When Jon Stewart made his eagerly anticipated return to The Daily Show on February 12, he did so under the condition that he’d be able to say what he wanted. Speaking to CBS Mornings in advance of his return as host, Stewart said he was motivated to take the job because he wanted a stage to “unload thoughts as we get into this election season†without the censorship that led to The Problem With Jon Stewart’s cancellation by Apple TV+ in 2023. “We have so much we are going to talk about this year. Obviously elections,†Stewart teed up at the top of The Daily Show, which he is set to host every Monday through the 2024 election season and executive-produce for the immediate future. “Maybe we will talk about China. Maybe we will talk about AI. Maybe something a little lighter: Israel-Palestine.†Seconds earlier, he’d asked the audience, “Where was I …?†as if picking up right where he left the show in 2015. Considering how much has changed since then, it’s almost jarring how little that question felt like a joke.
Stewart began the episode with a 20-minute segment about the advanced age and faltering mental acuity of President Biden and Donald Trump heading into this year’s election. Drawing false equivalencies between politicians on either side of the aisle is a tendency that may have gotten Stewart in trouble in 2015’s political climate, but that’s not what he was doing here. Skillfully reading jokes off a teleprompter and reacting to videos of political gaffes as if no time had passed, Stewart expressed real concern over a recent special-counsel report about Biden’s “diminished faculties and faulty memory†and the reactions to it within the Democratic Party. To wit, after watching a video of the Biden-Harris campaign’s recently launched TikTok account, Stewart instructed the campaign to “fire everyone,†then deadpanned, “How do you go on TikTok and end up looking older?†Later, in response to a video of Vice-President Harris’s insistence that Biden has been “in front of and on top of†every meeting they’ve attended about national security, Stewart took a deep breath, then asked, “Did anyone film that?â€
Stewart spoke largely to the concern of progressives about the upcoming election by rotating through a series of graphics with titles like “Indecision 2024: DeMOCKracy,†“Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction,†“Indecision 2024: What the Fuck Are We Doing?,†and “Indecision 2024: Antiques Roadshow.†Where he was careful to cite Trump’s criminal indictments and con-man past to reinforce that Trump is a materially worse candidate than Biden, he also pointed out this shouldn’t make Biden immune from scrutiny. “It’s the candidate’s job to assuage concerns, not the voter’s job not to mention them,†he said. Stewart didn’t mean this as a justification for complacency; he ended the segment with a plea to avoid apathy. “The work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunchpail fucking job: day in and day out,†he said. “I’m not saying you don’t have to worry about who wins the election. I’m saying you have to worry about every day before it and every day after. Forever. Although, on the plus side, I am told that, at some point, the sun will run out of hydrogen.â€
Well aware of the scrutiny he’d face in his Daily Show return, Stewart got ahead of critics by demonstrating a dose of self-awareness. In a fun segment reintroducing viewers to the Daily Show news team (Michael Kosta, Desi Lydic, Dulcé Sloan, Ronny Chieng, and Jordan Klepper), the members of which will take turns hosting the show each week after Stewart’s Monday residencies, Sloan mocked Stewart’s return to the desk under the guise of commentary about the upcoming election. She referred to it as “mere reboot†and said, “We need more than just the same show with an older yet familiar face.†Then Klepper, who will handle hosting duties for the remainder of this week, crashed the desk to confront Stewart about using his “’90s brand of snark and both-sider-isms†to “brainwash voters into accepting a corrosive status quo.â€
Criticisms of Stewart’s approach to The Daily Show have flooded in anyway with some pointing out that Stewart’s jabs at Biden’s age are unoriginal and others, including Keith Olbermann, saying they are unconvinced he did enough to sidestep both-sider-ism. But by and large, Stewart has tweaked the formula just enough to afford himself the freedom to “unload†his thoughts the way he had been looking for, and the ratings for his debut episode show promise that his former audience is ready to return along with him. Whether the cognitive dissonance of seeing him doing this behind the Daily Show desk in 2024 ever fully goes away remains to be seen.