Trump Spins Dinner Shooting for Ballroom Agenda & Blitzer Is CNN's One-Shoed Hero | The Daily Show

Welcome to The Daily Show. My name is Jon Stewart. We got an unbelievable show for you tonight. It's why I like doing the Monday shows. Because all the news accumulates over the weekends.

-$1,000. -$1,000.

Somebody in the audience asked me, why do you do the Monday shows? I go, I don't know. And she goes, somebody behind her goes, oh, it's because the news accumulates over the weekend. And I go, yeah, that's it. Later on tonight, we'll also be joined by author

and journalist Jody Kantor from the failing New York Times.

-♪♪♪♪ She's actually written an article

about the failing Supreme Court. But first, um... I'm gonna... about the failing Supreme Court. But first, um... Let's begin, obviously, with the big news. The White House Correspondents' Dinner. It was supposed to be an evening of fun and merriment until, like most things in America,

it was interrupted by gunfire. This is why we can't have nice things. And to be perfectly frank, it's not even a nice thing. Nobody wanted this f*****g dinner in the fir- Nobody needed- We're so f*****g 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. Sounds great. Should we hold the dinner in a secure location? Well, we could.

Or, you know what? Why not just the Hilton? Let's just, you know what? Let's not hold it in a secure location. Let's go to the Hilton. You know the Hilton slogan?

More hard to defend entry points than rooms. Why do you do it? And now fortunately and amazingly, no fatalities. Nobody was really hurt. But make no mistake, in crisis situations like this, people tend to show you who they really are. And who the elite of Washington, D.C. are is...

ee-ee-ee-ee. Like this influencer whose caption says, Shoot her at the White House correspondent dinner! But whose duck face says... -♪ Coachella. ♪

-♪ Coachella. ♪ -♪ Coachella. ♪ -♪ Coachella. ♪

-♪ Coachella. ♪ Or these hard-nosed Washington insiders who made sure, in a life-or-death situation, to grab the things most dear to them, the bottle service.

What?

If only I had more time, I could have saved the rosé. And then, of course, there was this guy.

Check this video out. The left side of your screen, this man, creative artist, agent, super agent, Michael Glantz, has gone viral for eating food casually as people are crouched down after this shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Excuse me, excuse me, wait a minute. When you're done incapacitating the assassin, I would love some more ranch dressing. It'd be a doll if you could, a refill. Some lady took my wine. If you could. There have been times when I have been very worried about artificial intelligence and whether or not it's going to replace us.

And then there are other times where I think, hey, AI, can you start Monday? I mean, but I got to tell you, nobody revealed their true colors more than the Trump administration. From J.D. Vance's Dancing With the Stars quick-step exit... to Pete Hegseth dropping a smoldering blue steel.

Hello.

To R.F.K. Jr. being whisked away by a Secret Service hive who apparently couldn't spare one worker bee for, I don't know, his wife. Did you see it? Do you see right there? There's a group of men carrying another man out of the room,

and then there's a woman. A woman who appears to be, I'm not a, obviously, desperately reaching out for someone to care, to help her. That's, the woman reaching up in agony and fear, that's RFK Jr.'s wife.

Bobby!

Rarr-arr-arr-arr-arr-arr-arr. Rarr-arr-arr-arr-arr-arr. Rarr-arr-arr-arr-arr.

And by the way, by the way, if there's one guy in that entire room who seems like they would be impervious to physical damage, it's f-ing R.F.K. Jr. Look at this guy. He literally looks like a guy who is trapped

between being Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

-♪♪

He's in the middle. He can't go either way. It's like the gamma radiation just stabilized in the middle of the transformation. Now I'm just uncomfortable. How f***ed up is that scene? How f***ed up is that scene? How fucked up is that scene?

May I show you the tape again? I want to show you something. Pay attention to the foreground. Something's about to happen. I want to show it to you. Hold on. It's not there. They're whisking RFK out.

It's right... Freeze! Freeze! Freeze! Freeze! Okay. The guy right there shielding the pregnant woman from danger, that's Stephen Miller and his wife. Stephen Miller carefully protecting his wife. See, RFK?

Turned out, that's an option. You can protect your wife instead of, I don't know, beating her to the escape pod. And the guy who outshined you is Stephen f***ing Miller. That's who outshined you. That's who was more chivalrous. Stephen Miller, a guy who probably jerks off to the new Faces of Death movie.

And now for the rest of your life, your wife is going to ask you a question no one's ever asked before, ever. Why can't you be more like Steven Miller?

Why?

Why can't you be more?

But no. There goes RFK. Why? Why can't you be more...

But no. There goes RFK. Just leaving it... Looks like we got a new addition to the Kennedy family abandoning women to their fate Wikipedia page. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Too soon? Or... or too many? You know what?

And here's the other thing. I don't want any more of your punch the monkey nonsense either. I have had it. Seriously, I'm not wrong. Look it up.

F***.

Now, obviously not everybody left their lady behind. Some went to look for their lady and still got bad news.

The New York Times writes, the FBI director Kash Patel came tearing across the hallway

with two men in tow. His girlfriend was hiding in a room with another man who was holding her hand.

Did you have to add that? Was that a necessary detail to add to the story? Kash Patel's girlfriend, I was in a room, a man gently caressing her arm, the man's muscular chest heaving with anticipation as he bellowed, I'll protect you, Kash Patel's girlfriend.

You know the person I felt the most sorry for,

honestly, the whole night? Probably the featured performer of the evening. Mentalist Oze Perlman. He was a mentalist. He was gonna perform. It's probably the biggest opportunity for visibility that the mentalist community has ever had.

And then, in the middle of it, pow pow pow, the whole thing goes.

Caroline Leavitt, the press secretary, said, challenged me, said, I'm having a baby next week, and she goes, can you guess what I'm naming my daughter? And I was guessing letter by letter

how many letters were in the name. Is there anything more compelling... than a mentalist or magician just describing to you verbally a trick that he would have done. And that if you had been there, would have been cool.

I'm sorry I interrupted. And then I right at the moment where you see it happen, I wrote down the name. And I said, how did I do and I turned around and that's when you see the first lady go, oh! Yeah, that's right. That's when the shooting happened. That gasp wasn't, he nailed it.

It was, that was gunfire! And by the way, the shooting happened just as the mentalist was revealing the name of Carolyn Levitt's unborn child, which, as amazing as that might have been, one would have thought that a more timely revelation

would have been to write something on the card like, -"Everybody run." -$10,000.

-$10,000. $10,000. $10,000. $10,000. $10,000. $10,000.

There's... Just hold on. I'm gonna... to explain that fear was definitely not the emotion he was feeling. I wasn't worried. I could see what was going on at the door. I also saw a lot of very strong, physically strong,

really attractive law enforcement people come through those doors. Does... does that matter? Is that part of how we're trying... Look, I don't want my life saved by a six. I don't want some pig face walking. We gotta go, Mr. President. Not with you, friend.

Not happening. But how did it feel, you surrounded by really attractive law enforcement? And frankly, it made me feel very safe. Yeah, I'm not sure safe was the emotion. Yeah, I saw them come in, and I felt myself get safe as a rock. They were so attractive. Safe as a rock.

That's why I didn't stand up to run. Took a moment to think about baseball. But Trump wasn't only impressed with the officers' good looks or their asses being so taut that any shooter's bullets would have just bounced right off of them. He was also impressed with their skill.

They drew those guns so fast, looked like... they looked like Matt Dillon.

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Wow.

Now... I... I know... I know what you're thinking. Um...

Uh... Uh...

Matt... Matt Dillon? Is Donald Trump so old, he's confusing the guy from Something About Mary with Matt Damon from the Bourne movies? But it's not true. Trump is actually so old, he's not confused at all.

He's referencing Marshall Matt Dillon from the Gunsmoke TV show. A show that I'm too young to have watched. Yeah. This. Look at this. Are you seeing this? I'm too young to know that show.

Now, by the way, you may have noticed Trump's demeanor, very conciliatory and pleasant towards the reporter. Perhaps this is the new Trump.

I don't know if I can ever be as rough as I was gonna be tonight. I was gonna really rip it last night. I was talking about everybody.

And then they said, well, my speech is gonna be much different.

It'll be a speech of love.

Love. His perspective has completely changed. Until... See if you can spot the moment in the Norah O'Donnell interview where Trump decides, nah, f**k that.

The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this, quote, administration officials, they are targets. And he also wrote this. I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his

crimes.

Did you catch it? It's just one of those Jim from the office camera takes.

I'm not.

Yeah.

Remember that nice thing? God, I'm not... Yeah, that's... Yeah. -♪ ♪

Remember that nice thing?

Yeah, no. Mm.

Now, to be fair to Trump, why would you read out loud the would-be assassin's political take? I think once you go vigilante, you forfeit the platform. I'm sorry. But she got the sound bite she was looking for.

Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you're horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody.

I'm not a pedophile.

Do you think he was referring to you?

Excuse me, excuse me.

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh, my. Oh, Lord. I mean, I was just reading you the Assassin Manifesto. I had no idea you would think he was referring to you.

Lord have mercy.

But you know what? Maybe this is a moment where Trump will rise up. These events clearly point out that we have a problem in this country at the nexus of mental health and the availability of powerful weapons. And maybe, just maybe, this sobering night will spur a movement for some solutions.

We looked at all of the conditions that took place tonight, and, uh...

I didn't want to say this.

I know what he's gonna say. We need to put a shit-ton of money towards mental health and getting illegal weapons off the streets. That's what he's gonna say. Or, I'm no mentalist.

Did you have... Did you... Did you have something else in mind?

It's actually a larger room and it's much more secure. It's got, it's drone proof, it's bulletproof glass.

We need the ballroom.

Yeah, that's a great solution to gun violence. For you, what about the un-ballroomed rest of us? Malls, churches, schools, synagogue, wherever. Not every town can have a ballroom. Didn't you even see Footloose? A ballroom?

That's the solution? That is the dumbest f***ing idea I have ever heard. No one is gonna go along with that.

The ballroom will be a solution for this.

I think we got to build that ballroom as soon as possible.

The ballroom makes total sense.

A ballroom is imperative for a lot of reasons.

The president needs the ballroom.

Let's build a ballroom and just all dance like no one's shooting. That was my jazz hands, by the way. That's as far as my hands go jazz. But back to the dinner itself. The incident happened in a room full of journalists and there was one fact the media could report on with certainty.

Their heroes.

You really saw the best of the entire DC press corps on display.

Journalists who immediately sprung into action to cover this historic moment.

Credit to the journalists by the way who continue to do their jobs in that room.

Thank goodness for all of us trying to do our jobs.

The journalistic heroes of the evening. You know, we should have an awards dinner just for us.

You know what's a great place to do it?

The Hilton.

But, as always, one hero rose above them all.

Can we just give Wolf Blitzer some praise and some credit?

And of course you, Wolf, saw it closer up than anybody else, and we're so glad you're okay, and you did the extraordinary journalism that you're known for.

Wolf, you are an international treasure.

Wolf, you were the first to tell the world what actually had happened.

I have to say we are lucky that we have a reporter like you who happened to bear witness. You have some people who are legends for a reason. Wolf Blitzer is one of those people.

Did Wolf Blitzer die on Saturday? Yes, undoubtedly, the MVP of the news turbation that was this weekend was CNN's Wolf Blitzer. All right, Wolf, walk us through the attack.

We had just finished the first chorus, which was a delicious salad, the president was having. Uh, but, uh, after the first chorus, which was a good salad...

We had just finished appetizers.

-... -...

Oh, f-!

This is dangerously blurring the line Oh, f**k. This is dangerously blurring the line between reporter and old man at event. We were the salad was delicious. I'm sorry, what were you asking? I'm sorry. Let's try and stay away from the food stuff.

Let's get back to the more salient details.

And I walked away to go out to the men's room. I was going to go to the men's room, which you had to go up one level of stairs.

The men's room was outside the ballroom. You had to go up one flight of stairs to get there.

It's a good men's room.

It's a good men's room, it's.

everybody has to go as they leave it's a bottleneck it creates a bottleneck. It creates a bo... Come on, Blitzer! What happened?

As I'm leaving the men's room to come back to the ballroom,

all of a sudden, to my left, I hear gunshots.

Boom, boom. The next thing I knew, a police officer pushed me to the ground.

There we go. That's what I'm... Now we're in the shit. That's what I'm talking about. Now we're in the shit. That's what I'm talking about. All right, what happened next?

One of my shoes came off and it took me a while to find that shoe later. One of my shoes fell off and now I have that shoe back. I was walking around for a while without a shoe. Oh my God.

It was just a sock.

But you got it back. I was doing live shots with just one shoe. I was doing live shots with one shoe. Wow. No!

Focus! Don't go... Fight it, old man! Fight it! But, yeah, every journalist on the scene last night was a bona fide hero. And by the way, I'm including The Daily Show in that

and our own intrepid reporter that we actually sent to that dinner.

Triumph the insult comic dog, who is on the red carpet for the White House Correspondents' Dinner, trying to get interviews along with the rest of the press. Can't miss Triumph the insult comic dog trying to...

ha-ha-ha...

cracking some jokes, no doubt, at Secretary Rubio.

Why is Triumph here?

I am... I am covering the red carpet. And I don't mean Jen Psaki.

Oh!

To talk more about his experience, please welcome our own intrepid reporter, Triumph, the Insult Comic doc.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Look at that. Look at that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Look at that. Look at that. Thank you so much. Nice to see you. Oh yes. So, so, so, so, Triumph.

Yes, John. How do you feel after being at this dinner on Saturday?

Well, you know, John, I'm not the person who likes to throw around the word hero. But after Saturday, I can't help not only likes to throw around the word hero.

I can see that.

evening. Yeah, you got to admit hero is a little bit much, yes? Oh, so what? Wolf Blitzer's a hero? Oh, he reported without one shoe.

Seriously, man, I'm out there with my balls hanging out. Were you worried about, to be honest, getting killed?

Yes, but mostly because I didn't want RFK Jr. to eat my carcass. It's not the way you want to go, John.

Not the way you want to go.

But you know, I have to tell you, the larger issue Yes. The larger issue we continue to have is gun violence and no effort to pass legislation to stop it John John John no it's please don't do this don't politicize a political event I'm not it's not I'm not politicizing a tribe it is a fact it is a fact that in America another event is ruined by gun violence. And we're lucky this time.

No, I'm gonna keep talking. It's... No, I'm...

I'm not... I'm not... No, I'm not...

-♪♪

I... John.

Now is not the time.

Now is not the time.

Can I ask you a question? Did you wipe your feet when you came in?

I used the same bathroom as Wolf Blitzer.

-♪♪

Trying to clear your throat. You're still traumatized.

Yes. I went through so much. Yes. I contacted HR and told them I'm going to need an emotional support dog. Yes. Preferably a poodle who's into butt stuff.

You know, a lot of people bring up the fact that we do also have a hate speech problem in this country. Do you think it's time we all take a look in the mirror? You know, there is talk about how we have to take the temperature down and then we have to... Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. I have, yes, I'm yes.

I have like 5 more jokes to get through.

Then you can talk about temperature.

What else.

As I was saying John.

It was dramatic. Everything is still so fresh.

bullets. The commands of the Secret Service, the satisfied moans of Kash Patel's girlfriend coming from the closet.

But thank you so much, Shreve. We'll have your full report on the show tomorrow.

Oh, yes. Thank you so much.

You're really disgusting.

No, that's not true.

You've aged horribly.

You look jewier than ever. You look jewier than ever.

No, that's so sad. It's really awful.