Jon Stewart spent most of Tuesday night's "Daily Show" covering Monday's CNN Republican Presidential debate, including the pre-show grandstanding, the 'beatdown' frontrunner Rick Perry took from his fellow candidates and some of the Tea party audience's shocking reactions.
If you watched the debate yourself you might have noticed the unusual level of reality show-style antics at the top of the show, including a montage featuring candidate nicknames, multiple introductions, the singing of the national anthem and a set that looked like "Betsy Ross's vagina," according to Stewart. That's why it blew Stewart's mind when moderator Wolf Blitzer told the candidates to keep their initial mission statements short.
But when the debate finally got started, the theme of the night became apparent: going after Rick Perry. In part two of Stewart's segment (appropriately titled 'Indecision 1776' for our founding father-loving Tea Party friends) he shows how Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann took on Perry for providing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and accusing him of taking millions of dollars in donations from medical companies after mandating the HPV vaccine, among other things.
Did any of that slow his momentum? Not in Stewart's opinion:
"Perry's already winning the race without making any sense," Stewart said, using Perry's statement that we should both bring the troops home and stay in Afghanistan as an example. "He says it in such a homespun, likable way that you're halfway home before you realize, 'Hey that didn't make any f*cking sense!'"
And then Stewart got to the real stars of the night: the Tea Party audience who posed questions to the candidates. When Ron Paul suggested he might think uninsured people who get sick should be left to die, the audience actually cheered. Let's just say Stewart has a few entertaining ideas as to why this happened.
Watch Stewart's full coverage below and check out correspondent Al Madrigal's reaction segment for more.
WATCH: Part one
Click here to watch on TDS website