Best of Truthdig’s A/V Booth 2016: Some Chomsky, Some Comedy and a Whole Lot of Politics

    Videos featuring Noam Chomsky, left, Jon Stewart, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all made it to the top of our list. (Photos by jeanbaptisteparis / Cliff / Edward Kimmel / Michael Vadon)

Editor’s note: From Dec. 23 through New Year’s Eve, Truthdig is running a roundup of the top 10 stories of 2016 in the following categories: Live Blog, A/V Booth, Report, Book Review, Ear to the Ground, Cartoon, Film Review, Live at Truthdig and Truthdigger of the Week.

Our list of the 10 most-viewed A/V Booth posts includes quite a variety of figures from politics and media, but there seemed to be one constant theme throughout: the 2016 election. In descending order below, you’ll find Truthdig’s most popular videos, featuring comedic takes by “Daily Show” veterans Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee, commentary by social critic Noam Chomsky and WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange, and speeches by progressives Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among other interesting videos.

10. VIDEO: Samantha Bee Sits Down With Young Trump Supporters, and It Nearly Destroys Her

Setting out to prove that a presidential candidate can’t win on the “racist thug vote alone,” the “Full Frontal” host brought together several young, college-educated Donald Trump fans to ask them some questions on people’s minds—in particular, “Why on earth would you vote for Donald Trump?”

9. Remember How Bernie Sanders Treated a Muslim Woman Who Stood Up at One of His Rallies?

A few days after Trump looked on and made faces as a peaceful Muslim woman was heckled out of one of his campaign rallies, we recalled how Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders responded to a Muslim student who questioned him about racism and Islamophobia at a rally at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., in late 2015.

8. Tina Fey’s Latest Sarah Palin Spoof for ‘SNL’ Basically Wrote Itself

Tina Fey may be comically gifted, but when it came to her “Saturday Night Live” impression of Sarah Palin, in which Fey riffed on Palin’s bizarrely discordant endorsement of then-candidate Trump, Fey basically just had to show up and mimic the funny business Palin had already done for her.

7. Elizabeth Warren: Anyone Who Says ‘Change Is Just Too Hard’ Is in ‘Bed With the Billionaires’

The Massachusetts senator’s fiery speech on the Senate floor in January echoed some of Bernie Sanders’ powerful criticisms of Hillary Clinton.

6. Julian Assange Speaks About Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Election and the Litany of Charges Against Him

In a 25-minute interview with an award-winning Australian journalist, the WikiLeaks founder summarized his analysis of emails he published from the personal account of John Podesta, Clinton’s national campaign chairman.

5. Noam Chomsky: Trump Voters Are ‘Furious’ Because ‘Everything’s Been Taken Away From Them’

During the presidential primaries, the renowned linguist discussed the “generalized rage” and “deep concern” that fueled Trump’s rise.

4. MSNBC Thrashes Hillary Clinton: ‘It Feels Like She’s Lying Straight Out’

The network’s hosts and analysts severely and unanimously criticized Clinton after the Obama-appointed inspector general of the State Department that she once led published a damning report contradicting her repeated claims that she was allowed to conduct official correspondence on a private email server.

3. John McCain Admits Bernie Sanders Is Right About Income Inequality

In an interview with The Hill’s Molly Hooper, the Arizona senator and 2008 GOP presidential nominee was asked what surprised him about the 2016 election season. His reply: “Everything.”

2. Jon Stewart on How He Only Realized How Broken the U.S. Is After He Quit ‘The Daily Show’

At a live taping of “The Axe Files With David Axelrod” at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the former “Daily Show” host weighed in on presidential candidates Trump (aka “man baby”) and Clinton (“inauthentic”), telling his audience that however he painted the American political system on the show, “it’s so much worse than you could ever imagine. It is a cesspool.”

1. Noam Chomsky: Bernie Sanders Is Not a Socialist, He’s a ‘Decent, Honest New-Dealer’

In a February interview, Chomsky told Al-Jazeera: “If [Sanders] were elected, I think he’d be the one, from the current candidates … with the best policies.”