Jon Stewart on Lindsey Graham's Death & America's Geriatric Political Class | The Daily Show

Welcome to The Daily Show.Uh, my name is Jon Stewart.Great show for you tonight.Later on, we're gonna be joined by the unbelievably amazing director Christopher Nolan's gonna be joining us.Christopher Nolan's gonna be joining us.Uh, uh, movie out called The Odyssey, based on the, uh, video console from the 1970s.

It's all about Pong.Uh, but first, obviously, big news from the weekend, the sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.Obviously, uh, I knew him a bit from lobbying down at Capitol Hill, but, uh, I didn't know him particularly well.So I'll let Lindsey Graham's best friend memorialize the late senator.

Joining us now by phone is one of his best friends, President Donald Trump.I know you lost one of your closest friends and an ally in the Senate.Um, how are you feeling?

Well, I don't feel great.He was a great guy, and he was a friend.He would call me all the time.He would just, I'd say, stop calling me, Lindsey.

I'll never forget the way that I always let him go to voicemail.It was our... it was our thing.Obviously, he's just opening the eulogy on a lighthearted note.Show the poignancy follows.

Loved playing golf.Loved being outside.It wasn't that he was a great striker of the ball.He wasn't exactly a perfect.He wasn't Jack Nicklaus.He was not Tiger.

He was totally against me.He said, I'll get you in South Carolina.I'm going to get you in South Carolina.

The president has zoomed through the first five stages of grief and gone straight to number six, f**k that guy.balls for Donald Trump to gently roast someone for yapping too much.He's the one who toasted his friend on Meet the Press, CNN's State of the Union, Fox and Friends.Trump was everywhere remembering Lindsey Graham, even when the host of the show appeared to not want him to.

These people suffer from a very fine disease known as Trump derangement syndrome.And Yeah, he was seeing that.Mr. President, did you notice anything?He was really coming a long way on terminating the filibuster.But, Mr. President, did you notice anything different?They find millions and millions of ballots impossible.

And they didn't know in two weeks.They let it be known an hour later that Steve Wilson had became his president.

So, Mr. President, real quickly, did you notice anything different from Lindsey on the phone?

So, these elections are very dishonest.

President, the TV station's going through a tunnel.Even his best friend Donald Trump had to concede that Senator Graham's career did have a bad moment.

You know, my favorite part of any eulogy is when they announce the person's life score.

Like it's Portnoy doing a pizza review!Yeah, Graham had a good undercarriage, good mouthfeel.Yeah, yeah.What?I'm doing a score, a life score.I'm doing a life score over here.

Anyway, 8 -2.I'm gonna give him an 8 -2, solid score.If he had let the people kill him on January 6th, 9 -2, monster score.I give him a monster score.Now, before Graham passed, he was not feeling well and was kind of joking about how he didn't have time to die.

Axios reported that several hours before his death, Senator Graham complained of feeling unwell and said, I can't die now.I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli -Saudi normalization.He passed away a short time later.

Middle East peace is about as ambitious as a bucket list item can get.I want to bring Israel back into the family of nations and go whale watching.Let this episode be a lesson, people.Write it down.Write your last wishes down.Write what you want to accomplish in your name down, because Donald Trump had a very different interpretation of Lindsey's last wishes.

He was pushing the Save America Act.crazy.This is a big, um, this is a big blow to the Save America Act, let me tell you.

And then Lindsay said to me, his voice weakening, barely a whisper, he said to me, Donald, when I die, float my body down the crystal -clear, reflected pool water so that I may lie in state in your completed ballroom.I said, Lindsay, don't, don't!Save your strength, Lindsey !"He said, no, no.One more thing.What?

Before I leave this mortal coil, for them to put your name back on the Kennedy.Now, you may be wondering, as I was, did Lindsey Graham die before Mitch McConnell?Possible.He's the one who spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals since his Capitol Hill buffering episodes.was the one who suddenly disappeared for a month and nobody heard from him to the point where the governor of his own state was asking for proof of life, which coincidentally...got yesterday.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you totally believable evidence that Mitch McConnell is not only alive, but the happiest boy in the hospital.Of a Make -A -Wish kid whose wish was that everyone else in the hospital lost their health insurance due to his f***ing policies.After that, of course, Mitch and his wife released even more photos.Here they are at Disney, riding Splash Mountain.Then apparently they climbed the spire of the Empire State Building and renewed their vow.And then, let's say, went to a World Cup game.

Might not be out of the woods yet.Regardless, McConnell is still here.Graham's gone.And so it was time for the media to discuss Graham's legacy for, like, a couple of minutes.

You know, this is so tough for you and for so many there on Capitol Hill, because it really was so sudden.No one was expecting this.

And we have to turn to the crude numbers of it all, right?Todd Blanch's path to getting confirmed as attorney general just got a whole lot more complicated.Unfortunately, your majority now down to 52.

Mitch McConnell's continued absence, now leaving Republicans with just 51 senators.If Collins votes against, you're down to 50.The vice president breaks the tie.But what if it's, you know, Collins, and Murkowski.Republicans were already struggling.the numbers.

Add in Lindsey Graham now being off the table.

I'm sorry, off the table?Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a winner for worst dying euphemism yet.Where's old Yeller?Don't worry, Timmy.We just had to take him off the table.Although I guess the numbers have been pretty tight in the Congress for a while now.

I wonder why that is.

The current Congress is the third oldest in U .S.history, with the average age of senators nearly 64.

131 out of the 530.Members of Congress are 70 or older.Graham is the sixth member of Congress to die this term.

The sixth member of Congress to die this term!Six!If this were any other business, they'd shut it down! to figure out what the f**k is going on.Six of them have died.Gas leak.Serial killer.

Six of them are dead.My God, those are Petco gerbil numbers.They're just coming to Congress every morning with a shovel.What the f**k is going on down there?The job is dangerous.They're just sitting there.

They're not filming Deadliest Catch.Oh, come on!He's in that show.He really is healthy.Not to put too fine a point on it, but the last person to speak to Graham is our 80 -year -oldpresident.

The governor who chooses Graham's replacement is 79.One of the candidates being considered is 78.But he backed out because he's too important at his current job in the House of Representatives, all to save the Todd Blanche hearings, which are being co -run by 92 -year -old Chuck Grassley and whippersnapper Dick Durbin, 81.The entire f***ing thing.Congress is falling apart due to a lack of not just political will, but bone density.

83 -year -old Florida Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson recovering from an eye surgery.

89 -year -old Chuck Grassley getting hip replacement.

Senator Patrick Leahy a broken hip.Nancy Pelosi hip replacement surgery.

Steny Hoyer is in the hospital with pneumonia.Eleanor Holmes Norton is in the early stages of dementia.

Dwight Evans who's 71, had a stroke.Bernie Sanders was sidelined by a heart attack.Congresswoman Kay Granger lived in an assisted living facility for dementia patients while still serving in Congress and drawing a congressional paycheck.

Those, by the way, are the ones who were still on the table.Is he commercial?Look, I'm no f***ing prize.I get that people age differently.Why are we tolerating this level of discrimination?national frailty in our lawmaking.

And it's not just anti -old people.It's not disrespect to ask this question.In Japan, they revere the elderly.But the one thing they don't do is put them in charge of everything.What's the for argument here?

Well, age is a relative thing, as we all know.His experience is an advantage to us and not to be described as a disadvantage.

Experience, that's right.This is actually the most experienced Congress we've ever had.How is that working?

The most unproductive Congress in the first year of a president in history.Potentially the least productive in modern history.

Fewest laws passed since at least the 1950s.As our government has gotten older, the economy has gotten worse.Inequality more severe.Our safety net shredded.The irony is that this long -past -retirement -age government has policies that force everyone else to have to work long past retirement age.Mostly, though, without a health care plan that covers a mysterious month in the hospital.

Because we don't have a system that rewards experience and competence and performance.We have a system that rewards incumbency.These people aren't brilliant.They're f***ing barnacles.Utterly incapable of addressing a world moving much faster than the speed of Matlock.Why does it matter?

Here's the co -chair of the House Army Caucus.Co -chair.Congressman John Carter of Texas.Explaining why it's imperative to remediate our outdated defense systems.

Another issue that's very important, the Department has historically relied on outdated production techniques of energetic manufacturing, which may have remained unchanged since the Second World War.

Since the Civil War?Second World War?The blur in my mind having been at both.

How is the department insuring that investment in next generation energetics manufacturing such as AI, machine learning capabilities, and enabling and quality assurance?

I take no pleasure in this.This is not right.The stakes are too high.There's no way that dude even knows how to put his phone on silent.People deciding rules about the most advanced technology on earth should look like they're steam powered.Understands you cannot have the country ruled by people this old and frail everyone except you

Senator Mitch McConnell said over the weekend, I'm not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you.I still have unfinished business to complete on your behalf, and I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do.Don't!

Listen, we're fine.You don't have to finish the job.And by the way, I am going nowhere, because I have unfinished business, literally, is what a ghost would say.A ghost would say.Me?My soul has unfinished business.

I must curtail your access to food stamps.Suggesting that old people cannot be productive at their jobs.But at the highest levels of our government, there is no check on when they are no longer capable of doing just that.But their power remains.Advanced age is just one more way in which our government is at a remove from the needs of the people they purport to serve.And they have too much power to be this disconnected.

If only there was somebody in the government who understood that.

We need a democratic party that opens its doors to new people, new energy, and new ideas.

That kid gets it.