Jon Stewart says Trump is 'exposing corporate and political corruption'

Jon Stewart has said that former President Donald Trump has given America a 'gift' by 'exposing' political and corporate corruption. 

Speaking on his new podcast, The Weekly Show, the comedian discussed Trump, the election and democracy. 

He said that Trump's conviction and ongoing trials have lifted the lid on 'a reality of crony capitalism, a reality of transactional corruption that is the heartbeat of corporate and political America.'

Trump's exploits have revealed the flaws and shady deals culture of US politics and business, Stewart said. 

He said: 'In some ways, he is doing us a service in that he is like…you know how they employ a white hat hacker who will go into a system and find its vulnerabilities.'

Stewart was speaking with chief Washington correspondent for the New Yorker magazine, Jane Mayer, and President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Noah Bookbinder. 

He asked them if Trump's recent criminal conviction on more than 30 felony counts related to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels are 'exposing a reality' of widespread and deep corruption in America. 

He said: 'Is he exposing a reality? I’m not saying he’s not pushing the limit of it. 

'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 responded: '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. 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.'

Stewart argued that even if there are good, dedicated government workers, Trump has demonstrated 'vulnerabilities' in the system. 

He said: '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 everyday to make the country work better. 

'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.'

He then called for the system to be 'reverse engineered' given the issues Trump has demonstrated. 

He said: 'Now he’s not doing it for our benefit, he’s doing it to exploit it. But what I’m saying is, what if we take the information that he’s delivering us which is, here are the vulnerabilities in your system that I can exploit, can’t we reverse engineer that?'