Delivered on 1/16/2026.
Auto-transcription cleaned up a bit. Some errors are possible.

Watch the segment here. It’s a corker.

Jon Stewart Monologue 1/18/2026

“What the is happening? What the [bleep] is happening in this country? From Minnesota to Venezuela to Iran to Greenland, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia to Philadelphia. Well, well, oh, I’m sorry. Not all the news was bad. Why is the president of the United States declaring on Wikipedia that he is now the president of Venezuela? That’s real. Why is our Fed chairman making what appears to be a hostage video? How does steak become the healthiest food in the country? What is happening? We are on the Donald Trump gravitron. We don’t know what up or down is. We just know it feels like we’re all going to vomit.

Each moment brings another event with cataclysmic implications and consequences. And the guy at the center of it, the instigator, the catalyst of all this chaos and confusion, he’s just out there TGIFing it. Oh, hey, what’s up everybody? Hey, see you soon. Not if I see you first. Boom, boom, boom. Just look at Venezuela. We took it over what, 3 days ago, four days ago, 5 days ago, I don’t remember. Meanwhile, our State Department says if you’re an American, there are armed gangs in Venezuela trying to kill you. So, you would think that maybe this calls for a little gathering in the situation tent or wherever is operationally right for talking about Venezuela right now.

But the president had a different idea. President Trump convening top oil executives at the White House to talk about diving up Venezuela’s oil. What the [bleep] is happening? He has a meeting of all of the most important stakeholders. Exxon, Chevron, Halliburton, and of course the guy from Dune who lives in the oil bar. By the way, I think you can tell I don’t use that treatment. And by the way, lest you worry that Donald Trump is in any way feeling the burden of this moment, the terrifying responsibility of so many lives held in his hands, let me reassure you, he’s fine. Here we are.

And if you, in fact, if you look, come to think of it, well, I got to look at this myself. [Trump gets up and walks to the window]. Sir, and we’re trying to have an urgent meeting on possibly the collapse of a pro state. You just got to walk over to the window, and look at look at Rubio and Vance. Look at look at the faces on Heckle and Jeckle over there. Just look at him smiling like “oh pawpaw, he’s so cute you should see him when the ice cream truck goes by.” What a what a view this is, the door to the ballroom, well, what a job! Really this meeting is the moment for your funny ballroom act them out armed gangs are roaming freely through both of the countries you say you run right now. But go ahead, take a moment to look at what might be through the window. You’re like the Walt Disney of chaos. All it takes is imagination.

And by the way, if you’re getting up and walking through the window and you don’t think that’s enough of a doddering old man move, old man, old cankles McGee had one more chewable Tums up his sleeve. You’re all going to do very well. I think really very well. Marco just gave me a note. Go back to Chevron. They want to discuss something. Go ahead. I’m going back to Chevron Mark. Thank you, Marco. Does anyone else have a private note they’d like me to read aloud? Anybody? Now, by the way, there was an oil company, Exxon, that expressed some reservations about investing money in rebuilding the infrastructure of a country that is uh, and I quote, not ours and is somewhat volatile at the moment. How did the president handle this somewhat rational cost benefit analysis? I’d probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute. They’re playing too cute. You just made yourself the president of Venezuela on Wikipedia, but they’re the ones that are being glib. Do you see how [bleep] up everything is right now? First of all, I have to offend the good faith of an oil company because they don’t think they can safely extract another country’s resources in as cost-effective a manner as might benefit their shareholders. Who am I anymore? And by the way, Donald, why are you the president of Venezuela? Doesn’t your oath of office to America have a non-compete? What are we doing? What are you just trying to pick up a few extra hours? What? The holidays hit you hard. I just need a little couple extra bucks until like February, March. That ballroom’s not going to pay for itself.

Meanwhile, in Iran, protesters have taken to the streets tired of the totalitarian rule of the Mullahs and have been gunned down in the streets. Protests and violence have broken out throughout that country. It is chaotic and fragile. So, guess who’s thinking about stepping right in? That’s right, the president of Venezuela. I have options that are so strong. So, I mean, if they did that, it’ll be met with a very, very powerful force. I have options. Did you hear what he I have options? Not Congress, not the American people. I apparently Trump is the sole factor in all decisions everywhere throughout the world. Now he just wants to take a little more time staring out the window before he lets us know what fresh hell he will unleash next. And the most confusing thing about his reason for intervening in Iran is his reason.

President Trump has warned of striking Iran if the regime kills protesters. There seem to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed. We may have to bomb Iran to prevent Iran’s government from shooting protesters. Look directly into camera with an expression of half bewilderment and despair. P.S. John. Don’t read this part. And if that’s not enough, in the middle of all this, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not. I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way. It’s Greenland. Based on my knowledge, everything there is done the hard way. You know, when you order food in Greenland, Uber Eats takes eight days and they don’t deliver over fjords. So, the point is, people, don’t fill up on Iran and Venezuela and Minneapolis. You got to save room for this other invasion. It’s like a WHOLE MUKBANG OF CATASTROPHIC POSSIBILITIES. It’s exhausting. This is all just one weekend. And why do we even need Greenland? We need Greenland very badly. Why? And why do we suddenly need all of Venezuela’s oil and whatever is buried under Greenland? What is Can I ask a question? Are we broke? Is that why we have to do all this? Did you lose your job? Did you somehow Trump casino the United States? Cuz if the country needs money, we can all get second jobs. We’ll all be presidents somewhere. If Wikipedia will have us. I don’t unerst…Why do we have to take over Greenland? “If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.” We’re already [bleep]. Russia’s already our neighbor. This is where Greenland is. Russia’s closer. Unless in your mind you think Alaska lives in a box next to Hawaii. No, no, no. I get it. I get it. I get it. We don’t want Russia or China to take over Greenland. Oh, you know what we could do to deter it? Not through arrogance or conquest, but what if we formed like kind of an alliance with Denmark and Greenland? We could include all the North Atlantic nations. What would we call this? like almost like a North Atlantic treaty organization that we… I don’t know what we could I guess we’ll never know. But again, since we all now dance to the tune of one piper, what possible justifications could you have for just taking someone else’s land? And please, if you would irony proof your answer. I’m a fan of Denmark, but you know, the fact that they had a boat land there 500 years ago doesn’t mean that they own the land. Can someone pass him a note? How do you think we got our land? We landed here on a boat 500 years ago and it was ours. And you’re out there. Hey, Denmark doesn’t own it because they landed on it 500 years ago. That’s like the argument you make when you want to give land back to the people who were already there, not for you to then take it because you’ve got a bigger boat. You’re doing some weird reverse woke land acknowledgement. I would like to acknowledge that Greenland sits on colonized and conquered indigenous people’s land. And I would also like to say dibs. Why am I even trying, by the way? Why do I even care to figure this out? It’s not like anyone on your side ever takes the effort to convince all of us on uh the United States long-term policy goals. It all just appears to be like a lazy Susan of vengeful whims from our all powerful mad king.

Did you know Trump doesn’t like Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell? Because Trump wants to be able to dictate our country’s interest rates himself. Now this poor Jerome Powell. Now you got him looking like he’s broadcasting from Taliban territory. The Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings. Can someone get this mother a glass of water? And by the way, I don’t feel good about this next joke, but I’m about to do it. It’s not It’s not politically incorrect. It’s just inside finance. So, anyone who doesn’t listen to Bloomberg surveillance in the morning, you can just leave the room. I’ll wait. Okay. Wow, that dude, he’s struggling. It appears the chairman of the Federal Reserve is having a liquidity crisis. That’s going to kill at the terminals!

I’m going to remind you all of this is happening in one weekend. All of it. One weekend. This president has made monumental changes to the manner in which this country operates. And the American people are rightfully feeling a vertigo about how a country born on self-determination and constitutional republic principles can turn into “whatever you say boss, sounds like a good idea boss.” So I think the American people reasonably have questions. But when the American people raise those questions… “Do you think Iran takes your threats seriously.” [Trump:] “What a stupid question. Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? It’s a stupid question. Just a terrible question. You are a terrible reporter. You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter. You know nothing about love. You fake news. Quiet, quiet Piggy.”

How dare we? How dare we? How dare we question his Excellency? I don’t know what we were thinking. You know what? I’m so We owe you an apology, sir. Mr. President, sir, we are so deeply sorry to have questioned your singular and delicate genius. It’s just that this is a kind of an adjustment for us because we’ve all been raised in the American system of government. I’m not going to get into the weeds with it. three co-equal branches of government checks and balances something about quartering soldiers. I think it’s quartering. It’s in cursive. The Q could be a P or an S. The point is this. That’s what we’ve been operating under for the last 250 years. If you want to learn about it, President Trump, you can ask all your acolytes. They say they keep it in their pockets. I guess it’s kind of a relic. So just have to give us some time to adjust to this new world of total compliance so we can understand the rules because you know it’s confusing. Like for instance, we all watched the footage of January 6th. But I think we may have gotten a very different interpretation of it rather than the correct interpretation of it, which of course is yours. So help me out here. We’ll play a game.

On January 6th, a bunch of they were peaceful people. These were great people went to the capital peacefully protesting a stolen election. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love. But while they were there, Capitol Hill police officers instigated the violence that day. So the people we saw earlier beating the [bleep] out of police officers were hardworking, loving people provoked by law enforcement and ultimately they deserve a full pardon. Got it. Don’t agree that’s what actually happened or what should have happened afterwards, but at least it sets a precedent.

But now let’s jump ahead. I don’t know a day to January 7th. We’ve all seen that footage. I think I know what I saw that day, too. But let’s go through it again with the correct interpretation. On January 7th, a highly disrespectful, deranged lunatic woman, professional ICE agitator, domestic terrorist, did what? This woman used her car as a weapon and tried to run over an ICE agent, an attempted murder, and so she was shot and killed. So while very little of the descriptions that you were saying matched what we all saw on the tape, the important lesson here is what she brought it upon herself. Mother, we are in a confusing dark place and this is where quite frankly rule of law and institutions are kind of an important framework. But now that those are gone, what’s our north star? Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to? Yeah, there’s one thing. My own morality, my own mind. So, nothing. But thank you. I’m no longer confused. Couldn’t be more clear. In America today, Donald Trump is the sun. And if you revolve around him and worship him, his warmth shines upon you. You could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose his support as long as it’s done on his behalf. But if you do not support him, if you live in the darkness of what I guess we will refer to from now on as blue states, fearing the day he turns his terrible wrath towards you, whether you’re a single human woman on a side street somewhere in Minneapolis or a sovereign nation that happens to have land and resources that we, a larger sovereign nation, think we also might want. And so his people are making a bet that adhering to a principle of forced compliance and coercion will give us a more stable and prosperous America than a principle of shared alliance and common interest. It’s kind of a tough bet because uh I read somewhere I don’t know where that people have inalienable rights granted by a creator not a king. So holding that coerced world together it’s going to be kind of a tall task. But if anybody’s up for it, it’s Donald Trump. A man with unrivaled focus and discipline. Actually, you know what? Could you give me a second? I’m just, you know, I’m so curious. [Goes to window] I just want to just go and see….”

End of segment

If America – including Congress – does not rise up and put an end to this madness, our Republic, which was handed to us by the founders, will have truly been lost. We’re already on the cusp of losing it, by having elected this mad conman not once, but twice. May God have mercy on us all.

The Old Wolf has spoken.