"Ooh, someone has a crush": Daily Show pokes Trump for calling Harris "beautiful" like Melania

"I think we finally found the one thing Trump is incapable of lying about. If he thinks someone is hot"

Published August 14, 2024 11:51AM (EDT)

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump walks toward the stage to speak at a rally at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump walks toward the stage to speak at a rally at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana. (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

"Daily Show" host Desi Lydic on Tuesday recapped Donald Trump's free-wheeling X livestream with tech billionaire supporter Elon Musk, jesting about the former president's comments on Vice President Kamala Harris' appearance and surmising that he might have a "crush" on his presumptive opponent in the presidential election. 

Lydic called out several aspects of Trump's conversation with Musk, which drew significant media attention for his rambling style and seeming slurring of his words.

“What is happening in his mouth?" Lydic asked, before jesting: "I know the guy’s big on slurs, but this is next level.”

Scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern time, the chat was delayed more than 40 minutes as a result of technical difficulties that Musk claimed without evidence was due to a denial-of-service cyberattack from Democratic partisans. Lydic played a clip of Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump claiming that "deep state" interference sat at the heart of the tech issues. 

“If there’s a deep state trying to silence Donald Trump: you suck at your job, OK?” Lydic said. “Because he is the opposite of silent. There is no one more unsilent than Donald Trump right now.”

Turning and pointing at the camera, she added, “Hey, deep state, look at me. Look at me. Do better.”

Regarding his promise to get rid of the Department of Education, Lydic joked, “He wants to close the Department of Education? Think this through Trump: Without schools, where are you going to ban books from?"

"It’s weird he’s even talking about sending teachers to the gulag. Trump has more popular policies, like his proposal to end taxes on tips, which is so popular that Kamala Harris now says that she supports it, and Trump is not happy about that,” Lydic added, before airing a clip of the ex-president whining the Harris had copied his idea.

“Look, to be fair, Kamala did copy Trump’s no tax on tips idea, which would make it the first time in history that a woman got credit for repeating a man’s idea,” the host quipped. “We did it, girl.”

“She didn’t stop there. Kamala also completely ripped off his idea to lead in the polls by three points against a rapidly deteriorating candidate,” Lydic continued, referring to widespread Democratic concerns over President Joe Biden's age before he elected to withdraw from the race. “That was his thing.”

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Lydic then played audio of Trump speaking about Harris' recent TIME magazine cover, which features a sketch drawing of her likeness. 

"She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live," Trump said to Musk. "It was a drawing. And actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania. But of course, she’s a beautiful woman. So we’ll leave it at that.”

“Ooh, someone has a crush,” Lydic said in response. 

“Where did this come from?” she asked. “Did he have a sex dream about Kamala that he just can’t shake and now everything feels different?”

“He can’t focus on anything," Lydic claimed. "He’s just going through TIME magazine looking for a centerfold. I think we finally found the one thing Trump is incapable of lying about. If he thinks someone is hot, he’ll say they’re hot. He’ll lie about winning an election, but he has deep respect for the sanctity of bangability. That’s noble.”


By Gabriella Ferrigine

Gabriella Ferrigine is a former staff writer at Salon. Originally from the Jersey Shore, she moved to New York City in 2016 to attend Columbia University, where she received her B.A. in English and M.A. in American Studies. Formerly a staff writer at NowThis News, she has an M.A. in Magazine Journalism from NYU and was previously a news fellow at Salon.

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Aggregate Crush Daily Show Desi Lydic Donald Trump Kamala Harris Time Magazine