“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart warmed up his closing appeal to voters with a bar of “Les Misérables,” then dropped any pretense that he was neutral about the midterms.
Stewart handed his Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, episode to President Donald Trump’s closing message and to Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, who endorsed Republican Mike Rogers over Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in a video posted Sunday, Nov. 1.
“The Daily Show” gave each of its hosts a single night during midterms week: Stewart on Monday with guest Michael Lewis, Ronny Chieng on Election Night, Tuesday, Nov. 3, Michael Kosta on Wednesday and Jordan Klepper on Thursday. The show tapes before polls close, so Tuesday’s episode cannot respond to the results, leaving Wednesday as the effective post-midterms episode.
Talking About the Pool Itself
Trump delivered his closing message in a speech at the Reflecting Pool and talked mainly about the pool, describing the color of its bottom as “a beautiful dark blue, very dark blue. They call it American black blue.”
Stewart built his show open around it. “That was the president of the United States on the day before the midterms, choosing to make a speech at the reflecting pool to talk about the reflecting pool. No symbolism. No metaphors. Just straight-up pool,” he said.
Endorsing Rogers From the Car
Stevens appeared to film her endorsement video from behind the wheel, which Stewart seized on immediately. “Is her car in a ditch? Is she endorsing Mike Rogers after getting in a car accident?” he asked.
He was no kinder to the substance of it. “That says why you’re mad at Abdul, but not why you’re for Rogers,” Stewart said, calling Rogers “a nightmare.”
Stewart then turned to the Michigan congresswoman’s Sunday, Nov. 1, appearance on CNN with Anderson Cooper. “You see what you just did there, Haley Stevens? Are you happy with yourself? You just turned Anderson Cooper into Andy Cohen,” he said. “He didn’t want to sass you. He’s a newsman.”
The Plea After the Show Tune
Stewart recorded his final pre-midterms plea for his podcast “The Weekly Show,” singing a snippet of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from “Les Misérables” before getting to it. A clip went out on social media Tuesday, Oct. 27, a week before the Nov. 3 elections, and the full episode aired Wednesday, Oct. 28.
“It’s the election,” Stewart said on the podcast. “This is the last time that we will speak before the election, and I just want to urge everybody out there to please, please — for the love of God — get out there and vote and express your political opinion.”
The polite framing lasted about half the plea. “I’d like to frame it as, ‘However you’ll vote,’ but I don’t mean that,” he said. “I mean it as, ‘Please send a message to this reckless ****show of an administration that enough is enough, that we have had it, that it is time for someone to step up and provide, I believe the framers referred to them as checks and balances, on this utterly imperious administration.’”
The rest of the episode steered away from the campaign and toward a financial apocalypse built around artificial intelligence, Stewart told listeners.
In an earlier “Weekly Show” episode, he warned that flipping Congress would be the easy part, because Democrats would then be obliged to act on the cost of living. “They’re going to have to deliver,” Stewart said, speaking about minority leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, both New York Democrats. Opposition to Trump cannot be the party’s entire personality, he argued, and it needs a prescription for rebalancing the economy.
Stewart also pushed back on impeachment talk, saying he had no appetite for a five-act performative run of House hearings that lets everyone pantomime accountability. Investigations are fine, he said, but they belong behind the problems killing people right now — in the waiting room. His bet is that Trump would simply outlast them anyway. What he wants instead is a full government effort at rebalancing labor against capital.
From Yogi Bear to Camp Lejeune
Stewart devoted his Monday, Oct. 26, monologue to the president’s closing argument, opening with a clip of a Fox News reporter cutting away from a young Trump rallygoer who named inflation and the instability of the Iran war as his top concerns. Trump chose to talk about oil company profits, veterans, a Muslim candidate and a campaign ad in Ohio.
At his Oct. 25 rally in Port Huron, Mich., the president praised rapper Nicki Minaj’s “beautiful” backside, tucking into the explanation an aside that his earlier comments about Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s rear end were meant in fun and taken out of context by the news media. Minaj, a Trump supporter, flew to the rally with the president on Air Force One. Stewart put up a photo of Trump standing behind her as she spoke and said: “He’s like Yogi Bear floating towards a pie on a windowsill.”
The monologue darkened from there. Trump attacked El-Sayed, the surging progressive Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, and defended an ad from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign that features the estranged mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton calling her daughter a liar. Acton and that mother have not spoken in 50 years. Trump attacked NBC reporter Monica Alba for asking about the ad.
Stewart closed the stretch with a clip of the president threatening that if Republicans lose, Camp Lejeune veterans with cancer caused by contaminated drinking water would not receive the settlement money they were legally awarded.
