The Daily Show
Jon Stewart isn't mincing words about how he thinks the 2024 presidential race has devolved into mud-slinging about the state of each candidate's cognitive abilities.
In his Monday monologue on "The Daily Show," Stewart kicked off his segment by giving a "quick state of play."
"I guess the election has basically boiled down to each candidate accusing the other of having soup where there should be brain," Stewart quipped.
Stewart, 61 years old, then went on to do something that got him plenty of flak back in February when he first started doing Mondays at the Comedy Central show: He called out both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for their advanced ages.
Biden is 81, and Trump is 78.
"For instance, for President Biden, it is his habit of seemingly staring at what can only be considered ghosts or out-of-frame paratroopers," Stewart said as an embarrassing clip of Biden appearing to wander off at the G7 summit played. "And then when he's pulled back into frame, somehow giving the impression someone has just quantum leaped into his body."
Stewart also slammed Trump, commenting on how Trump recently crowed about having great cognitive abilities at a GOP event.
"The case he's making to the American public is that he's the sharpest tool in the shed. See if you can find the flaw in his logic just one sentence later," Stewart said.
The show then played a clip of Trump bragging about acing a cognitive test — then getting the name of the doctor who gave him that test wrong.
"I took a cognitive test, and I aced it. Doc Ronny — Doc Ronny Johnson," Trump said, garbling then-White House physician Ronny Jackson's name. "Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor."
"He got the guy's name wrong on his cognitive test," Stewart said, laughing. "I don't even know what to say."
Stewart, in a February episode of "The Daily Show," also expressed his concern about the candidates' advanced ages.
"The stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny. It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny," Stewart said in February.
But Stewart's critics pummeled him and said he'd unfairly equated the aging president with his opponent, a four-times indicted, now-convicted felon.
Trump and Biden are set to face off on stage in the first presidential debate of 2024. This debate will be hosted on CNN on June 27 at the network's Atlanta studio.
Representatives for Trump and Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
