Despite myriad changes at parent company Paramount Skydance, Jon Stewart is hoping to remain as the linchpin of Comedy Central‘s The Daily Show.
The political comedian talked of his plans with The New Yorker‘s David Remnick during the legacy magazine’s festival in the city, which concludes today. When the editor questioned if Stewart will opt to renew his contract with the cable channel, the host answered, “We’re working on staying,” per The Hollywood Reporter.
“You don’t compromise on what you do, and you do it until they tell you to leave,” he said of his dedication to keeping his show honest.
Around this time last year, the 24-time Emmy-winning multi-hyphenate announced his continuance on the show, extending his deal through the end of 2025. Stewart’s return rocked the late-night world when announced back in January 2024, nearly a decade after his departure in 2015. Initially slated to host Monday nights through the 2024 presidential election, it was no surprise that his tenure was extended given the ratings jolt his reprisal cemented.
However, much has changed in the media landscape since the comic’s second act, namely the acquisition of Paramount by David Ellison’s Skydance, resulting in a newly formed conglomerate that seems increasingly ready to bow to President Donald Trump’s wishes, as Stewart has critiqued on his show. Throughout numerous recent disruptions in entertainment — most notably, the shocking cancellation of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and ABC’s preemption of Jimmy Kimmel Live! — Stewart has remained a clear-eyed, staunch critic of both corporate kowtowing and the current administration. (Though Paramount has maintained its decision regarding The Late Show was purely financial, Stewart has called into question its timing, which came days after Stephen Colbert lambasted his home network’s decision to settle Trump’s 60 Minutes lawsuit, characterizing it as a “big fat bribe” to massage Paramount’s looming merger.)
Upon returning to his Daily Show duties following a brief summer hiatus ahead of the official closure of the Paramount-Skydance merger, Stewart quipped on the late-nighter, “I was a little worried. We took the back-end of the summer off there, and I don’t know if you noticed, but we have new owners here at the network. Didn’t know if they would let us back in the building? But, good news, we have not heard from them, but one of the windows was left unlocked, so here we are.”
And, during an emergency taping of The Daily Show on the Thursday immediately following Kimmel’s suspension, Stewart made a point to be “patriotically obedient” to Trump in a bid to avoid getting taken off the air. “We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” he joked. “Coming to you tonight from the real shithole, the crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?”
During the conversation with Remnick, which also touched on topics from the No Kings rallies to the controversial Riyadh Comedy Festival, Stewart also maintained that comedians aren’t “the victims of this administration.”
“We are a visible manifestation of certain things, but the victims are the victims are the people that are struggling to have any voice and are being forcibly removed from streets by hooded agents, those are the victims of this administration,” he said.
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