Comedian Jon Stewart weighed in on President Trump’s Cabinet meetings, calling them “f—ing weird.”
Stewart, who hosts “The Daily Show,” highlighted the Cabinet meeting from last week during his Monday evening show. He described the scenes as authoritarian after top Trump administration officials praised the president following a tumultuous week with his tariff plan.
He played a compilation of clips in which Interior Secretary Doug Burgum thanked Trump for his leadership, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler praised the president for “standing up to the Chinese Communist Party” amid the tariff war and other officials celebrated Trump’s “vision,” leadership at the border and the results of the election.
“When I watch those Cabinet meetings, I’m actually thinking, are they making fun of him? It’s so over the top,” Stewart said during his show.
“It’s just so f—ing weird,” he later added.
Stewart argued that the Trump administration officials are falling into an authoritarian regime and it begins with the praise from his closest allies.
“The key to the authoritarian regime is the suspension of the normal processes by which you understand the world, the matter by which data and your experiences paint a cohesive grounded picture of reality,” he said. “The calling card of an authoritarian regime is that you must suspend that reality that rationality and then you test people by pushing the limits of that absurdity.”
The praise for Trump came amid a market fluctuation as he rolled out and then paused his tariff plan.
On April 2, which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day,” the president announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on imports and varying additional reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners. He later paused most of the reciprocal tariffs amid international concern, leveling almost all the tariffs to 10 percent for 90 days as his administration looks to strike deals with different countries.
He continued to raise tariffs against China, however, placing a more than 100-percent tariff on the country after it responded to the announcement of the reciprocal tariffs by placing an equivalent levy against the U.S. China increased that tariff in response to Trump’s doubling down, and then the two countries placed 125 percent tariffs on one another.
That rate adds to an existing 20 percent tariff Trump had previously levied against China, meaning that Chinese imports to the U.S. now face a tariff rate of at least 145 percent.
The situation has caused markets both in the U.S. and internationally to fluctuate and sparked concern.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.