Joking that it was the “October surprise” he didn’t see coming, “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart blasted Elon Musk's endorsement of Donald Trump and weekend rally with the former president, posing the question: “That’s not election interference because he’s for you?”
“Why do we never get a good October surprise or an October surprise that brings us together?” Stewart said to laughter on his show Monday night.
The comedian launched into his opening monologue by raising various news stories that he suggested could have been this election year’s October surprise – from hurricanes to raising gas prices – before landing on Musk, the billionaire owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X.
“His October surprise is he’s come out MAGA,” Stewart said of Musk before playing a clip of the world’s richest man speaking alongside Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Notably, the rally took place at the site of Trump’s July assassination attempt.
“Now you might think one of the world's richest men controlling one of the world's most influential platforms could be a recipe for some may consider election interference. You stupid, stupid people. You disgust me,” he quipped. “Election interference is what Mark Zuckerberg did!”
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He continued his opening segment by mocking Trump’s complaints that Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, will try to unlawfully influence the 2024 election.
“A movie Trump doesn’t like is going to get sued,” Stewart told his viewers. “A tech mogul he doesn’t like he wants to put in prison. It’s not free speech if only Trump’s admirers get to do it without consequence. That’s just not how it works, it doesn’t work that way.”
Stewart later ripped Musk for saying during Saturday’s rally that “the Second Amendment is there to ensure that we have the First Amendment.”
“For God's sake, you guys are in Butler, Pennsylvania. The whole reason you’re there is because some F--- a--- with an AR15 tried to permanently litigate his vision of this country’s free speech. That’s why you’re there. The whole point of a society is guns don’t decide it," he said.
Watch the clip below or at this link.
