Jon Stewart reported to his desk at “The Daily Show” a few days earlier than normal Thursday.
He was there to respond to Disney and ABC’s startling decision to suspend his late-night peer, Jimmy Kimmel.
But Stewart took the comedy in a different direction — a gilded one.
He opted for a gold-encrusted background to better suit the likes of a certain U.S. president.
He even wore a long red tie reminiscent of those worn by Donald Trump. So did nearly all of the “Daily Show” correspondents.
“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart began.
When the audience sparked up with laughter, he appeared nervous.
“What are you doing?? Shut up!” he said under his breath, operating as if Trump was watching his every move. He even called New York “a real sh–hole” and “tremendous disaster,” echoing the language of the commander-in-chief.
“Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?” Stewart said.
In an environment where the removal of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has been called a threat to the First Amendment, the “Daily Show” episode was like a test run of state-controlled media.
“If you’ve felt a little off these past couple of days, it’s probably because our great Father has not been home, for Father has been gracing England with his legendary warmth and radiance,” Stewart said, referring to Trump’s recent trip to the United Kingdom.
He continued to praise Trump, calling him “perfectly tinted,” a leader who “dazzled his hosts” with “unmatched oratory skill.”
The “Daily Show” host listed more superlatives complimenting “our Dear Leader” before running a clip of Trump calling the United States “the hottest country anywhere in the world” in front of a sullen King Charles.
“In fact, nobody’s even questioning it,” Trump said.
“Trump knows USA is the hottest we’ve ever been, and not just because of climate change — which is a good thing,” Stewart said. “Cities … should be part of the ocean.”
When Trump mispronounced Azerbaijan as “Aberbaijian” and called Armenia “Albania,” Stewart corrected himself to conform to Trump’s version.
He cued up a clip of a reporter in England who noted Kimmel’s suspension then asked Trump if free speech was more threatened in Great Britain or America.
“How dare you, sir!!!” Stewart roared. “What outfit are you with, sir? The Antifa Herald Tribune?? Why, I wouldn’t even line my parents’ cage with your rag!”
“There’s a very reasonable explanation for what befell this scallywag Kimble,” Stewart continued.
Cue a Trump clip.
“He had bad ratings more than anything else and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimble is not a talented person,” the president told the press in England. “He had very bad ratings and they should’ve fired him a long time ago, so you could call that free speech or not.”
Stewart went on to offer a definition of the First Amendment (see video below).
“There’s something called a talent-o-meter,” he said.
Kept on the president’s desk, the device measures talent — something determined by “niceness” to the president.
If a person’s talent dips below a certain level, Stewart explained, “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. It’s basic science.”
Stewart said that Trump somehow knew that Kimmel would be (temporarily, or “indefinitely”) cut at ABC, because he had said that the late-night host should be fired in a July post on Truth Social.
That’s just his “grand ability to see the future,” Stewart said. “It’s a curse.”
In the segment, he also referred to Trump as a “sun god.”
“The point is, our 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 smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it’s great.”
With that, the “Daily Show” correspondents, wearing their red ties, proceeded to literally sing Trump’s praises as they broke out into song. The only one not wearing a red tie was Ronny Chieng, who thought his pink tie would suffice. He was duly criticized.
Stewart’s response to the Kimmel news was different from his approach to commenting on Stephen Colbert and “The Late Show“ being cut at CBS in July.
At that time, he ended the segment in question by delivering an impassioned message in support of those who work on late-night shows, then singing a rousing song with the lyrics “Go f— yourself.”
Kimmel was informed this week that his show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would be “indefinitely” suspended at ABC after he commented on the Republican reaction to the political background of Tyler Robinson, who is charged with murdering Charlie Kirk.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing anything they can to score political points from it,” he said on Monday’s show.
Kimmel and the late-night show were suspended two days later.
Comedians and celebrities, like Jersey’s Marc Maron, and have spoken out against Kimmel being cut in what they have called another slide to fascism and authoritarianism. Many, like Chelsea Handler, a Jersey comedian who hosted two late-night shows, have urged people to vocally oppose ABC’s decision.
Some have canceled their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions to send a message to Disney, ABC’s parent company.
Disney and ABC made the Kimmel move after Nexstar Media, which owns TV stations across the country, criticized the late-night host for his comments. Nexstar said it would be replacing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with other programming on its 32 ABC stations.
Kimmel headlines arrive as Nexstar is looking to acquire Tegna, another company that owns TV stations, for $6.2 billion. The deal would require Federal Communications Commission approval.
Just before “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was removed from ABC programming, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Kimmel.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on a podcast with Benny Johnson, per Variety. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Trump called word of Kimmel’s “indefinite” exit “great news for America.“ He proceeded to call late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers “two total losers,” saying he wants NBC to fire them.
In the second half of the show, Stewart interviewed Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, author of the book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator.”
Ressa, an alum of Toms River High School North and Princeton University, worked as a journalist under the regime of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. She was jailed for criticizing the country’s president.
She called what’s happening in the United States “identical to what happened in the Philippines” — giving her both “déjà vu and PTSD.”
Now, free speech means “speech that supports the president,” Stewart said.
“It feels like Americans are like deer in headlights,” Ressa told Stewart.
“I feel that way,” he said.