Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon appeared on The Daily Show and proved her wit with host Jon Stewart last night. The influential UK politician exchanged laughs with Stewart despite having compared to Saddam Hussein and the latter joking about US invading Scotland for their oil reserves.
Sturgeon was mistakenly described as a comedienne in The Daily Show website to which she corrected Stewart and that she may not live up to the expectations of the American viewers.
"You billed me on your website as a comedian, so you've raised all these expectations that I'm going to be funny. And I'm a politician, and as you know, politicians are rarely funny", the Scottish politician said.
Stewart assured the SNP leader: "You need not worry. They thought I was going to be funny for 17 years".
Stewart known for making ruthless puns on guests compared the first minister of Scotland to Saddam Hussein when Sturgeon teased she had "ordered an inquiry" into why her party won just 56 out of 59 seats in the Scottish parliament in UK's recent general election.
The Daily Show host retorted: "You think you're Saddam Hussein? You get 99%?" Sturgeon responded, "I think you should always aim for more".
But when Stewart began asking how many oil reserves Scotland has: "How much are we talking about here? May we invade you?" Sturgeon laughed it off and joked about U.S. military records.
She faced the audience and said: "You don't usually ask permission." Sturgeon went on, "I think this is progress because you just heard there Jon, presumably on behalf of the United States, ask permission to invade an oil-producing country. It doesn't work that way". The host of the comedy show laughed and said: "See that, you are a comedian".
The SNP leader will attend to business engagements in her four-day trip to New York and Washington, which aims to attract US investment to Scotland as well as meeting with the IMF, World Bank, a visit in the US Holocaust Museum and Council on Foreign Relations.
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