With Artists Gone and a Booking Agent Named Epstein, Jon Stewart Takes Aim at Trump’s Fair

Six acts have now pulled out of the Great American State Fair, the Trump-founded organization’s concert for America’s 250th anniversary. Martina McBride, Young MC, The Commodores, Morris Day & The Time, Bret Michaels, and Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli all said they were misled about the event’s political alignment or chose to distance themselves. Jon Stewart, who said he’d been “so looking forward” to this story, took it apart on Monday’s The Daily Show.

Stewart asked who was left, then cut to video of Vanilla Ice cheerfully discussing the gig. “Everybody dropped out, but not Vanilla Ice,” Stewart said, before quoting the rapper’s own lyric: “Saw a problem and, yo, he solved it.” The camera then found Freedom Williams of C+C Music Factory, who had posted an enraged defense video from a toilet. Stewart paused on the details — the “Katniss and Peeta fanfic shirt,” the “cottage core wallpaper” — and deadpanned, “Sir, if this is not a good time we can certainly come back and discuss this later.”

But the host’s real target was the booking machinery. He noted that several artists on the bill share an agent: a man named Jeff Epstein of Universal Attractions. No connection to the deceased convicted trafficker, but the coincidence landed hard. Stewart’s voice rose: “What the fuck? Jeff Epstein of Universal Attractions is in charge of — forgive me — recruiting talent for a Donald Trump party?” He then imagined the pitch meeting: “Somebody had to go into Donald Trump’s office and say, ‘I know just the guy.’”

It was an ugly laugh line, but it pointed to the strange ways music gets pulled into political spectacle. The fair, still scheduled, now relies on a pair of veterans of 1990s pop who haven’t stopped moving, toilet seat or not.