Jon Stewart hosted a surprise, and surprisingly brilliant, “government approved” variation of The Daily Show post Jimmy Kimmel’s firing.
Since returning to The Daily Show in June of 2024, Jon Stewart has primarily hosted the long-running Comedy Central program on Monday nights, leaving Tuesday through Thursday to other staff members. Last night, Stewart made an exception by leading the Thursday night edition of the show.
With a gold background that looked like King Midas went on a drunken touching binge, Stewart opened the show in a supine position of fealty to “Dear Leader,” Donald Trump. Satire is the most challenging of comedic arts. If the comedy is too subtle, it goes over many heads. Too heavy, and it lands with a thud. However, these are brash times in which subtlety wins few rewards, and last night, Stewart dispensed with any effort to be overly clever and made his jokes and observations as plain as fresh sidewalk chalk.
The “Government-approved” episode of The Daily Show cut to the “patriotically-obedient host,” who proved to be patriotic and (faux)bediant. Over the course of twenty-three minutes, Stewart behaved as if he were filled with anxiety, tapping his fingers and shouting down his audience when the crowd booed the current occupant of the presidency.
“We have another fun, hilarious administration compliant show,” Stewart stated with pretend tension and anxiety. As the audience laughed for the first time, Stewart turned to them and whispered, “What are you doing? You’re going to blow this for us.” He then gingerly took us through the events overseas where Trump was hosted by a truly supine royal family in England. Then showing a clip of Trump reading in a childlike fashion from prepared text before taking credit for ending the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, or as Trump stated, “Aberbaijan and Albania.” The first country doesn’t exist, and the second is nowhere near Azerbaijan, or, it must be said, “Aberbaijan.”
Stewart addressed the FCC and the Trump attack on free speech just before the twelve-minute mark of the show, covering the “basic science” of acquisitions and mergers, as well as the need for television personalities to mind their p’s and q’s when speaking of the President, before going into “the rules” of free speech. After a Newsmax talking head is shown stating, in relation to Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, “There are repercussions to spreading lies,” Stewart mock-agreed, saying, “You cannot just make things up on television.” He then showcased a greatest hits of nonsense spouted by Trump supporters on various networks, ending with Tucker Carlson referring to the January 6th rioters as “sightseers.”
The most withering clips showcased Trump and his supporters on right-wing networks making fun of the assault on Paul Pelosi, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s husband, by a Trump supporter. The reel ends with Trump calling Nancy Pelosi an “animal.” The show closed with Stewart and his fellow staff members singing a song of worship to Donald Trump.
There have been statements that during Trump’s visit to England with King Charles and the rest of the royals, they were low-key trolling him by having him, well, read and going so over the top in celebrating his arrival, stay, and departure from Windsor Castle. That view is beyond generous, but if we were to give Charles and his family the benefit of the doubt, agreeing with that notion, let’s just say it was far too subtle an effort, one that cleanly went over Trump’s head, resulting in nothing more than a memory that the President will cherish for however long his memory holds up.
What Jon Stewart did last night was the opposite. Last night, the satire was delivered with a cudgel, not a velvet glove. It’s the only kind of comedy that Trump understands, although I doubt he is laughing today. More likely, he is having FCC Chairman Brendan Carr burn up the phone lines to Skydance Media founder, David Ellison, a Trump supporter who, on August 7, 2025, merged his company with Paramount, which owns The Daily Show. Stewart himself said last July, after Stephen Colbert’s Late Show was canceled at CBS, that he didn’t know if his show would survive the pending merger. We are about to find out.
Every moment is of the moment now, and to stand by for four days before responding would have let multiple news cycles go by without a rejoinder. Stewart was not going to allow that to happen. We live in strange and far too interesting times. These memories can’t wait.
View Jon Stewart and his full episode at the YouTube link below
The show was really very successful, but I also sensed a certain desperation hidden beneath the jokes. Viewed from a distance in Europe (I am not an insider, after all), the US government's attacks on the cornerstones of democracy are frightening, and I can only hope that the part of the population that does not want to live in an autocracy will stand up for democratic values. Satirists like Jon Stewart are important, but they are an endangered species (as are free judges, free media, independent cultural institutions, MAGA critics, etc., etc., etc.). All the best to you guys!
It is absolutely desperate. I think that's the point.