Comedian Jon Stewart is ripping President Trump’s trade war and dubbing him the “worst negotiator,” while describing Cabinet members as getting in line behind an “impulsive man-baby.”
Reflecting on Trump’s first 100 days in office, Stewart on “The Daily Show” on Monday mocked the president for launching a “devastating sneak attack” from the Rose Garden at the White House when he announced sweeping tariffs earlier this month at an event he dubbed “Liberation Day.”
“Unfortunately, the country he snuck up on was ours,” Stewart said, as the Comedy Central show aired clips of cable news coverage describing recession fears and stock market “chaos” following Trump’s tariff announcement.
“Yes, apparently plunging our nation into this dark economic abyss is all part of the plan,” Stewart said in a mocking tone, before playing a portion of a Sunday interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on ABC News’s “This Week.”
“In game theory, it’s called strategic uncertainty, so you’re not going to tell the person on the other side of the negotiation where you’re going to end up,” Bessent said.
In response, Stewart claimed, “I’m pretty sure in game theory, you are supposed to tell the person on your side where they’re going to end up, so they don’t freak the f‑‑‑ out.”
“Or maybe it’s all bulls‑‑‑, and Trump launched a trade war without any of the preplanning and preparation that needed to be done,” the 62-year-old comedian said. “And Bessent has to go along with it because he’s in the service of an impulsive man-baby that you have to lie to so he doesn’t turn his firehose of vindictiveness onto you.”
“How did you not know that other countries weren’t going to fight back?” he said of Trump, slamming the president for not preparing for the tariff standoff.
The late night TV host continued, telling the audience, “We could have stockpiled magnets and rare earth materials like Japan did in a spat with China. But why bother preparing for a war that you yourself are launching?”
“We’re in this position because we’ve been sold this idea of Trump as the master, the art of the deal, only he can bring these nations to heal,” he added. “It is all bulls‑‑‑.”
Citing an interview Trump did with Time magazine published last week in which he claimed he “made 200 deals” with other countries, the comedian responded, “A hundred percent bulls‑‑‑.”
“Here’s how you know: 200 deals. There’s only like 180 countries. Unless he’s making a deal with Trinidad and Tobago separately,” Stewart quipped.
“Trump is not only not the best negotiator, he is maybe the worst negotiator,” he said.
“The Daily Show” host continued, saying the president’s negotiating skills “aren’t the real danger to this country.”
“What’s going to f‑‑‑ us up is his obsession with the concept of the leverage that he has,” Stewart said.
“You don’t have the leverage! That’s the key misunderstanding here,” he went on to say. “Trump is so arrogant, he thinks the leverage is his — it’s ours. We the people.”
Stewart pointed viewers to history in his argument, saying “it took the people 250 years of striving to live up to a constitutional republic and rule of law, painstaking equity that you are squandering. That is the crux of American exceptionalism.”
“You just want to make us great. That’s a downgrade,” he said of Trump, whose 2016 presidential campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again.”
“Our brand is not strategic uncertainty, and you are not the keeper of our pot of gold. You are a temporary leprechaun,” the comedian added.
Speaking in a message directed at Trump, Stewart said that the more enamored “you are with your authoritarian whims, the more that you turn our shining city on a hill into just another ordinary, despot-led, sea-level s‑‑‑hole.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
