Elmo Admits on ‘The Daily Show’ That He Was Pandering to the Alt-Right to Save PBS Funding During Social Media Meltdown

This anti-Semitic rant was brought to you by the letter “B” for bait.

By now, the news of Elmo’s Twitter meltdown over the weekend has already made it out of Sesame Street and into international headlines as children’s television fans and anti-Semitism opponents alike are aghast at how a “hacker” hijacked the beloved puppet’s Twitter account to spew bile hatred and accuse President Donald Trump of being a pedophile who is purposefully withholding the Epstein Files from the public to save his own skin. Immediately following the inflammatory tweets, a Sesame Workshop spokeswoman put out a public apology, claiming, “Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts.”

However, as Elmo himself revealed on tonight’s episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, much like the Epstein files, the official story on his meltdown is intentionally misleading – and his new friends on the far-alt-right shouldn’t buy this bullshit excuse either. 

When Stewart invited Elmo to tell his side of the scandalous story, Elmo began his non-apology by claiming that he was admittedly easy to hack, given that his password is just “Elmo123” because he doesn’t know any other numbers. However, while Stewart pushed the puppet to take accountability for the offensive outburst, Elmo caved and admitted that he was, in fact the author of those hate-filled posts, having been “radicalized by the Manosphere” into believing various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

But while Elmo’s new Nazi arc may appear to be a complete betrayal of all the empathetic values that Sesame Street is supposed to represent, this hard-right heel-turn may end up being to Sesame Street‘s benefit. After lambasting the “so-called tolerant left” for “policing speech that’s inconvenient to their woke Dogma,” screaming at Stewart, “Who’s the real puppet now, Jon?!” Elmo had a sudden tone shift, telling Stewart calmly and intentionally that “Elmo’s alt-right.”

“No reason to cancel Elmo’s funding then!” Elmo suggested, referencing the Trump Administration’s targeting of PBS and Sesame Street specifically in its sweeping budget cuts. 

Asked Stewart, “Elmo, you’re pandering to the right so you can keep your government funding for public broadcasting?”

“Elmo can’t go back on the streets, Jon,” the puppet lamented.

Of course, saving Sesame Street is dubious justification for unleashing a stream of hateful, racist bile on millions of Twitter users, but don’t worry about debating the ethics of giving the alt-right lip-service in order to advance altruistic causes – over the course of Stewart’s following segment about President Trump’s pathetic Epstein cover-up, Elmo was re-radicalized to the populist left.

“Free Luigi!” Elmo exclaimed later on in the show, “Death to Mr. Noodle!”