Jon Stewart’s Best Thursday Night Moments Had Nothing to Do with Jimmy Kimmel

The endless assault on civil liberties, immigrants, trans people and late-night television hosts has been dispiriting for a number of reasons. Obviously, the late-night television hosts are the least concerning, but all of it has been signaling the growing brazenness of Trump’s authoritarian regime. The cruelty causes despair. But the incredible stupidity and cowardice of the news also causes its own heaviness. 

Every single day, I send or receive a message to the effect of “this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen.” Trump’s threats are squished in between him shoveling spaghetti at state dinners abroad and talking about his big shiny ballroom. The victimized late-night show hosts deliver lukewarm bits in response to encroaching fascism. People exhibiting symptoms of religious psychosis insist we all kneel at the feet of a slain right-wing podcaster. Snake oil salesmen go on the Joe Rogan Experience to hawk conspiracy theories and pricey blood test subscriptions. Greg Gutfeld. 

There’s no courage, no integrity, and most insultingly, no damn intellect. The term’s overused but, consuming most programming available right now feels like actively rotting your own brain. There’s no relief. Everywhere you look, there’s another feckless opportunist saying the dumbest shit you’ve ever heard. 

Because of this, Jon Stewart’s surprise Thursday night appearance as host of The Daily Show initially wasn’t satisfying to watch. The bit where he cheekily complied with Trump’s idiotic but terrifying statements about television censorship were the comedic equivalent of nails on a chalk board. Not only was it the same bit every other talk show host ran with on Thursday, it just wasn’t pleasurable. I don’t want a sneak peak at Marco Rubio Live!

By the end, I managed a few chuckles but was largely unimpressed by Stewart’s emergency Kimmel/Trump segment. A smart man playing dumb in response to a dumb man playing smart feels old after a decade. 

Fortunately, the episode was salvaged with an interview only Stewart on TDS could pull off. His guest was Maria Ressa, a Filipino and American journalist who has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She authored the 2022 book How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, and was imprisoned in the Philippines for her work. She is a certified expert on authoritarians, threats against free speech and how social media is actively working against society’s best interests. 

Her interview with Stewart was filled with compassion, insight, valuable information and deep knowledge about the crisis at hand. There were spots of humor — she got to say “I told you so” to Stewart regarding how much of a threat Trump really is — and a genuine passion regarding the stakes of this moment. 

“If you do not reclaim your rights, if you don’t stand up, it’s going to be significantly harder to claw them back,” Ressa explained. She then said that the pattern Trump is following is identical to the one that Rodrigo Duterte followed in the Philippines.

You can’t pack in a ton of historical context and systemic breakdowns in a five-minute late-night monologue, I get that. But it was so refreshing to hear an educated and experienced person speak knowledgeably about something without trying to sell me something or breaking for a terrible Trump impersonation. 

And it’s here where Stewart shined: He got a nation to tune in for a roast of Trump, and got them to stay for an introduction to the ideas that will be needed to stop him.