Former President Donald Trump's conviction last month has sparked comments and opinions from both his supporters and his longtime critics.
According to Breitbart, one of those critics, comedian Jon Stewart, recently asked if Trump is actually "doing us a favor" by exposing government and corporate corruption.
Stewart, in an interview with Jane Mayer, a staff writer with the New Yorker magazine, and Noah Bookbinder, the president of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, asked the questions, perhaps surprising some.
The interview was on Stewart's new Comedy Central podcast, "The Weekly Show."
Stewart, never a fan of Trump, at least in the political sense, asked the two guests if Trump is "exposing at some level a reality of crony capitalism, a reality of transactional corruption that is the heartbeat of corporate and political America."
The discussion came in the wake of Trump being found guilty by a jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his previous payments to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
"Is he exposing a reality? I’m not saying he’s not pushing the limit of it," Stewart asked. "I’m not saying he’s not exploiting it, but isn’t he exposing at some level a reality of crony capitalism, a reality of transactional corruption that is the heartbeat of corporate and political America."
Mayer weighed in and said it's because the money involved is "bigger and bigger and bigger."
"What I’ve seen is the money has become bigger and bigger and bigger, and it is corrupting the government but it wasn’t always this way," she said.
Mayer added, "It’s not the whole story. There are incredible numbers of people in Washington who are really dedicated to doing the right thing for the right reasons, both Republicans and Democrats. They’re just, they’re interested in policy, they’re interested in serving the country. And, he’s really bad-mouthing that whole possibility."
Stewart took his shots at Trump, not surprisingly, but added that while he believes there are still some well-intentioned people in Washington D.C., the picture has changed significantly.
"He’s identifying though, a dissatisfaction, and two things can be true. One is there are a lot of really good, dedicated policy people and good-hearted with great integrity people working in Washington every day to make the country work better," Stewart continued.
He added, "And, number two is the system is so removed from the needs of its people and so insulated and isolated within the Beltway and within that very peculiar system within the Beltway, that it can’t actually accomplish the goal even those good-hearted people of integrity want it to."
Discussions in the wake of Trump's conviction will undoubtedy continue, and who knows what might come of them.
