“Now, where was I…?” Jon Stewart said wryly at the start of his hotly-anticipated return to The Daily Show nearly a decade after passing the torch to Trevor Noah back in 2015. He briefly riffed on the Super Bowl—and right-wing conspiracy theories that it was fixed by Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift (“It’s almost like the right’s ridiculous obsession with politicizing every aspect of American life ruins everything”)—before diving headfirst into the nine-month countdown to the 2024 election.
Stewart entered his new late-night age by talking the advanced numbers Joe Biden, age 81, and Donald Trump, age 77, are pulling. “What the fuck are we doing here, people?” he asked at one point, theorizing that “Indecision 2024: Electile Dysfunction,” and “Indecision 2024: Antiques Roadshow” would be apt branding for the candidates’ second showdown.
The host, who will sit behind the desk on Mondays before the show’s correspondents emcee the rest of the week, found equal opportunity for criticism. Stewart acknowledged special counsel Robert Hur’s report that exonerated President Biden of mishandling classified documents while also calling him an “elderly man with a poor memory.” That was followed by clips of Trump and his family members not being able to recall basic info during various depositions. “It turns out that the leading cause of early onset dementia is being deposed,” Stewart quipped.
After playing a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris assuring that Biden is “on top of it all,” Stewart wondered: “Did anyone film that?”
The Daily Show host isn’t being ageist, he insisted during Monday’s premiere, but “human lifespanist,” he said, launching into his central concern. “These two candidates, they are both similarly challenged,” Stewart explained. “We’re not suggesting neither man is vibrant, productive or even capable. But they’re both stretching the limits of being able to handle the toughest job in the world. What’s crazy is thinking that we’re the ones, as voters, who must silence concerns and criticisms. It is the candidates’ job to assuage concerns, not the voters’ job not to mention [them].” He incredulously reiterated: “We have two candidates who are chronologically outside the norm of anyone who has run for the presidency in the history of this country — breaking the record that they set!”
Nevertheless, Stewart maintained that Biden and Trump aren’t comparable on several other key issues. “[Biden] hasn’t been indicted as many times, hasn’t had as many fraudulent businesses or been convicted in a civil trial for sexual assault or been ordered to pay defamation charges or stiffed blue collar tradesman…..” he began. And yet—“The stakes of this election don’t make Donald Trump’s opponent less subject to scrutiny. It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny. If the barbarians are at the gate, you want Conan [the Barbarian] standing on the ramparts, not chocolate chip cookie guy,” he concluded, referencing Biden’s pre-Super Bowl TikTok debut.
Later in the show, correspondents Jordan Klepper, Desi Lydic, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, and Dulcé Sloan appeared for a segment about election coverage, while Stewart interviewed guest Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief of The Economist. But before then, he acknowledged his own aging process to further his point about the elderly presidential candidates.
“Look at me,” Stewart said, beckoning the camera to come in closer. “Look what time hath wrought. I’m like, 20 years younger than these motherfuckers. Look at this—they wish.” The only problem with his comparison? Watching Stewart’s confident homecoming made it feel as if no time had passed at all.
