Stewart criticizes Trump’s reaction to Graham’s death

On Monday night’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart slammed President Donald Trump for the reaction he gave to the press following the death of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. Graham died on July 11 at 71 years old.

“The big news from the weekend was the sudden passing of Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,” Stewart said at the top of the show. “Now obviously, I knew him a bit from lobbying down at Capitol Hill, but I didn’t know him particularly well. So I’ll let Lindsey Graham’s best friend memorialize the late senator.”’

Stewart then cut to a soundbite of Trump talking with the hosts of “Fox and Friends,” who he told over the phone, “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 thing,’” Stewart joked. “Obviously, he’s just opening the eulogy on a lighthearted note. I’m sure the poignancy follows.”

The show then cut back to Trump’s reactions. He said across several call-in interviews with outlets like NBC, CNN and Fox News, “He loved playing golf. He loved being outside. It wasn’t that he was a great striker of the ball. He wasn’t — 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.’ That didn’t work out too well. It was a nasty campaign. He was tough and nasty. I wanted to see the war with Ukraine end very quickly. I think he was more into, you know, keeping it going, frankly. He was a total workaholic politician. You know, some people don’t call that work. Some people call that a lot of talking.”

Stewart then said, “Well, I think the President has zoomed through the first five stages of grief and gone straight to number six: Fuck that guy.”

-Variety