Jon Stewart’s Fox News Takedowns
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Jon Stewart here. Unbelievably exciting news. My new podcast, The Weekly Show. We're going to be talking about the election, economics, ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Comedy Central. Yeah.

Hey, this is Roy Chang. The Daily Show is off this week, but don't worry. We put together some of our favorite moments from the show in case you missed them. We'll be back with brand new shows on September 10th. Until then, enjoy today's episode.

Last week, we did, last week, I thought a very nice piece on the show about how Fox News wanted people to apologize for rushing to judgment on the Ferguson shooting of Michael Brown. And so we, I think, quite cleverly drew an analogy to that. And their rush to judgment on Benghazi, it was really quite droll.

Now, while Fox never addressed our Benghazi point, it appears now they're asking for more than an apology. Pete Williams, to his credit, got that Boston Marathon terror reporting dead on. And the mainstream media hailed him as a hero for getting it right, which he did.

Fox News got this case right. Fox News, not just me, Sean Hannity had a lot of segments, plus O'Reilly had a lot of segments, urging caution. Would the mainstream media ever hail them as heroes like we heard about Pete Williams? Yeah! Why doesn't Fox get as much credit as who's Pete Williams?

Anyway, the point is, it wasn't the first time they got it right. I urged caution in the Duke coverage and in the Trayvon Martin coverage and now in this coverage. That's three times. They got it right three times in ten years. Those are solar eclipse numbers, people. Which I think is why it's recommended you only watch Fox through a tiny pinhole poked in a piece of cardboard. You can't look directly at Fox. It will indelibly burn your soul.

While of course the whole rush to judgment complaint is bull . Fox is nothing but a rush to judgment in almost every situation. Okay, you're the caution and sober reflection network.

But my favorite part of the piece was after 10 minutes of complaining that no one would ever thank them, this. If you are waiting for the mainstream media to say not only that we were wrong in this racially charged case that resulted in so much violence in that town, and to credit Fox News for being right, you're going to hold your breath a long time. And we don't care about them. Right, you don't care, in the same way my mom doesn't care if I ever call. Sure, call or not, I could just sit here and die.

But the point is you were right. And that is newsworthy when Fox is right. And calls for celebration. So to honor that time you were right, we got you a fudgy the whale. Because you know why? We think you're a whale of a network. In that we've been chasing you our whole lives and just can't kill you. But that's not all, Fox. In honor of this singular achievement of you being right, Liberal Hollywood has something they'd like to say to you. Hollywood?

I'm George Lucas, and I'm here to assure you that I'm only going to make movies from now on that are blindly uncritical of America. Like The Empire Strikes Back, justifiably. American Exceptionalism Graffiti. Star Wars, the Reagan missile defense version. And The Clinton Menace. Fox News, may you live long and prosper. Wait, I didn't write that, did I? Sorry. But the truth is this, Fox...

We can send you all the congratulatory messages and praise we can muster, but it's really just gonna pale in comparison to how your biggest fans feel about you. And so we had them tape some messages of congratulations as well. Take a look.

One network has transformed, re-envisioned, and reinvented the way news is done. Fox is the dominant force in broadcast news today. We're the only network that's telling the truth right now. It's the only place you can feel good about your country. You might learn something as opposed to just having your worldview reinforced. We give you both sides. We give you all the stuff. We're simply better than the opposition. We keep kicking their ass every day in the ratings. Number one.

number one number one that's us probably the most powerful news agency in the world right now we're certainly covering it this morning thank you fox news you guys you're the best thank god for outlets like fox news thank god for fox news thank god fox news is on it thank god thank god thank god god bless fox news he clearly already has the great thing is i get it now your network launched in 1996 you're 18 years old and just like every other 18 year old you have a massive ego

and spend 24 hours a day jerking yourself off. My announcement of leaving did not go unnoticed. Jon Stewart's surprise announcement. 16 years as the host of The Daily Show, now he's stepping aside. I don't think overall he's been a force for good because I think especially in his later years, he got a little nasty. A little nasty, not a force for good. Okay, I can handle that. But Megan, in his later years...

I am only 52. I got four to five productive years left. And then about 10 to 15 that are mostly, eh. And then I guess, you know, the last four or five angry, confused years, or as they're sometimes referred to, the Fox News viewer demo years. You know what?

I'm just kidding. It's all good. Everybody's entitled to their opinion. What he added to our political discourse was largely sarcasm, insults, and dishonest editing. You know, it's clearly selective editing of clips. I can speak personally to a lot of the attacks that were levied on me had no foothold in the facts. Why, I dishonest in no foothold in the facts. You have cast aspersions upon my honor. And I demand satisfaction.

I challenge you Fox News to a lie-off. Your distortions and lack of fact footholds against mine. To start us off here is 50 of yours in a six-second vine. Plenty more where that came from. Only have a 22-minute show. Actually, you just go to the website and you can peruse each lie at your leisure. You see, something of a conventional wisdom about this show has taken hold on the right.

A thought they've become so comfortable with that they don't feel the need to even offer evidence to support it. That we lie and distort things all the time to make them look bad. It's perhaps best summed up by this fella here. John Stewart has helped to polarize the country by poisoning the Republican brand. Oh yes. Poisoning the Republican brand.

You're talking about this brand right here. The college co-ed Susan Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? If any race of people

should not have guilt about slavery, it's Caucasians. Obama's entire economic program is reparations. Hu Jintao was just going, "Ching-chong, ching-chong, chong-chong, chong-chong, ching-chong, ching-ba-ba-ba." He is moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. We poisoned that brand.

Just out of curiosity, let me ask you a question, and I mean this sincerely. How do you poison a cyanide factory? But see, the little game that they play here is the only reason the right looks bad is that these guys are unfair liars to us. By the way, that sentiment is brought to you by Arby's. Arby's. Proof Jon Stewart cannot destroy a brand by telling people what's in it. Pig anus and cheese! Pig anus and cheese! My point is...

We don't lie. We don't distort. We actually have a fellow who works in the building who uses every fiber of his being to prevent us from doing so. That moral bastard. John? What? Actually, my parents were married, so technically I'm not a bastard. Fine! I just was a figure of speech! The point is, on the right, they're pretending that our truthfulness is what's really important to them, which ironically is not true.

What matters to the right is discrediting anything that they believe harms their side. That's their prime directive. And unlike Captain Kirk, they stick with the prime directive. They don't just drop the protocol anytime they feel like humping a green girl in a unitard. Look.

This mission drives their attack on all the institutions that form the foundation of the country they purport to love so dearly. Our big and very broken government got bigger and more broken. American students who are already suffering in a broken education system. Teachers suggesting America is evil. America's election system, broken. Science itself seems a little bit corrupt. There's a lot of agendas involved. Voter fraud is rampant. And what, pray tell, is wrong with these institutions?

The liberal bias and anti-Americanism is infiltrating America's public schools. Are liberals ignoring science to push their agenda? The liberal left trying to destroy too many good things about our country. Cure the cancer of liberalism that has America on her knees. Ease!

all of our liberal dicks. All of them. Each institution suffering from the same malady of liberalism and what can be done. This is their genius. They purport to want to fix things, but conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative.

or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan ideological conservative viewpoint. Because in their minds, the opposite of bad isn't good. The opposite of bad is conservative. The opposite of wrong isn't right. Well, okay, but you get my point. It's right-wing. They judge solely on the level of conservative content in everything. It's their only litmus test. Even stupid s***.

If you thought American Sniper's success meant Hollywood was getting less liberal, hmm, you didn't see the Oscars last night. The mega-hit was snubbed on Sunday night at the Oscars. Oh, Clint Eastwood, yeah, he spoke up for the Republican Party. We don't like him so much. We're going to make a point with that. Is Clint Eastwood the problem with American Sniper, do you think? Because he was at the RNC talking to the chair? Probably.

Clint Eastwood's been a conservative icon for years. Oscars already awarded him with best director and best picture during that time. The left wing loons in Hollywood made the movie in the first place and nominated it for best picture. Fine. Hollywood didn't give best picture to American Sniper, so it must hate America. No, they didn't even give best picture to the best picture. I mean, for God's sakes, if Oscar nominations were based on liberal street cred,

You can stream it on iTunes and it's available on Blu-ray. It's an excellent St. Patrick's Day gift. And you know the saddest part of all this? Republicans, conservatives are so relentless in their drive for ideological purity that those institutions they complain about continue to cave in

For the same reason, I guess, that you always seem to end up going to the restaurant the four-year-old wants to go to. Fine! We're gonna get fribbles again! Just stop crying! Fifteen states have approved voter ID laws in the absence of any meaningful evidence of voter fraud. An Oklahoma State House committee voted to ban AP history for not sugarcoating slavery enough. Abstinence has approved sex education. And scientific fact isn't reported now, it's debated. So let's just stop.

Let's stop pretending that these concessions to the right will at any point sate the beast. What do you make of Pope Francis? He's had some statements that to me sound kind of liberal. It has taken me aback. The Pope isn't conservative enough for these people.

So let's just stop giving in to them. Guys, take it from someone who's been watching what they do for a blessedly almost over 16 years or so. Their chronically angry war for ideological purity, where every aspect of life becomes a two-dimensional battle for America's soul, it ages you. Even watching it is killing me. This was me at the start of tonight's show. And if you think that's a lie, I've got a Vine video I want to show you.

Hey everybody, Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts.

You know, I'm watching Fox News, which I'll continue to do now for another, I don't know, 36 shows minus today's open. And while we often poke fun at them for lying and sucking, they do care very deeply about certain issues, like Benghazi or women's legs. That time one of their female anchors didn't wear a dress now known as Pantsgazi. The point is, after Fox finishes caring about lots of other stuff, they eventually care very deeply about

We haven't heard much about poverty from the Obama White House over the last four years. Virtually no emphasis on families. Why not focus on poverty? I remember five or six years ago, President Obama making this one of his main talking points. I'm going to fix the structure of the African-American family. Where did that go? And while the president has been addressing those issues his entire presidency. Good point.

In fact, yesterday, President Obama sat down for a 76-minute discussion at Georgetown University in which he explained all sorts of things about personal responsibility and the debate between government assistance and personal responsibility as being a false choice and families, etc. A free market is perfectly compatible with also us making investment in good public schools, public universities, investments in public parks. If we do those things,

The values and the character that those kids are learning, they're less likely to get pregnant as teens, and less likely to engage in drugs, and less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. That is a reinforcement of the values and characters that we want. I am a black man who grew up without a father, and I know the cost that I paid for that. And I also know that I have the capacity to break that cycle. You know who else talked with his hands? Hitler.

So Fox finally got the substantive presidential discussion on poverty that they always wanted, including on stage the counter view from the head of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. He was on stage.

I can't wait to see Fox's happiness and satisfaction. Fox News alert, Fox News front and center. President Obama taking time out today for one of his favorite topics, Fox News. President Obama accused Fox News of propagating harmful stereotypes about poor Americans. The president accused the media, in particular Fox News, of suggesting the poor are unwilling to work. Yep, just like college students at a four-hour commencement, Fox basically pays no attention until they hear their own names.

It turns out, at one point in this incredibly thoughtful and productive session on poverty, the president made the easily provable and decidedly true point that Fox News' narrative is that poverty is not a function of economic condition, but of character. The effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, don't want to work,

are lazy. If you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu. They will find, like, folks who make me mad. I don't know where they find them, right? They're all like, "I don't want to work. I just want a free Obama phone," or whatever. And that becomes an entire narrative. -Really? -Yeah, really. -Really? -Really. -Really. -Yes!

What's with your tone of disgust and disappointment? Are you anchoring a news desk? Or did you just come home to find your dog had eaten your cat's entire litter box? Roscoe. Really?

It sounds to me like the president has a remarkably firm grasp on your business model there, Fox. So why are you outraged? In my opinion, the president is spinning his own policy failures. As the middle class shrinks and the poor are trapped in this system, so to speak, the president blames us, the honest messengers. The honest messengers. Um, Martha? Really?

What? What?

Did you even... Did you even watch the program? What are you talking about, Barney? We've looked at the food stamp program, not at the recipients. We haven't characterized the recipients. We've looked at the program. We're not saying that the recipients of food stamps are bad people or that they're lazy. That is such a rich buffet of bull . I can't... That is a three-course prefix. I'm sorry, prick fest. For starters...

Let's demonstrate Fox's contempt for those in poverty in our first course of this meal. An amused douche, if you will. America's poor are actually living the good life. Just call them pennies from government heaven. The United States of entitlement. A nation of takers. Entitlement society. Scary. We have nothing against the poor. It's just that their ravenous greed bursts through America's chest like the monster in Alien.

But I'm sorry, you were saying you don't characterize the poor as bad people or lazy. Well, your entree is ready just as you asked for it. Medium unfair.

We have conditioned people to look to the government to be their answer for every problem they have and take zero responsibility. The Moocher class. Subsidized freeloaders. Give me these goodies, give me a cell phone, pay my rent. Bailouts from cradle to grave. Nation of Moochers. Freeloaders in America. Entitlement mentality. Sitting on the couch eating bonbons. People who sleep till noon sucking off, you know, the nipple of the government.

removed from reality is Fox's perception of their own coverage on poverty. The main defender of your network's attitude towards those in poverty is the main offender. He does segments that would make Ebenezer Scrooge go, hey, take it easy. These are people we're talking about. So for dessert tonight, we serve you baked alas-hole.

The handout nation rolls on. We hand out $79 billion every January to these so-called poor people. You're not being mean to poor people today. I am. I am being mean to poor people. Frankly, I am. Many poor families have homes with cable TVs, cell phones, computers, you name it, much, much more. 99% of them have a refrigerator.

81% have a microwave. You're going to give us the emotional side of the story? People need $15 per hour to live on. They're starving without it. Okay, I got that. The image we have of poor people as starving and living in squalor really is not accurate. Many of them have things. What they lack is the richness of spirit.

Anyway, you boy, what day is it today? Is it Christmas Day? Oh, go up and buy all the gooses. Keep them out of those lazy poor hands. And if you see a boy on crutches, push him down. He's not crippled. He's crippled at heart. He lacks a richness of legsness. He's glaring. Are they... I don't even...

Are these, honestly, are these glaring contradictions a product of lack of self-awareness or cynicism or stupidity or evil? I don't know anymore and I'm starting to lack a richness of . What I don't understand is another journalist on another network leaping to defend something so clearly indefensible.

What about this specific clip about Fox News calling poor people leeches, sponges, and lazy? Have you ever heard that on Fox News? No, I have not. Well, I guess it's time for our favorite game show. Did you even try to research this? All right, the rules are simple. First...

Joe Scarborough cites three words he says he's never heard Fox News call poor people. And then we see how wrong he is. Today's words are lazy sponges and leeches. Ready, set, go. These programs do make people lazy. They get food stamps. It makes it easy for them to sponge off their girlfriends and spouses. So the more of the leeches that he can get to vote for him. And that's our game.

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Hey everybody, Jon Stewart here. I am here to tell you about my new podcast, The Weekly Show, coming out every Thursday. We're going to be talking about the election, earnings calls. What are they talking about on these earnings calls? We're going to be talking about ingredient to bread ratio on sandwiches. I know you have a lot of options as far as podcasts go, but how many of them come out on Thursday? Listen to The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart wherever you get your podcasts.