“The Daily Show” turned its attention away from President Trump on Wednesday night in order to focus instead on some of his cabinet members, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
The Comedy Central series noted the recent rumblings that Hegseth is considering stepping down from his role in the Trump administration to run for Governor of Tennessee next year. “Wow, Pete! What an awesome idea. You’d be a great Governor of Tennessee,” host Desi Lydic joked. She then turned to the camera to directly tell the people of the southern state, “I am so sorry, Tennessee, but you’re just going to have to take one for the team on this.”
“It makes so much sense! You should just leave now and go do it. In fact, why waste time? You should resign yesterday,” Lydic continued, encouraging Hegseth. In another abrupt turn to camera, the “Daily Show” host added, “Tennessee, we are never going to forget you.”
It was not just Hegseth’s gubernatorial ambitions that Lydic mocked Wednesday night. The “Daily Show” comedian also informed viewers of reports that the Secretary of Defense was recently reprimanded by The White House for trying to weed out any potential leakers from his department by obsessively subjecting federal defense workers to polygraph tests. “Whether Pete would be a good governor or not, he could definitely use a change of scenery,” Lydic surmised. “He’s kind of starting to lose it.”
“Do you know how paranoid you have to be for even Trump to be like, ‘Calm down. Not everything’s a witch hunt,’” Lydic said. “By the way, who’s Pete Hegseth to be accusing other people of leaking? He’s like, ‘If you’ve got something to say, you don’t text a reporter. You come to me, and then I’ll leak it to a reporter on a Signal chat! That’s the protocol, people.”
Lydic capped off Wednesday’s opening “Daily Show” segment by interviewing Department of Defense correspondent (and fellow “Daily Show” host) Jordan Klepper, who was, it just so happened, hooked up to a polygraph machine for the entire interview. “Desi, Pete Hegseth isn’t stupid,” Klepper asserted, only for his polygraph machine to signal that he was lying.
“He’s not some insecure drunk lashing out because he’s lost control of his department,” Klepper pressed on, only for his polygraph machine to keep beeping. “He definitely doesn’t spend all day on his laptop Googling ideas for barbed wire tattoos.”
