“F--k Apathy”: Jon Stewart Is Focused on Donald Trump’s Demagoguery

Jon Stewart was done. Sixteen years behind the anchor desk of The Daily Show had left him physically exhausted, creatively burned out, and eager to become reacquainted with his children. He left the show on a high note, with a star-studded final episode that featured a live performance by Bruce Springsteen and a sarcastic dig from Hillary Clinton. There was even a book (by me) detailing how Stewart had transformed a goofy basic cable show into influential political satire and how he had launched a wealth of comedic talent, including Steve Carell, Samantha Bee, Ed Helms, Jessica Williams, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert. With Stewart’s exit in August 2015, his timing seemed perfect: The handoff to his successor, Trevor Noah, included a presidential contest between Clinton and Donald Trump, a matchup ripe for comedy. Stewart could ride off into the sunset, and the show and the country would be in good hands.

Things turned out fine for Noah, at least. Stewart, meanwhile, directed a movie (starring Carell) whose release was muted by the pandemic; he created a show for Apple TV+ that ended unhappily. Off-screen, however, Stewart had a significant impact, shaming Congress into funding health care for sick 9/11 first responders and for soldiers exposed to toxic burn pits. But 2023 ended with Comedy Central still searching for a successor to Noah, Stewart at large, and a high-stakes presidential election looming. Stewart returned to the Daily Show desk this February, though only on Monday nights.

He wasted no time stirring things up on his first show, skewering the advanced ages of Trump and, especially, President Joe Biden. Stewart also made a prediction: “The next nine months or so—and maybe more than that, depending on the coup schedule—they’re gonna suck.” He has not been wrong, with Sunday night’s ugly Trump rally at Madison Square Garden being only the latest low point. Paramount announced this week that Stewart will stay on as Monday host through December 2025. On election night, he will anchor a live show that begins at 11 p.m. and runs for one hour. He hopes to stay awake for its entirety. “Obviously, I’ll be kept in the hyperbaric chamber for most of the day,” Stewart says. “Maybe after a half hour, I’ll pull out a Murphy bed.”

Jon Stewart: Hey, man, what’s going down?

Vanity Fair: Plenty. You sound like you’re out and about.

Yeah, I’m driving to a gig. I’m on the road—because show business is a glamorous profession—on the road to Albany. So if I lose you, I’m a little bit in the mountains right now. I like to get out every month or so and do a weekend. And I like driving. So I’m doing Albany tonight, driving to Worcester tomorrow, and then driving home.

We’re talking 10 or so days before the election—

Is it 10? I haven’t been counting. It hasn’t really been on my radar.

What’s your primary emotion right now? Fear, dread, anger?

Yeah, I’d say on the sphinct-ometer, I’m nearly hermetically sealed. It’s very tense. I’m trying not to allow the circadian rhythm of Twitter and cable news to rule over my every waking moment. You know, checking the poll of polls and the state polls and the swing state polls. But it’s very hard, in a very kind of neurotic way, not to check every tent post of electoral divining.

Well, this is another reason that being on the road is a healthy thing.

I’ve said this, and many people have said it before me: When in doubt, head to Albany. It is your bridge over troubled waters.

The presidential race is crazy close. The problem, clearly, is that you should have pushed Joe Biden out sooner to give Kamala Harris more time to run a campaign.

So, no matter what, we can still come back and lay this on my doorstep?

Of course.

So I’m the Jill Stein of Ralph Naders?

No, you were on target about Biden’s age as an issue.

The whole idea when we first came back was, let’s plant our flag for the 2024 election. What’s the thing that’s most viscerally on our minds about the dynamic of the race? That was the genesis of the bit. You never know if it’s going to strike a chord. But in truth, it more struck an angry chord of people going, Why would you say such a thing?! What are you doing?! And our response is always, We were just saying what we’re seeing through our eye holes and hearing through our ear holes. So we said it through our mouth holes.

And then Biden’s disastrous debate performance leaves you feeling vindicated or depressed or what?

Well, certainly depressed on a human level, not on a political level. This is a person that I do have respect for and who was very helpful on some issues that I’ve been working through with some veterans groups and really liked. You know, he’s like one of those guys in your town—you go in and you have coffee, and there’s Frank at the table; he’s just holding court. Biden is the mayor of every town, who happened to be president. It’s tied up in not only political realities, but in human realities, in the familiar sense that all of our shows get canceled at some point.

The past month or so, during the episodes you host, Harris has been a minor presence, while there’s a lot of material about Trump. Is that because she’s boring or because he’s singularly dangerous?