The Daily Show Goes After A Peculiar Blackstone Deal And Rips Financial Media For Not Covering It

The Daily Show

In October, Bloomberg reported that private equity firm Blackstone structured a strange financial maneuver to pay a company to force it to miss a debt payment, thereby triggering a credit default swap to the tune of $15.6 million for Blackstone.

One way to describe this is is, dang, that's brilliant (and legal). Jon Stewart, famed financial skeptic, had a different take on the Daily Show last night.

"Now I'm sure you're asking yourself, 'Hey, I think I saw something like that in Goodfellas, when they get insurance on a restaurant and then deliberately blow the restaurant up," Stewart says. "But in Goodfellas, it was illegal. In the financial world, it's above board."

Later in the segment, correspondent Samantha Bee interviews a reporter at the New York Times, skewering the paper for failing to cover the story. She also meets with members of the BuzzFeed business team to spice up an otherwise dry CDS story with some Nicolas Cage GIFs.

The whole segment is worth a watch.