Ian said:

Jon Stewart

Welcome to The Daily Show!
We are back, baby!
My name is Jon Stewart.
Welcome back. Merry Christmas.
Happy New Year. Happy Hanukkah.
Good yontiff.
Whatever it is, we got a show for you tonight.
Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona will be joining us.

Man!
Just today, just today, the Senator had his rank stripped
and his retirement pay docked by the Secretary
of Defense/War, Pete Hegseth/Homelander.

And the Senator will be joining us,
and I will ask him if he knows we do not pay our guests.

But let’s get right to the big story.
Ladies and gentlemen, this weekend, President Trump and
an elite team of Delta Force special operators
removed a dangerous foreign dictator from power.
Not that one.

They’re— they’re— they’re actually friends.
And quite frankly, I think business partners.
No, no.
Not that.
He’s— they’re also quite close.
That’s not— OK.

I believe these two have more of a heated rivalry vibe.

If you know what I mean.
So it’s not— not that one.
No, that’s— not that one.
No, that wasn’t us.
No, I’m talking about the now former president
of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who was
reverse-ICE’d and imported.

He was actually imported to a jail in Brooklyn.
But don’t feel bad for him.
He was a feared and cruel dictator.

1. Don’t worry #
2. Be happy #
   La, la, la, la, la, la, la
   Bobby McFerrin karaoke?
   You monster.
   Look, I know that clip makes him seem benign, almost
   kind of comical.
   But the truth is, Maduro oversaw a repressive regime
   that impoverished his nation, silenced dissent,
   and killed thousands.
3. La, la, la, la, la #
   But his iron rule and a cappella terror
   came to an end on Friday night when US Special Forces
   raided Caracas, Venezuela’s only city as far as we know,
   and snatched Nicolas Maduro out of his bedroom,
   apparently before he could even take off his sleep mask.

His Oura Ring must have been like, you had a bad night.

You did not get good deep sleep.

And as it unfolded, Donald Trump
was overseeing it all from a secure location—
the Situation Tent at Mar-a-Lago.

I don’t want to be a dick or a nitpicker.
But is this the most secure location in Mar-a-Lago— behind
the curtain you throw up in front of the catering kitchen?

Bah!
This is a matter of utmost national security!
Desserts are going to have to come out
through the service entrance!
I was never here!
Whoop!

That was me acting as though I was coming out of a—
But honestly, despite the makeshift Command Center,
this was a highly technical and complex
operation that required months of training and preparation.
After months of work by our intelligence
teammates to find Maduro and understand how he moved,
where he lived, where he traveled, what he ate,
what he wore, what were his pets—

Well, that does explain this photo from the raid.

I hope you like eating kibble in Gitmo!

Daphne!

We debated before the show— is it mildly racist
that we gave him a chihuahua?
Is that—

Because basically we’re just— like, is
that— because the chihuahua’s from Mexico, this is Venezuela.
And I thought, well—
so there is some nuance to it, but still mildly racist.

You’re welcome.

Now, obviously, this is actually a very
fraught moment for the world.
It is highly unusual for any government,
any sovereign nation, to violate the airspace and
territory of another sovereign nation and hit the grab
and go on their president.
Explaining it will require the deft hand
of an accomplished statesman.

Let me get there.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
the President of the United States
addressing the nation in this solemn, solemn moment.
The United States Armed Forces
conducted an extraordinary military operation
in the capital of Venezuela.
It was dark, and it was deadly.
If you look back to the Jimmy Carter days,
they were different days.
Whether it’s in Washington, DC, where
we have a totally safe city—
Restaurants are opening.
Everyone’s happy. They’re going.
They’re walking their daughters.
They’re walking their children, their wives—
Restaurants— restaurants are opening
all over Washington, DC.

(IMITATING TRUMP) So in closing,
if we hadn’t grabbed Maduro, you’d still be
taking Ubers to Ruth’s Chris.

And lest you think I’m making our president look
cavalier in this moment, here’s Trump
describing how he experienced this consequential operation.
DONALD TRUMP: If you would have seen what happened—
I mean, I watched it literally like I was
watching a television show.
(IMITATING TRUMP) And then I flipped
over to see who was on Kimmel.
I mean, can you believe he still gets to interview
Millie Bobby Brown?
I mean, he’s got no talent!
Anyway, back to abducting the president of Venezuela.

Look, no one knows how this operation is going to work out.
But based on the United States’ track record,
my guess is we’re going to be really happy about this
for a couple of weeks.
And then 30 years from now, there
will be a Venezuelan leftist revolution,
and the new government will point
to this moment as the reason our embassy there is on fire.
And it will absolutely ruin a Democrats’ presidency.

Generally, that’s how this shit works.
And remember, the reason MAGA was so high on Donald Trump
was that he was the guy who wasn’t
going to get involved with this kind of shit anymore.
We do not seek war.
We do not seek nation building.
We do not seek regime change.
And we don’t want to be the world’s policeman.
(IMITATING TRUMP) We don’t want to be!

Those days are over now!
No more American boots on the ground!
We’re not afraid of boots on the ground.

No more rebuilding other countries’ infrastructure!
We have to rebuild their whole infrastructure.

Well, it’s not like we’re going to be running
someone else’s country.
We are going to run the country.

So— so let me get this.
This is a big change in America First policy, is it not?
And a change in policy this big is
going to need some of that Trump marketing
and branding magic.
And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal.
But we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.
They now call it the “Donroe Doctrine.”

“Donroe Doctrine.”
That’s the one when someone calls it out,
you go, look, no bad ideas.

But honestly, (WHISPERING) not your best work.
The “Donroe Doctrine.”
It’s obviously a portmanteau of “Monroe” and “Donald.”

I guess it’s a spin-off of the Monroe Doctrine,
famously adopted by President James Monroe in 1823
when he warned colonial powers not to interfere
in our hemisphere.
Let me let a historian explain.
DONALD TRUMP: But you look over here.
That’s Monroe, the Monroe Doctrine.
Why is he up there?
DONALD TRUMP: I think the Monroe Doctrine was
pretty important, you know?
That was his claim to fame.
Claim to fame?

Like he ate 18 hot dogs in one sitting?
I mean, I guess it’s correct.
You can’t really name another thing Monroe was famous for.
But it’s not like everywhere Monroe went,
they’d be like, hey, aren’t you that guy from the doctrine?
Babe, get over here.
It’s the doctrine guy.
Hey.

What are you doing in our hemisphere?

I— I told you that would work.
A little Monroe Doctrine humor— slid it in.

Now, look, generally, in American history, when
we intervene in another country,
whether true or not, we come up with a high-minded pretense—
liberating a people, spreading democracy, introducing
baseball to the Japanese.

They complained at first, but it was totally worth it.
On what moral foundation will this conflict be framed?
We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela
as it pertains to oil.
We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be.

Seems a little on the nose.
Um.

Oil— precious commodity, certainly— but
not the reason a country, formed 250 years ago
on the ideas of liberty and self-determination,
would go into a country and snatch a man at night.
There must be a slightly more noble pretense.
We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount
of wealth out of the ground.
We need total access.
We need access to the oil.
Sir, again— I see where we’re going here.
Do you mind just reframing that?
I’m not quite clear on the high-minded principle
behind this.
In other words, we’ll be selling oil.

Is this your first war?
I mean, what the ?
All right, let’s table this for now.
Senator Lindsey Graham, you’re an old hand at war mongering.

You’ve done this a bunch.
You’re on the plane.
Can you help this dude out with a casus belli
and keep Trump from bringing it back to oil?
There are going to be Americans alive today
because he shut down a narco-terrorist
state called Venezuela.
This is a good thing, not a bad thing.
And the oil companies are going to go
in and rebuild their system.
God damn it.
What?

We can’t even be conspiracy theorists now.
I think they did it for the oil.
Yeah, no, I did it for the oil.

Is there any other reason?
Can you give us anything?
There’s a lot of issues— human rights
violations, political prisoners down in Venezuela.
We could certainly free them and improve
the lives of dissidents.
Are you going to demand that Delcy Rodriguez
let opposition figures return or
free any political prisoners?
We haven’t gotten to that yet.
Right now, what we want to do is fix up the oil,
fix up the country.

Yes, we’ll get the people out of jail.
But first, we have to liberate the oil from its ground prison.
That oil’s been locked up for millions of years, yearning
to burn free.
Obviously, I’m being cynical.
It’s not purely for oil.
Even Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on the plane
could tell you that on his way out of the bathroom.
They have steel.
You have minerals, right, all the critical minerals.
They have a great mining history that’s gone rusty.
So steel, aluminum, minerals—
These mother- are going full conquistador
in front of our eyes.
I mean, they got oil, steel, minerals.
Oh, and don’t forget about the spices, spices.

We’ll load our ships with cinnamon and cardamom,
oil and everything bagels.
You’ll see.

And they might have gotten away with it too.
But our country is a democracy.
So bad news, Don-roe.

Your little oil heist is going to have
to get past the Democrats and Inspector Schumer.
CHUCK SCHUMER: So I’ve been talking to so many
members of my caucus today.
Everybody is very, very just—
just totally, totally, totally troubled, worried.

1. History has its eyes on #

Well, if it were two totallys and one very,
I’d say Trump is getting off scot free.
But three totallys ease and verys and trouble worried?

I don’t want to say the president
doesn’t respect the Democrats.

But he did not brief them before or after this attack.
Now, you could say that was in the interest
of national security and operational confidentiality,
if not for this one group he did speak to.
I have.
Yes.
Before and after.

And then I told Pepsi and Nabisco.
Cologuard— I don’t know why.
What’s the suitcase company on Instagram?
I told them.
I told Hims.
I told Hers.
I let the president of Zyn shoot some missiles.
I—

But I didn’t tell any of the Democrats.

I don’t feel bad for the Democrats.
They will be totally, totally, totally, very, very
fine, probably even gain a seat in the midterms.
The people I feel sorry for are the Trump defendants,
the defenders, the sycophants, who
haven’t received the memo that we
no longer have to frame our adventurism in the ideals
of our great country.
And this is a very strong way to support democracy.
Nothing greater than an American president
who liberates people.
Liberated them for— from a strong man who’s been holding,
by force and intimidation, this country hostage.
We’re not about nation building.
The president doesn’t want its natural resources.
We don’t want their oil.

Oh, poor sweet Brian Kilmeade, sweet, sweet Brian.
Trump already explicitly said he wants their oil.
And democracy?
Trump has already said he wants Venezuelans to freely choose
their leaders, as long as those leaders are acceptable to us.
He’s already said he’s going to select
who will be their next leader.
And guess what?
This ain’t a one-off.
Colombia is very sick too, run
by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling
it to the United States.
And he’s not going to be doing it very long.
By the way, you have to do something with Mexico.
We need Greenland.
Cuba is ready to fall, you know?
Let the word go forth to a new generation of Americans
that if we need shit and it’s not too far away,
we are going to take it.
Anything else you want to take over?
I think there’s still some time to go after Warner
Brothers Discovery.

I mean, America doesn’t have Netflix money,
but we will after we get that sweet oil.
And by the way, Lindsey Graham.
Honestly, I have never seen him happier,
like a leprechaun in a bowl of Lucky Charms.

I think we’re going to go after Cuba. (IN SILLY VOICE)
Yeah, boss, yeah.
That sounds real good, boss, real good.
(IN REGULAR VOICE) Look, this is all exhausting and
exposes the Gulf of America—
not the body of water.
The real Gulf of America is the gap
between the high aspirations that
embody the founding of this country and
the thuggish gangsterism that this crew
thinks makes us great again.
And if I may offer the news media a New Year’s resolution—
it’s that I don’t ever want to hear again
about the ramifications of how Trump’s actions, however
counter to what he promised in his campaign or the files
that he might release, might alienate his base.
Do you expect to see some splits in the MAGA movement?
Will the MAGA base start to break away?
—widen the rift with his MAGA base.
How’s it going to play for MAGA?
It’ll play fine for MAGA.
They’ll love it.
Their fervor against intervention
will be only matched by their delight in this intervention.
There is no material on Earth more malleable
than the hive-mind connection between Donald Trump and
his acolytes.
And no matter how many times he betrays the principles
they claim to love him for, they will react over and over
with the exact same refrain.

1. Don’t worry #
2. Be happy #
3. La, la, la, la, la, la, la #
   Doh.