Roy Wood Jr. Says Hasan Minhaj Should Still Be A Frontrunner For ‘The Daily Show’ Host

Following his recent departure from his post as senior Daily Show correspondent, Roy Wood Jr. says that the much-maligned Hasan Minhaj still deserves to be considered as a potential permanent host for the program – at least partially because it would mean that Comedy Central finally ended its guest host gig economy.

With the successful conclusion of the writers’ strike, The Daily Show ended its hiatus this week by returning to the carousel of temporary hosts that have defined the show post-Trevor Noah. Ever since Noah’s resignation in December of last year, the Daily Show producers have run the franchise once made great by Jon Stewart like a speed-dating operation, in which celebrities and comedians from across entertainment get to host the show for a couple weeks in an on-the-job audition that executives maintain is, eventually, going to lead to a permanent position for one such performer. 

This week’s temporary host is correspondent Michael Kosta, who has presided over the first full week The Daily Show has done without Wood Jr. since 2015. Yesterday, Wood Jr. spoke to Variety about his ex-day job, telling them about his own prospects of filling the big chair, “What was clear to me with Comedy Central is just that choosing a host is going to take a lot longer than the time I need to get answers.” At 44 years of age, Wood Jr.’s best bet is to hold out for the hope that Roy Wood III will get his own guest host gig.

“I do not believe late-night as we know it will be the way we continue,” Wood Jr. stated plainly. “Budgets are changing, and we are going into the age of some people, demographically, who did not necessarily always grow up with late night. So how do you engage those people and bring those people to the art form?” Comedy Central’s answer has been to invite every funny person capable of reading a teleprompter to test their base on The Daily Show’s ratings – and, so far, it’s working. The Daily Show under the guest host carousel has consistently outperformed Noah’s tenure.

While Wood Jr. has maintained that he would gladly return to The Daily Show if offered the head job, he’s happily moved on with his life – though he still hopes that the job goes to someone deserving. Minhaj, of course, was the frontrunner for the gig until a New Yorker article exposed his practice of fabricating shocking stories of prejudice and persecution in his act, which Minhaj described as “emotional truths” that didn’t exactly have the closest relationship with facts.

“I don’t believe Hasan could never host because of his situation,” Wood Jr. said of his colleague’s scandal, though he didn’t let Minhaj entirely off the hook, saying, “I definitely think there is a place for him to clarify his intentions, but nothing about what Hasan did, none of it has to do with the content he presented on The Patriot Act.” 

“Can he show up and do the job? I say ‘yes,’” Wood Jr. opined. Perhaps, with the blowback from the “emotional truths” saga shrinking into the rearview mirror, Minhaj may yet win the position he was poised to fill before the controversy. However, if Minhaj is the first to report that he’s been sent an offer letter, let’s all remember to remain skeptical of any stories he has regarding mail.