Jeb Bush's glorious downfall gets the Jon Stewart treatment

Jeb Bush has had a terrible, terrible week. The "Daily Show" host unpacks what went wrong

Published May 15, 2015 5:15PM (EDT)

    (Comedy Central)
(Comedy Central)

There's a lot to unpack this week with ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Did he really refer to his brother as "one of his top foreign policy advisors?" Did he actually get schooled by a 19-year-old college student over his brother "creating ISIS?" And, most importantly, is he running in the 2016 races or not?

Thankfully we have Jon Stewart to sort out the mess. The "Daily Show" host tore into Bush's non-candidacy Thursday -- just a day after accidentally announcing his candidacy to Nevada reporters -- demanding that the chronic backpedaler  just "give us an answer!"

“I see what’s happening: once you announce you’re running, you’re not allowed to coordinate with your super PAC. So you have to tell people — the voters — you’re not running,” Stewart said. “I guess it’s better to run for president and pretend you’re not than to illegally coordinate with your super PAC and pretend you’re not. Because the first rule of politics is, you can lie to people. But don’t ever lie to your money.”

Stewart also spent much of the segment focusing on the continued fallout from Bush's disastrous Megyn Kelly interview in which Jeb responded to the Fox News host's question of “knowing what we know now, would you have have supported the invasion of Iraq" with "I would!"

In most recent backpedaling, Bush told a Nevada voter that he felt answering the Megyn Kelly question of whether he would invade Iraq was disrespectful to the troops. That was, after attempting to play deaf first, of course.

"Going over our mistakes is a disservice to the soldiers," Stewart recapped in disbelief. "Let's just see where discussing major war policy blunders falls on the list of disservice to Iraq War troops."

Watch the clip below:


By Colin Gorenstein

Colin Gorenstein is Salon's assistant editor of internet and viral content. Follow @colingorenstein or email cgorenstein@salon.com.

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Daily Show Jeb Bush Jon Stewart Video