Jon Stewart Totally Rejects Notion Trump Shouldn’t Be Indicted Because Doing So Would Make Him a ‘Martyr’: We Either Have the Rule of Law’ or We Don’t
Jon Stewart said he doesn’t care whether or not Donald Trump goes to jail over the Stormy Daniels hush money saga, but the former president should be indicted for the sake of holding him accountable to the law.
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed the former Daily Show host Sunday and started by asking Stewart what he thinks about the discourse surrounding Trump’s possible indictment. While Trump’s foes might want Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to go ahead and indict Trump for allegedly falsifying his business records, Zakaria noted “there are other people who say this is going to turn him into a martyr.”
Asked for his thoughts, Stewart sarcastically remarked “the law should always take into account someone’s popularity.”
What’s happened to our country? It’s as though you can’t even commit financial fraud anymore. You can’t inflate the value of your properties when you need a loan and then deflate it with taxes. I mean, the next thing you know, they’re going to send you to jail instead of your lawyer, and your accountant, and your campaign manager, and everyone else around you. The idea that someone may face accountability who’s that rich and powerful is outrageous, and this country shouldn’t stand for it.
Stewart eventually got serious, arguing that even if the indictment fuels support for Trump, “we either have the rule of law, or we have no rule of law.”
“The rule of law does not take into account if that might make you a martyr to somebody,” Steward said. “I’d much rather have the conversation be what is the law? What exactly are we saying that that he did? His lawyer went to jail for this same situation for a couple of years. So what is the crime? Is it a crime?”
Stewart similarly brushed off the appearance of selective prosecution because “everything is selective prosecution.” He also attributed Trump’s rise to power to Americans feeling “fed up with the lack of accountability for those in power.”
Trump is not immune to this line of thinking though, for Stewart said the question remains “Did he do something wrong? What was it? Explain that to us. What is the law that he supposedly violated?”
“I don’t see him ever actually going to jail,” he concluded. “I personally don’t even care. I just want a system that somehow finds a consistent accountability.”
