Jon Stewart has successfully returned The Daily Show to the cultural conversation — by drawing fire from Democrats.
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Stewart's return to Daily Show hosting duties Monday night opened with a 20-minute monologue going after Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Stewart especially mocked the current president after his disastrous press conference last week where Biden struggled to assure Americans that he was still cognitively capable of performing his duties.
Stewart seemed wholly aware his comments would lead to some left-side backlash, with correspondent Jordan Klepper asking Stewart on-air afterwards, "Did you save democracy yet with your '90s brand of snark and both-siderism?"
And that's precisely the sort of blowback that happened, with everyone from progressives to Elon Musk to the White House weighing in.
Mary Trump — a vehement critic of her uncle — wrote on X: "Not only is Stewart's 'both sides are the same' rhetoric not funny, it's a potential disaster for democracy." She expanded on her thoughts in a newsletter titled “Jon Stewart's Danger to Democracy,” writing, “The damage done by his [2010 event] 'The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,' a DC rally/joke which inspired an entire generation to shrug off politics and ignore the dangers of the right wing, cannot be overstated. It was, in no small part, responsible, for helping Donald come to power. It made a mockery of nuance, encouraged people to believe that all politicians are the same, that there was no daylight between Democrats and Republicans, or Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Now Stewart is bringing back the same b****** that got him rich in the 2000s, and helped get Donald elected in 2016.”
Podcast host Michael J. Elston tweeted, “If you're a Democrat with high hopes about the return of Jon Stewart, save your excitement. The first half of his return was both-sides-ing the age issue. I bailed when we got to the guest who believes Biden should not have run for a 2nd term. Jon Stewart is not your friend.”
Chris D. Jackson, an election commissioner in Tennessee, tweeted, “Wow. So you basically say because Biden is old, he is basically as bad as Trump. Why th[e] F do we never learn in this country? Sorry, but I won't be watching you either.”