While at San Francisco’s Clusterfest on Sunday, Jon Stewart weighed in on Samantha Bee’s decision to apologize for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt†in a recent Full Frontal episode. According to the former Daily Show host, Donald Trump is just about the last person to have an actual, sincere problem with the word, despite what his outraged tweets on the subject might suggest. “They don’t give a shit about the word ‘cunt,’†Stewart said during an audience Q&A following a conversation with San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub. “He says that instead of ‘please,’ I’m guessing.â€
As reported by the Daily Beast, Stewart, who is set to launch a seven-night comedy tour with Dave Chappelle later this month, offered some advice he gleaned from his years doing political comedy: don’t play into the moral double standard. Explained Stewart, “Please understand that a lot of what the right does, and it’s maybe their greatest genius, is they’ve created a code of conduct that they police, that they themselves don’t have to, in any way, abide.â€
Looking back on his own late-night tenure, Stewart said he was accused of being a “tool of the Obama presidency†after visiting the White House twice during the former POTUS’s two terms, while Trump “spoke to the head of Fox [News] and strategized with him on a weekly basis and uses their on-air talent as advisers.†Warned Stewart, “Don’t get caught in a trap of thinking you can live up to a code of integrity that will be enough for the propagandist right. There isn’t. And so, create your own moral code to live by, but don’t be fooled into trying to make concessions that you think will mollify them.â€
In the end, Stewart said that it might not be possible for liberal or otherwise-Trump-critical voices to “make them give up this ‘we’re the real victims’ game†by being the bigger person and apologizing. Said Stewart, “it’s a game, it’s a strategy and it’s working.†Despite that dire assessment of the political climate, however, Stewart says he’s actually “incredibly optimistic†that the current state of affairs isn’t a permanent climate that we’ll all just have to sweat through forever. After visiting his fellow citizens in some “very conservative communities,†Stewart believes “the divisions that occur are real, but the toxicity is not necessarily.â€