Jon Stewart knows why Donald Trump hasn’t made him a target like he has all the rest of his critics in late night.
“I’ve had my experiences” as Trump’s target, Stewart said on his Weekly Show podcast Thursday. “I take great pride in the fact that Donald Trump, at 2:30 AM, just tweeted, I think in all caps, ‘Jon Stewart is a p—y,’” he said. “This is obviously before he was the commander-in-chief of the United States,” he said. But now Trump doesn’t come after him anymore and he thinks he knows why.
“It’s a function of relevance,” Stewart said, self-deprecatingly. “I don’t think we are on the radar.”
While Trump has threatened, mocked, and celebrated cancellations and suspensions of other late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and even late-night’s most politically apathetic host Jimmy Fallon, he’s mostly steered clear of Stewart, whose criticisms of the president are among the harshest.
I promise you that I’m much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz – I mean Jon Stewart @TheDailyShow. Who, by the way, is totally overrated.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2013
Stewart’s comments were prompted by a fan question that considered that Trump may have overlooked the host because The Daily Show is on cable. “There’s no question here” that Trump has kept his focus elsewhere, he said, but expressed his hope that network would stand behind him if that changed: “We continue to do what we do and the hope is that the company that we work for continues to appreciate what it is that we do.”
JON STEWART, JIMMY KIMMEL Disney/Randy Holmes
That wasn’t the case for Kimmel with ABC when his show was pulled off the air following threats from Trump’s FCC Chairman over comments about the MAGA response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It also didn’t appear to be the case when it came CBS’ decision to cancel Colbert’s Late Show, which several Democratic lawmakers interpreted as a move by Paramount to appease the Trump administration and secure the green light for its million-dollar merger with Skydance.
Stewart still hopes for the best, however, and in the meantime, remembers fondly the last time Trump gave him his very own “nickname.”
If Jon Stewart is so above it all & legit, why did he change his name from Jonathan Leibowitz? He should be proud of his heritage!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2013
It was a beautiful day, the day F**kface Von Clownstick was born. #dailyshow #jonstewart #trump
Recalling when Trump called him a “p—y” on Twitter pre-presidency, Stewart said, “That was after I had come up with ‘F—face Von Clownstick.’” as his own nickname for Trump.
“He was saying my real name is Jonathan Leibowitz, and why don’t I appreciate my Jewish heritage? And I said, ‘Well, you know, he doesn’t like people to know, but his real name is F—face Von Clownstick.” He concluded, “It’s absurd to even think about it.”
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