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‘Daily Show’ Goes There With Hard Jokes About Murdered CEO

Ronny Chieng was the first and only late-night host to tackle the shocking assassination.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed by a masked assassin in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, and as of Thursday night the killer still hadn’t been caught.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng had no fear of tackling the tricky topic.

“What everyone is talking about isn’t in Washington, D.C., it’s right here in New York City!” Chieng began the segment, to audience cheers.

He showed a news clip explaining how the killer had carved the words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” on the shell casings, in apparent reference to common tactics of the health-care industry.

Chieng joked, “This guy knows that there are so many bullet casings on the streets of New York, he wanted to make sure we knew which ones were his.”

“It looks like it’s either a criticism of the health insurance industry, or this guy was just trying to solve the Wordle on his bullets,” Chieng added.

The Daily Show host continued, “Honestly, I think all bullets should probably say stuff on them. I mean how else are we going to get Americans to read again, right? We should load up a machine gun with A Tale of Two Cities written in it."

Chieng didn’t seem to have much hope that the police would be able to crack the case. He joked, “The cops just need to narrow down their list of suspects to anyone in America who hates their health-care plan and has access to guns,” adding sarcastically: “Should be solved in no time.”

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Chieng also showed a news clip about a recent break in the case discovering that the killer may have stopped by a nearby Starbucks before committing the murder.

“You stopped at a Starbucks on your way to your assassination?” Chieng asked the killer. “‘You know me, I can’t even think about murdering until I’ve had my coffee.‘”

Chieng added, “This is helpful though, because the guy went to the Starbucks. So we now know he’s either a tourist or a local who really needed to take a s--t.”

For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng on The Last Laugh podcast.

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