Jon Stewart says Trump's 2020 campaign strategy is 'all fear mongering'
Stewart says the campaign will be "the single most divisive" ever faced.
Comedian Jon Stewart slammed President Donald Trump's reelection campaign while backing former Vice President Joe Biden's run for president during his appearance on "The View" Monday.
The former host of "The Daily Show" is known for his political commentary as well as his push for the 9/11 victim compensation fund in July 2019. On the Emmy-winning daytime talk show Monday, he criticized the president's 2020 campaign.
"What's Donald Trump going to run on, his record? That's not going to happen," Stewart said.
"This is going to be the single most divisive campaign we've ever faced," Stewart said of Trump's reelection campaign. "He's gonna be meth-head Nixon," he continued. "He's going to be southern strategy, all fear-mongering. We see it right now."
Stewart went on to say that Trump is "basically just sitting in his basement tweeting out the fear-based trolling videos," referencing the president's retweet of a protest video in which a supporter shouts "white power." He deleted the retweet hours later.
"Right now, we have a president who professes that he loves America, but apparently hates about 53% of the people living in it," Stewart said. "We need a break. This guy's exhausting."
Stewart said the main thing that's "impressed" him about Biden is "he's a guy who has faced great hardship and grief in his life." He was referring to the death of Biden's first wife and his 1-year-old daughter, who were killed in a car accident over 40 years ago, and Biden's son Beau Biden's brain cancer in 2015.
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"Grief humbles a person in a way... There's no artifice to that," Stewart said. "We need a leader right now of humility. We certainly have the antithesis of that."
Stewart also weighed in on the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen a surge across several states in the U.S.
"When you talk about the pandemic and all the challenges we face, I think the greatest agent of chaos in this country today is the president, which is bananas," Stewart said. "There's a whole undercurrent that this pandemic is a hoax or a power grab. This is real, and it's brutal."
On the idea that requiring people to wear a mask when in public places "is somehow government overreach," Stewart compared it to the surgeons not wearing gloves and masks during surgeries. "Have you been in operating rooms? Surgeons wear masks, not because they listen to NPR and drive Volvos. They wear masks because that's more sanitary."
"It doesn't make sense. We're so dysfunctional. It's beyond maddening," Stewart continued. "This is a time where leadership is so crucial. People are truly suffering, not just for the illness, but economically, and you need leadership that has the humility to know that we are facing something we haven't faced, who doesn't think they have all the answers, and this isn't just about re-election politics."
Every episode of ABC's award-winning talk show "The View" is now available as a podcast! Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Stitcher or the ABC News app.
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