Lefty comedian John Stewart took a shot at establishment Democrats after the party regained both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s historic midterm sweep – arguing it’s time to tear down the “bullsh-t system” ruled by the old guard.
“The Daily Show” host applauded Democrats’ resounding “blue tsunami” that saw the party flip seats across the country — but warned the “victory means nothing if squandered” and said it was time for Sen. Chuck Schumer to surrender his leadership role.
“Job one of this opportunity is to tear down the obstacles and old way of thinking that got us into this mess. Someone has to meet this moment, and they have got to show – and this moment is not, ‘Oh, we get to impeach everybody.’ Like, f—k that,” Stewart railed on the latest episode of his podcast “The Weekly Show.”
“You have an opportunity to actually govern. Do it. Take it,” Stewart continued. “And one of the first things you need to do is remove that system of seniority from Democratic politics. It is a bulls—t system and it needs to go.
“They’re already like, ‘Chuck Schumer deserves a lot of credit for putting together this…’ Chuck Schumer deserves—Chuck Schumer fought tooth and nail against half of these f–king people!” he said.
“And even if he didn’t, he does not understand the urgency of the moment and what the future demands. I truly believe that.”
Schumer is facing a potential mutiny after nearly a decade of leading the party as a number of newly-elected Democrats have already indicated that they would not support Schumer as Senate Majority Leader when the new Congress convenes in January.
Kansas Sen. Elect Adam Hamilton, the first federally elected Democrat from Kansas in nearly a century, has said he would not support Schumer.
Other Democrat senators-elect Troy Jackson in Maine, Julianna Stratton in Illinois, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, also don’t appear to be backing the 75-year-old Brooklynite.
Schumer, meanwhile, seems confident he’ll remain head of the party, telling reporters on Wednesday that the issues the incoming lawmakers and their supporters have had with the party are not about him, Fox News reported.
“The issue is not me,” Schumer said. “I’ll be re-elected as majority leader, but the issue is focusing on the American people and what they want.”
Stewart, 63, previously attacked Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in September, when he said if Democrats do retake Congress that “it will not be sufficient to make their entire personalities opposition to whatever Trump politics are — they’re going to have to have a prescription for rebalancing this economy in a smart and urgent way.”
He said he doesn’t think it’s “in [Schumer’s] DNA” to deliver to the American people, adding he was “hopeful he won’t be there as the leader.”
