There was something different about Jon Stewart as he hosted Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show, a day after his fellow late-night host, Jimmy Kimmel, saw his show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, pulled from the schedule indefinitely.
The “patriotically obedient” Stewart laughed nervously, smiled much more than usual, and never, ever said something that could be taken against President Donald Trump, whom he called “father.” He also praised Trump for wowing the English in an official visit to London this week with his “charm, intelligence, and an undeniable sexual charisma that filled their air like a pheromone-packed London fog.”
Stewart usually hosts Monday episodes of the show, but sat behind the news desk following Kimmel’s suspension. On Wednesday, FCC Chairman ABC affiliates said they would preempt the late-night talker because of Kimmel’s comments about the right-wing response to the assassination of conservative political operative Charlie Kirk.
The Emmy winner said Tuesday night that “the MAGA gang” had been “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.” Officials later said that the suspected shooter’s mother noted that her son “had started to lean more to the left” in recent years.
Stewart sported a red tie and appeared before a gilded background, full of gold columns and, well, gold everything, as he sometimes robotically attempted to avoid any negative reference to Trump.
At one point, the anchor said he would explain how the First Amendment works in the United States.
“There’s something called a talent-o-meter,” he said to laughs from the audience. “It’s a completely scientific instrument that is kept on the president’s desk. And it tells the president when a performer’s TQ, Talent Quotient — measured mostly by niceness to the president — goes below a certain level, at which point the FCC must be notified to threaten the acquisition prospects for billion-dollar mergers of network affiliates. These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to the even larger mega corporation that controls the flow of state-approved content. Or the FCC can just choose to threaten those licenses directly.”
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It was, Stewart said, “basic science.”
“So I don’t know who this Johnny Drimmel Live on ABC character is, but the point is our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech,” Stewart said. “Now some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smoke screen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principle-less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance.”
He added, “Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it’s great.”
