Everyone should watch Jon Stewart's powerful monologue on the Charleston church shooting

Some of the most memorable moments on The Daily Show have come when Jon Stewart was being deadly serious.

On last night's show, in the wake of the Charleston church shootings, he admitted he had nothing funny to say.

I have one job and it's a pretty simple job. I come in in the morning and we look at the news and I write jokes about it.

But I didn't do my job today so I apologise, I've got nothing for you, because of what happened in South Carolina.

I honestly have nothing, other than sadness once again that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn't exist.

Stewart described the actions of gunman Dyllan Roof as a terrorist act but said that even by acknowledging that and the deaths of nine black victims as a hate-crime "we still won't do jacks--t".

What blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves. If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism... we invaded two countries, and spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over five or six different countries, all to keep Americans safe.

We've got to do whatever we can - we'll torture people - we've got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. Nine people shot in a church, what about that? That's the part that I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around.

Watch the full clip below:

More: The times when Jon Stewart wasn't joking

More: Jon Stewart is speechless about Eric Garner