The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic Tackles the GOP’s “Women Problem” with Sharp Satire and Smurf-Filled Scandals

In Tuesday night’s episode of The Daily Show, guest host Desi Lydic took aim at Republican efforts to win over female voters in a scathing — and hilarious — segment that put the party’s increasingly awkward relationship with women under a very pink microscope. With a blend of biting commentary, satirical analogies, and a healthy dose of smurfed-up smut, Lydic delivered a sharp critique of the GOP’s 2024 strategies in a special edition of “Indecision 2024.”

Trump’s Cringeworthy Plea to Women

The episode opened with Lydic setting the tone: “Donald Trump begs women to take him back.” It’s a comedic framing that rings uncomfortably close to the truth. As polls show Trump lagging behind with female voters, his recent speech took the form of a bizarre ex-boyfriend monologue. “Women are poorer, more stressed, and more unsafe than they were four years ago,” Trump declared, in what appeared to be a misguided attempt at empathy but landed more like a backhanded compliment — or a creepy negging attempt.

Lydic nailed the absurdity of the moment: “Please tell me more about the bags under my eyes.” Her comparison of Trump’s rhetoric to a shady marketer pushing “vagina gummies” perfectly encapsulated his sales-pitch approach to policy: create fear, then sell himself as the cure. The punchline? “Yes, in this analogy, Trump is the vagina gummy.”

But things got even more surreal when Trump tried to reframe the abortion debate as a “win” for women. He assured voters they wouldn’t have to think about abortion anymore — now that it’s been turned into a perpetual state-level referendum. Lydic’s satire hit hard: “Remember that thing you could always depend on because it was legal everywhere? Well, now it’s up for a vote every two years in every jurisdiction forever.”

Bernie Moreno’s Baffling Backfire

If Trump’s approach was clumsy, Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno’s was outright alienating. His comments dismissing older women’s concerns about reproductive rights drew widespread backlash — and The Daily Show didn’t miss the opportunity to torch the hypocrisy.

“Yeah, how dare a woman who can’t get pregnant care about abortion,” Lydic quipped. “Only men who can’t get pregnant are allowed to care about abortion.” The joke cut to the heart of Republican messaging: women’s opinions on their own bodily autonomy are often discounted, while men remain inexplicably central to the conversation.

Moreno’s gaffe served as a reminder that even after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many GOP candidates are still struggling to talk about reproductive rights without alienating massive swaths of voters — particularly women. Lydic’s follow-up about Moreno’s likely concern over “the rising price of extra small condoms” was a comedic kill shot.

Mark Robinson: The GOP’s Walking, Talking Scandal Machine

The week’s pièce de résistance of Republican embarrassment came courtesy of North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. Described as “horny Carl Winslow” by Lydic, Robinson found himself embroiled in a truly jaw-dropping scandal after years of sexually explicit, racist, and hypocritical posts surfaced from his activity on a porn website.

Robinson’s posts — involving slavery fantasies, trans porn (despite his public anti-trans stance), and disturbingly graphic writing about his wife’s sister — were so egregious that Lydic refused to read them aloud without replacing every offensive term with the word “smurf.”

And so began perhaps the most bizarre moment of the segment: a Smurf-themed reading of Robinson’s online fantasies that simultaneously masked the explicit content and made the whole scenario even more absurd. “She was smurfing. I was smurfing. We were covered in smurf juice.” The audience’s laughter masked an underlying discomfort: how is this guy running for governor?

Yet, instead of apologizing or withdrawing, Robinson went on the offensive, calling the scandal “tabloid trash” and demanding that voters focus on “real issues.” Lydic didn’t let him off easy. “Inflation is so high, America’s MILFs can’t afford to pay their pool boys,” she quipped, roasting his attempt to pivot by tying real-world concerns back to the very vices he was being mocked for.

Dulcé Sloan and Josh Johnson: The Verdict from the Field

To cap it all off, The Daily Show threw to correspondents Dulcé Sloan and Josh Johnson for live reactions to the Robinson scandal. Sloan made it clear: this isn’t just a women’s issue — it’s a men’s problem. “He’s confirmed all our greatest fears about them,” she said. “That they just want to cheat on their spouses and watch porn all day.”

Sloan then turned the tables on her male co-host. “Josh Johnson, show yourself!” she demanded, interrogating him like a stand-in for all men complicit in the behavior of figures like Robinson. The bit turned into a comedy roast-meets-intervention, with Johnson frantically denying he’s ever watched porn — especially not on “nudeafrica.com.”

The segment leaned into absurdity, but the message was clear: these scandals aren’t isolated slip-ups — they’re systemic issues rooted in hypocrisy, misogyny, and moral posturing. And while the GOP scrambles to regain the female vote, The Daily Show is busy reminding everyone why women left in the first place.

Final Thoughts: The Joke’s On Them

What made this “Indecision 2024” segment so effective — and so devastating — wasn’t just the rapid-fire jokes or smurf-covered smut. It was the truth beneath the satire: that too many Republican candidates treat women like a demographic to be managed, not respected. Whether through Trump’s patronizing speeches, Moreno’s dismissive comments, or Robinson’s scandalous double life, the GOP seems to be running a campaign of mixed signals, condescension, and thinly veiled contempt.

Desi Lydic and The Daily Show crew turned that confusion into comedy gold, but the real punchline is this: women are paying attention. And come November, they’ll be voting with both memory and motive. As Lydic signed off, “Bring some Purell, ladies — because that voting machine lever isn’t the only thing they’re yanking on.”