Jon Stewart returned to “The Daily Show” on Monday after a nine-year hiatus and was quick to tackle an issue on the minds of many voters ahead of the 2024 presidential race: Joe Biden and Donald Trump's ages.
“Look, these two candidates -- they are both similarly challenged,” he said as he kicked off his comeback with a 20-minute segment about the 81-year-old and 77-year-old front-runners.
“They are the oldest people ever to run for president, breaking, by only four years, the record that they set last time," he said.
Stewart, who built a national profile as "Daily Show" host skewering Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, used special counsel Robert Hur’s new report about Biden to get into concerns about both candidates’ ages and competencies.
Hur, explaining his decision not to recommend charges over Biden’s retention of classified documents while out of office, wrote last week that, if indicted, Biden could present himself to the jury as a “well meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Stewart riffed on that on "The Daily Show."
“Where did I park those documents?” he said, imitating an elderly man.
Later, Stewart said, “Biden was not about to take the special counsel’s characterizations laying down -- although chances are he was laying down."
After Hur's report came out on Thursday, Biden spoke at a hastily scheduled White House appearance to address the report and Hur's characterizations of his memory and age.
Biden said his recall was "fine."
"My memory -- take a look at what I've done since I've become president. None of you thought I could pass any of the things I got passed. How'd that happen?" he said. However, he also mistakenly said Egypt's president is the president of Mexico -- a moment that Stewart highlighted on his show.
“Take the W!” he said. “What are you doing?!”
On Thursday, Biden also said, as he was going through his notes, that “the conduct of the [Israeli] response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top," which Stewart used as fodder for another punchline.
“Biden describes Israel's incessant bombing of civilians the same way my mother talks about the Super Bowl halftime show,” Stewart said as he mimicked Biden slowly flipping through his notes. (Israel insists it takes steps to avoid civilian deaths in Gaza, despite the high reported death toll.)
Asked about Stewart’s comments on Tuesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president felt it was important to speak on Thursday. She also said it was his idea but didn’t say whether he was advised against it or not.
“If he says he wants to speak directly to the American people, he’s going to do that,” she said.
Although Biden’s age and memory took up much of Stewart's return to "The Daily Show," he didn’t ignore Trump's age and memory either.
After playing a montage of Trump where, on different instances, he said he didn’t recall or he didn’t remember certain things, Stewart sarcastically said, “That's the high functioning candidate from nine years ago.” “Trump regularly says things in rallies that would warrant a wellness check,” Stewart said about a speech where Trump said he could "end" magnets with a glass of water.
“I'm not a scientist. I'm pretty sure water is not the end of the magnet,” Stewart joked. “I think he may be thinking of cotton candy?” (Trump has defended his mental acuity, saying last month: "I feel my mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago. Is that possible?")
Stewart plans to host every Monday episode of "The Daily Show" and serve as the executive producer for the rest of the week.
Back behind the desk and looking grayer than when he left nearly 10 years ago, Stewart, now 61, didn’t bypass his age either with self-deprecating jokes.
“Perhaps it was my mistake for sleeping in a neat dehydrator,” he said.
While "The Daily Show" under Stewart became famous for its satire about the Bush administration and the Washington status quo, he said on Monday that the high stakes of the upcoming election makes Biden, as Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent, even more subject to scrutiny.
“We’re not suggesting neither man is vibrant, productive or even capable,” Stewart said. “What’s crazy is thinking that we are the ones, as voters, who must silence concerns and criticisms.”