Jon Stewart takes on Dr. Phil and the Southern border on the latest Daily Show

Jon Stewart’s triumphant return to The Daily Show continues this week with more from “Indecision 2024.” Aside from tacitly endorsing the John Oliver Theory, which states that it is best to see a comedy news host once a week, he takes on the Supreme Court, his audience booing the Supreme Court, and the “migrant crime” narrative that’s sending America into a xenophobic tailspin. Even more impressive? He does it with ad breaks. (Your move, John Oliver.)

The main segment this week involved the “migrant crime,” a subject that Dr. Phil is running to The Joe Rogan Experience to warn listeners about the “in-shape” immigrants showing up with “six packs and military boots.” It’s happening at a rate not seen since the last election, and the American right is looking to turn fear into votes.

Though Stewart was as energetic as ever in his latest for The Daily Show, and, again, took shots at both Republicans and Democrats alike, this week’s installment is a little light on analysis. The opening segment with Desi Lydic might’ve eaten up too much time—though Lydic is as good as ever. The host rightly calls out both parties for their inaction on immigration, an unsolvable issue so ingrained in American politics that Republicans won’t even sign the immigration bill endorsed by the U.S. Border Patrol Union. Republicans, Stewart argues, only want to exploit immigration when it’s politically advantageous, and Democrats’ open hearts close when two buses of migrants arrive in New York City.

This might not be his most vital or informative segment to anyone following American politics over the last 5,000 years, but Stewart did introduce the world to “Dirty Phil,” a hyper-sexual Dr. Phil character more than worth the click.

The segment led into a conversation about immigration reform with Jonathan Blitzer, writer of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here. Blitzer explains that America is stuck in a loop where politicians can’t pass effective immigration reform because of the border, and the border’s specific issues can’t be resolved without immigration reform. The good news, Blitzer tells Stewart, is that we don’t have to travel to the furthest reaches of the imagination to fix immigration in America. All the United States has to do is “be more mindful of the consequences of its foreign policy.” The bad news is all the United States has to do is “be more mindful of the consequences of its foreign policy.”