Jon Stewart is ripping into politicization of L.A. wildfire disaster.
On Monday night’s episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Stewart laid into conservative critics of California leadership. Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have been particularly targeted due to some of their preparedness decisions before the fires, as well as their public reactions after the worst blaze in the city’s history broke out. The multiple fires have killed 24 people and are estimated to be the costliest blaze in U.S. history.
Stewart particularly took aim (video below) at congressional republicans seeking to attach wildfire aid to a federal debt limit increase and saying democratic leaders in California need to agree to make changes to their policies first (“I expect there will be strings attached to money that’s ultimately approved … there can’t be a blank check on this,” said Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso among a series of clips).
“The problem now is Republicans appear to want to attach their ‘I told you so’s’ as a condition of funding California’s disaster relief,” Stewart said. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Really, senator from Alabama — the state near the bottom in math, reading and test scores — next time you get hit by a hurricane, why don’t we have a little parent-teacher conference to say that if you got your scores up, you would get the money? Or actually, let’s not do that, because you’ll get the money anyway — because we’re not psychos. That is psychotic.”
“I can do The Daily Show thing, I can run down all the congresspeople and senators on the right calling for conditions on disaster aid that absolutely had the opposite view when it was their state on the line,” Stewart continued. “I’m not even going do it because red states are always the tragic victims of circumstance outside of their control, and Democrats always vote for their aid. Whereas blue state disasters are a function of their flawed morality and policy. And if we help blue state survivors, what message will that send?”
“I don’t know what kind of a system you can develop that completely mitigates the risk of fire, plus drought conditions, plus 60-to-80 mile per hour winds, plus delicious wood,” he added. “These people don’t actually care. They’re not actually trying to find a solution. They’re just trying to work their pet issues into this tragic situation.”
One of Stewart’s jabs rang a bit hollow, however — mocking the widespread criticism that better forest and brush management might have helped prevent or slow the fires, when experts have repeatedly said that this is an actual issue that has not been properly addressed. “You have to rake the leaves, shut down, the illegal elf tree cookie,” he sarcastically said and then showed a clip of a raging inferno. “Fire fucked a tornado! Rake your way out of that!”
Stewart also defended L.A. fire chief Kristin Crowley, who has been attacked by some on the right for simply being gay, despite her record of lobbying for more funding for the department. “To the right, drought conditions, high winds, and densely stacked flammable structures were all fine — until they added the lesbians,” he said.
Even Stewart, however, didn’t rush to the defense of embattled L.A. Mayor Bass. “I’m not saying she’s Churchill,” Stewart said.
“Yes, improvements can be made in leadership, in management, in design, in materials, in myriad ways,” he summed up. “But sometimes fires fucks a tornado and makes a mockery of human infrastructure and our ability to dictate the terms of our existence on this planet. But the one thing it shouldn’t dictate is the cruelty that we would show to those in pain, because we don’t think they consistently vote right.”
English (US) ·