Jon Stewart is being praised for another ‘incredible’ political interview

US comedian and broadcaster Jon Stewart is back at it again with another hard-hitting political interview, just weeks after going viral for absolutely dismantling a Republican’s argument against gun control.

This time around, The Problem with Jon Stewart host has been filmed sitting down with Dr Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defence, at the War Horse Symposium in Chicago on Thursday.

It was when the pair were discussing departmental budgets and auditing when things got a little bit heated, however, as Dr Hicks said the Department of Defence’s ability or inability to pass an audit is “not suggestive of waste, fraud and abuse”.

“It’s suggestive that we can’t- we don’t have an accurate inventory that we can pull up of what we have where. That is not the same as saying, ‘we can’t do that because waste, fraud and abuse has occurred’,” she added.

Stewart replied: “So, in my world, that’s waste … If I give you a billion dollars and you can’t tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful, that means you are responsible…

“But if you can’t tell me where it went, then what am I supposed to think?”

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As Dr Hicks laughed and smiled while offering her own retorts, Stewart went on to add: “When I see a state department get a certain amount of money and a military budget be 10 times that, and I see a struggle within government to get people more basic services, and then that department that got that…

“I mean, we got out of 20 years of war and the Pentagon got a $50 billion raise - that’s shocking to me.

“Now, I may not understand exactly the ins and outs, and the incredible magic of an audit. but I’m a human being who lives on the Earth and can’t figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps.

“Like, to me, that’s f***ing corruption. I’m sorry.”

Ouch.

After being met with a brief applause from the audience and continuing his point, Dr Hicks responded by saying the issue was a “major priority” and that the government has “significantly increased funding on food insecurity”.

However, it was Stewart’s comments which were soon shared more widely online, with Twitter users calling the interview “incredible” and “masterful”:

Nicely done, Jon.

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