Jon Stewart Takes On Trump's "60 Minutes" Interview

Jon Stewart devoted part of Monday night's "The Daily Show" to Donald Trump's "60 Minutes" interview, according to Variety.

The interview aired on Sunday, 8 November. Ross Douthat conducted it. The programme is a long-running current affairs show, and the interview gave Mr Trump a long stretch of questions in one sitting.

Two moments from the interview drew the most attention in reporting on the episode. In the first, Mr Douthat asked about the rise in Mr Trump's net worth since he returned to the White House. Mr Trump replied, "I guess it's gone up. I don't even know."

In the second, Mr Douthat asked him, "What do you think happens when you die?" Mr Trump said he could not forgive his enemies, including James Comey and Nancy Pelosi, even if forgiveness were the only way to get into heaven.

Those are the answers Mr Trump gave on air. Stewart's own take on them was the centre of Monday's episode, and it is that segment that carried the interview into a second news cycle. Comedy shows often do this, turning a sit-down interview into a few minutes of sharp commentary the next night.

Rachel Maddow also appeared on the same episode, alongside Stewart. Ms Maddow hosts her own nightly news programme, so her appearance put two prominent political broadcasters in one half-hour slot.

For viewers, the story has two parts. One is the interview itself, which aired on a Sunday and was then picked apart on a Monday. The other is how a late-night comedy programme chose to respond to it, a pattern that has become familiar on American television. Each new interview tends to produce its own second round of coverage the following evening.

What happens next is not yet clear.