When Mike Johnson was named Speaker of the House the other week, no one had any clue who he was, and not only because of his generic name and looks. We know a lot about him now. He holds, shall we say, some wacko extremist views even for today’s wacko extremist. Along with believing early humans had dinosaur pets, there’s also this one: He and his son use a program in which they can monitor each other’s porn habits (or lack thereof). Sounds normal and not creepy! It also sounds like a possible security threat, noted Sarah Silverman.
The comic was back to guest-hosting The Daily Show on Monday, and she couldn’t help but devote significant real estate of her opening to Johnson’s use of Covenant Eyes, which alerts a chosen person whenever you visit a pornographic site. The idea, of course, is to shame that person into never doing it, which sounded weird to Silverman.
“If Mike Johnson doesn’t want to encourage his son to masturbate, why did he name him Jack?” she joked. “You should meet his other kids: Tug and his daughter Fingerblast.”
Silverman questioned the program’s effectiveness with young men. “I’m sorry, there’s no way this app is going to stop people from masturbating, especially 17 year old boys,” she told the crowd. “Seventeen-year-olds don’t need porn. They can jack off to anything. His dad must be like, ‘He really doesn’t look at porn at all, he just spends all his day browsing Ann Taylor Loft.”
She then had some advice for Johnson: “Seriously, don’t use an app to find out if your son is masturbating. Just do it the old-fashioned way: See if his sock shatters like an icicle.”
Silverman then spoke with correspondent Michael Kosta, who argued that having an anti-porn guy as Speaker is perfect.
“Mike Johnson is the kind of guy you want holding the Speaker’s gavel. For one he’s got two free hands, we know that,” Kosta said. “Secondly, do you know how much you can accomplish when you’re not wasting all your time massaging the pig snout? Plus, this gives him that pent-up, near-bursting energy that says, ‘I’m a soft breeze away from exploding all over this carpet.’”
Kosta even suggested that this bizarre news could be a win for the current president, who’s hurting at the polls right now. “He can be the politician who’s into porn,” Kosta said. “He already kind of has the look, you know? He’s got the slicked-back hair He drives a Corvette. He’s always squinting like he just saw something he likes but he doesn’t know why.”
But Silverman brought up a possible security issue. “This website is monitoring everything Mike Johnson looks at. That could include sensitive classified information,” she argued.
“Yeah, but that’s the price we pay for moral rectitude,” Kosta shot back. “Sure, Russia could hack into Covenant eyes and get access to our nuclear codes. But I sleep a little easier at night knowing Mike Johnson isn’t seeing what’s happening to our nation’s stepmoms.”
You can watch Silverman’s Daily Show opening in the video above. The Johnson business begins around the 4:30 mark.