Jon Stewart has declared his hopes of staying on as host of The Daily Show after his current contract with the late-night show expires in December, even as others making fun of Donald Trump are suspended or fired.
The 62-year-old was discussing his future at Comedy Central, which is owned by the newly-merged Paramount Skydance Corporation.
Since Stewart announced his contract extension last year, Paramount has axed CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, shortly after the talk show host had called out Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Donald Trump over editing in a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that upset him.
Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe” ahead of Paramount’s merger with Skydance, which had to be approved by the Trump administration and the FCC.
Stewart on The Daily Show in July, “I’m obviously not a lawyer, but I did watch Goodfellas. That sounds illegal.”
However, the host is confident he can negotiate a contract extension to remain on The Daily Show. “We’re working on staying,” Stewart told New Yorker editor David Remnick at Sunday’s New Yorker Festival.
“Look, the other thing to remember is it’s not as clear cut as all that… They’ve already done things that I’m upset about. But then if I had integrity, maybe I would stand up and go, ‘I’m out.’ Or maybe the integrity thing to do would be to stay in it and keep fighting in the foxhole.”
“You don’t compromise on what you do, and you do it until they tell you to leave,” he added.
During his interview, Stewart admitted Trump was able to “harness the anger and catastrophizing” of the public’s frustration with politics.
“There’s a reason Donald Trump came to power, and that is that in the general populous mind, government no longer serves the interests of the people it purports to represent,” Stewart said.
“That’s a broad-based, deep feeling, and that helps when someone comes along and goes, the system is rigged, and people go, ‘Yeah, it is.’”
The host added that comedians were not “the victims of this administration.”
“We are a visible manifestation of certain things, but the victims are the people that are struggling to have any voice and are being forcibly removed from streets by hooded agents,” Stewart said. “Those are the victims of this administration.”
Jimmy Kimmel was also suspended after a MAGA campaign following the assasination of Charlie Kirk, only for the comedien to be reinstated. Kimmel said there was a concerted effort to “maliciously mischaracterize” his comments.
Stewart has not held back from being critical of Trump, including the president demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for his super-sized ballroom.
The president had originally stated construction of the ballroom would not require any demolition of existing White House buildings.
“He had literally said… ‘The White House will remain sacrosanct. It will not be touched.’ And then the first picture is a giant, like Miley Cyrus on a wrecking ball going right through a window on the East Wing.’”
Speaking on his Weekly Show podcast last week, Stewart added, “Somehow the ballroom, which was going to hold 600 people, is now gonna hold a thousand people. And you’re like, how many? When—how—what?”
“They’re gonna have a building larger than the White House. Like, They’re gonna have to rent this f—ing thing out for Bar Mitzvahs to make any money back.”
Stewart has also used his podcast to poke fun at his new boss, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison.
“He should have it all,” Stewart quipped on Weekly Show last week. “My guy should have it all. He should be the leader of all… Why are there other media companies? Shouldn’t they all just be one? Shouldn’t we get to a point where we’re all just fired and hired by the same guy?” he said.
“Just one guy controls all of the media—what could go wrong? That’s what I say,” Stewart added.
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