Jon Stewart Reflects on White House Correspondents’ Dinner: ‘Like Most Things in America, It Was Interrupted by Gunfire’

Jon Stewart recounted the chaos at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was interrupted by a shooter. Donald and Melania Trump were rushed off the stage inside the Washington Hilton ballroom and evacuated, and the event was canceled.

“It was supposed to be an evening of fun and merriment until, like most things in America, it was interrupted by gunfire,” Stewart recounted on Monday. “This is why we can’t have nice things. And to be perfectly frank, it’s not even a nice thing. Nobody wanted this fucking dinner in the first place. We’re so fucked in this country right now. We can’t even pull off a dinner that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Hey, let’s celebrate the First Amendment with an administration that’s doing everything it can do to destroy it.”

Stewart recapped the multitude of reactions in the ballroom after the incident, which included people grabbing bottles of wine on the way out and someone continuing to eat as people hid under tables. “There have been times I have been very worried about artificial intelligence and whether or not it’s going to replace us,” Stewart responded. “And then there are other times where I think, ‘Hey, AI, can you start Monday?'”

The host also noted that many members of the Trump administration “revealed their true colors” as they exited the ballroom. He called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for “dropping a smoldering Blue Steel,” but primarily focused on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who appeared to leave his wife, Cheryl Hines, behind.

“RFK Jr. being whisked away by a Secret Service hive, who apparently couldn’t spare one worker bee for, I don’t know, his wife,” Stewart said. “Do you see right there? There’s a group of men carrying another man out of the room. And then there’s a woman, who appears to be desperately reaching out for someone to care, to help her. The woman reaching up in agony and fear, that’s RFK Jr.’s wife.”

He added, “By the way, if there’s one guy in that entire room who seems like they would be impervious to physical damage, it’s fucking RFK Jr. Look at this guy. He literally looks like a guy who is trapped between being Bruce Banner and the Hulk.”

Elsewhere during the show, Stewart welcomed Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who was covering the event for The Daily Show. Triumph appeared wearing a gold “hero” medal. “I’m not the person who likes to throw around the word hero,” he told Stewart. “But after Saturday I can’t help not only throw it around, but put it on a medal and have it printed at Staples.”

“Were you worried about getting killed?” Stewart asked. “Yes,” Triumph replied. “But mostly because I didn’t want RFK Jr. to eat my carcass. It’s not the way you want to go, Jon.”