- Jon Stewart's impassioned "Daily Show" monologue ended with an on-air injury.
- Stewart began by suggesting ways that DOGE could cut costs and save money.
- As he criticized government-funded pharmaceutical subsidies, Stewart smashed his mug and cut his hand.
Jon Stewart's fiery "Daily Show" monologue criticizing DOGE's cost-cutting measures briefly went off the rails, leaving the host with a bloody hand.
In his Monday night monologue, Stewart called out the recent actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is run by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
"Cutting money shouldn't be this hard," Stewart said. "I'm starting to think that we as a country don't understand where the real waste fraud and abuse in our system really is."
"Let me join DOGE. I'm gonna see if I can noodle some ideas here," Stwart said, putting a bunch of props, including a "word's most dad" mug, a calculator, and a notepad, on his desk.
"How about we just take $3 billion in subsidies we give to oil and gas companies that already turn billions in profits," Stewart sarcastically suggested. "How long did that take?"
The host didn't stop there. Instead, he continued to offer alternative ways to save money.
"Oh, wait! How about we just close down the carried interest loophole on hedge funds? That's $1.3 billion a year," Stewart continued. "How about we stop the $2 trillion dollars we've given to defense contractors to build a fighter jet that blows, when everybody knows the next war is going to be fought with drones and blockchains, whatever that is! Holy shit! I can't believe it! I just saved us billions of dollars in 11 seconds!"
Stewart said that pharmaceutical companies receive plenty of government funding, and in exchange, people pay "the highest drug prices in the Western hemisphere."
"But you know what's so horrible about our system now? And the corruption that lays within it?" Stewart asked. "We're so fucking numb to it, we actually tout tiny cracks in that exploitation as victory."
Stewart showed an old clip of former US President Joe Biden celebrating negotiations with Medicare to lower the cost of 10 drugs to illustrate his point.
"Ooh, can it be? The companies we subsidize with billions of dollars are allowing us the privilege of negotiating the price of 10 of their drugs," Stewart said sarcastically.
"And 10 is all of them, right? It would be embarrassing if it was a small drop in the bucket and that the American people didn't expect that we should negotiate for all their fucking drugs! Because we've already paid for 'em with our subsidies!" Stewart said, smashing his mug with his right hand around the 17:00 mark of the monologue.
Then, Stewart briefly glanced at his bleeding hand and hid it behind his desk to continue the segment.
"I'll be going to the hospital soon," he joked, before continuing with his rant about pharmaceutical companies. Later, near the end of the monologue, Stewart pulled his hand back up on the desk, and the crowd reacted to the sight of it completely covered in blood.
"It's fine!" he yelled with a laugh.
Whatever happened to his hand, Stewart has seemingly lived to tell the tale. Stewart poked fun at the mishap on X, writing: "We're back! New Daily Show tonight! It's a bloody good episode…emphasis on bloody…I'm an idiot…"
