Tuesday night, President Obama sat down with Jon Stewart for one final The Daily Show interview.
The legendary Jon Stewart is retiring from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show after 16 great years. His final show will air August 6.
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Barack Obama has been a frequent guest of Stewart’s, appearing for the first time all the way back in 2005. In 2008, he became the first acting POTUS to appear on The Daily Show.
And last night, the President helped send Jon Stewart off in style, sitting down for a lengthy interview, during which he looked back at his accomplishments over the past seven years, and also shared his very candid opinions on the role of government.
The full episode is up on the Comedy Central website, and they also uploaded an extended clip from the interview to their YouTube channel:
As per usual, Stewart and Obama really get into it. They start by discussing the government’s treatment of war veterans, during which Stewart takes Obama to task on his lack of action to improve VA conditions.
A highlight of the interview is when Obama says that Congress passed a “crummy law,” adding, “they did it poorly and stupidly.”
“Wow,” Stewart responds, visibly surprised. “You really do have only a year left, you’re just throwing it out there!”
Obama goes on to state that the government is not putting its efforts into the areas it should be: “Rebuilding our infrastructure, rebuilding our roads, rebuilding our ports, setting up a smarter system for distributing energy, making sure that we’re investing in early childhood education.”
During his final year as POTUS, Obama says his aim is to make sure the government is functioning as well as it could. At the same time, he maintains that big structural problems — the fact that “the political system is broken” — is preventing any real change.
You can watch the full episode of this week’s The Daily Show on Comedy Central.