Jon Stewart lashed out against the media’s “left-right blame game” during Monday’s show, after four people died in a mass shooting at a church in Michigan.
The comedian also criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the country’s gun crisis, which saw a total of six mass shootings taking place on September 29.
In his opening monologue on The Daily Show, Stewart first expressed sympathy towards the victims in each shooting and described the attack in Michigan as “terrible.”
The attack saw gunman Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the community of Grand Blanc.
After setting the building ablaze and killing four people, he was shot dead by police within eight minutes of the shooting beginning.
Investigators are currently trying to determine Sanford’s motives, while President Donald Trump branded the attack “yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America,” on Truth Social.
In response, Stewart slammed both the commander-in-chief and the media’s response to the six mass shootings.
He said that news outlets sympathetic to both the Republicans and Democrats wanted to play a game called “Is it one of yours?” as they tried to determine the shooter’s motives.
Stewart added that the media cared more about who had committed the shootings, rather than the root causes of the country’s gun violence epidemic.
“Honestly, who the f*** cares? These mass shootings do not fit neatly into our left-right paradigm.
“Mass shootings are probably caused by a complex fusion of mental health and access to weapons and attention-seeking, delusional nihilism married to an algorithmic underworld that sets these horrific acts in motion,” he said, in an impassioned plea to his audience.
The host also tore into the idea that the rhetoric used by each political party is driving the spike in gun violence.
He pointed to Republican politicians, claiming that Charlie Kirk’s assassination was caused by Democrats calling far-right influencers “Nazis.”
Conversely, Democrats suggested Kirk’s violent rhetoric against trans people had motivated the shooter.
“To suggest that we don’t need to tackle any complex, deep-rooted issues haunting American society; we just need to stop saying a few choice bad words and all our mentally broken young men will be fine, is not realistic,” he said.
“I don’t think rhetoric is getting people killed, honestly.
“I don’t think any of these psychotic mother-f***** that are doing this are watching MSNBC.
“I mean, I’m only judging from the ratings,” he added.
Stewart then switched his attention to Donald Trump’s response to the ongoing gun crisis in America.
As of August 2025, 308 people have been killed in mass shootings throughout the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
This week, Trump has directed the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, instead of any of the cities affected by the recent shootings.
Yesterday, there were two shootings in North Carolina, two in Louisiana, one in Texas, in addition to the Michigan shooting. There were no mass shootings in Oregon on September 29.
“You’ve got the right country,” Stewart conceded in a despairing joke.
Then, he pointed to an interview that Trump gave to NBC News after Oregon’s governor showed him footage of the prosperous city, despite Trump calling it “war-ravaged.”
“Wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?” Trump asked.
Stewart replied by asking, in his monologue, what the president might be watching on TV.
“A., I don’t think any of us know what you’re watching on television, but, if it’s Game of Thrones, I’d say yes.
“Conditions in Portland may vary.
“And, B., this explains so much about the governing philosophy of the Trump administration,” he said.
