par for the course, Stewart said, in light of his dark theory of the president’s endgame. “He’ll go after Harvard and Comcast or whatever the hell else he does, because a policy of appeasement always leads to more conquest,” Stewart concluded.
The post Jon Stewart Shares Dark Prediction for How the Trump Story Ends appeared first on The Daily Beast.
