Jon Stewart has spoken out about the various rumours surrounding Donald Trump’s health during this week’s edition of The Daily Show. The 62-year-old US comedian joked that while August is usually a quiet month for news, it wasn’t the case this year as Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Jeffrey Epstein files and Taylor Swift getting engaged dominated the agenda the past weeks.
But he said this all took a backseat to social media conspiracies and rumours surrounding Trump’s health, saying: “Guy can’t take a few days for some R&R and a non-surgical breast reduction without everybody suddenly pulling out the toe tags? It does say something about the ubiquity of Donald Trump in our lives that we don’t hear from him for 20 minutes and we’re like, ‘He’s dead!’ Of course Trump didn’t die in office,” he added. “But I wouldn’t put it past him, trying once again to take credit for something Biden had already accomplished.”
Still, Stewart conceded “something is up with his health.” He admitted that the president was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency earlier this year, a health condition where a person’s leg veins don’t allow blood to flow back to the heart.
Commenting on Trump’s “unsightly cankles” and “lumpy eyes”, Stewart said: “See, this is the problem with our superficial Instagram culture.
“We have unrealistic expectations in this country about the amount of fluid we should be able to clear subcutaneously. It sends the wrong message to young people. These really are not medical appraisals. It’s just more like insults.”
He went on: “It’s not just the physical symptoms that make you think the president is transitioning from this mortal coil. It’s that whenever any of his biggest supporters are with him, it sounds like they’re saying goodbye.
“Once you begin to notice it, you begin to see really the whole vibe around this president is very Make-A-Wish kid. Everyone who shows up to his office makes one of his dreams come true.”
The Make-A-Wish Foundation, established in the United States in 1980, is a charity that grants the wishes of seriously ill children. Actor and WWE wrestler John Cena holds the record, having fulfilled over 650 wishes.
Stewart then highlighted several of these so-called “Make-A-Wish moments,” including Donald Trump being given an honorary badge by the United States Marshals Service, suggestions that he should receive a Nobel Peace Prize, and a Supreme Court decision permitting federal agents to deport people based on their race or language.
“I’m beginning to think Trump isn’t a benign suffering child at all,” Stewart said. “I’m beginning to think everybody treats Trump like this, not because he’s the Make-A-Wish kid, but because he’s that Twilight Zone kid that anytime somebody made him mad, he sent them out to the cornfield.
“For your consideration, a nation held hostage by the fragile ego of a man-baby president, who may or may not be dying of hand syphilis, but is puffy – I don’t know if he’s dying, [but] he’s weirdly puffy – and who we’re trapped with for at least three more years, in the Twilight Zone.”