Jon Stewart didn’t have to do a live election night show this year. He wouldn’t have had to do a show at all if he hadn’t unretired himself from The Daily Show.
But there he was on national TV Tuesday night, dealing with the unexpected—and clearly from his point of view unmitigated—disaster of a sweeping return to power of the once-dismissed F*ckface Von Clownstick, the non-affectionate name Stewart bestowed years ago on Donald Trump.
Stewart thus became the first of the late-night warriors against Trump to face the music—as in the challenge of finding something funny in the comeback of surely the most vilified target in late-night history. A man who will undoubtedly find every way possible to wreak some form of retribution on his comedy tormenters.
One can only imagine what’s going through the unamused minds of the rest of the late-night Trump avengers—Kimmel, Meyers, Oliver, the entire cast of Saturday Night Live, et al.
Last night’s special live election edition of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (which was simulcast on MTV, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop and Logo) should confirm once and for all that planning a show around the expected political demise of Mr. Clownstick is some form of jinx. Surely Jon was familiar with Stephen Colbert’s experience in 2016. That one also ended with its host trying to make sense of what had just happened.
But to his credit, Stewart went out and performed as best he could. At first he only alluded to the crushing results rolling in to a studio audience that had been deprived (spared?) the emerging truth. It looked as though the host and his staff had prepared for the predicted uncertain outcome in the 11pm hour.
They had serviceable bits; one with Jordan Klepper wasting no time escaping Pennsylvania where he had been faux-located; another with Michael Kosta imitating John King and Steve Kornacki at their magic walls, except reporting on projected efforts by Rudy Guiliani to attempt to steal another election (increasingly unnecessary as the show rolled on). Ronny Chieng had a less successful—because it was so irrelevant at that point—bit about undeclared voters who were still undeclared.
The best of the correspondents’ pieces, and one that might have been conceived mid-show, came from Desi Lydic, who was driven to drink by the returns.
But surely the most awkward moments were provided by the Democratic officials who had been lined up as guests. Katie Hobbs, governor of Arizona, did her best to provide some upbeat spin on her own state’s results (which became increasingly irrelevant even as she was speaking).
She was nowhere near as blissfully oblivious as the Lt Governor of Michigan, a super pleasant gentleman named Garlin Gilchrist II, who came across as the only happy camper at a weenie roast surrounded by Grizzlies. He gave an interview that sounded like it had been taped a week ago, back when the race was supposed to be neck and neck, defending his state from the insults Trump had hurled at their leading city, Detroit, saluting the hard workers in the state who were responsible for victory in the state, and singing the praises of the great path forward Kamala Harris was going to provide.
Stewart looked completely nonplussed at this ray of sunshine bursting through the gathering gloom, and also like he was too polite to undercut his guest’s optimistic vision by citing the most recent vote totals. If he had brought this nice fellow on one segment later, Trump would have taken the lead in Michigan too.
But all that was overshadowed by the disappearance of the night’s planned lead guest, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who must have been too overcome by the grim news coming from the state’s vote-collection service to even put on as good a smudge of lipstick as possible on the porked-up results. He canceled apparently during the commercial break right after Stewart teased he’d be next on the air.
Pennsylvania Senator Fetterman was to guest with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show's live election special via satellite. According to Stewart, he cancelled 30 seconds before he was to appear. pic.twitter.com/5h6dreSheK
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) November 6, 2024
Stewart, because he is a professional broadcaster, vamped by declaring that in the contest of which guest was now his best friend, Katie Hobbs had “won by a jillion.”
There really wasn’t much Stewart could do to lighten the mood, especially because he himself was clearly feeling pole-axed. He somehow finished the show, surely regretting they had expanded it to an hour.
But he finished with a flourish, taking out his rage at the outcome of the election on the “election pollsters,” saying he had a quick message for them: “Blow me.”
He imitated one pollster mewling about adjusting this and that and said, minus a few other bleeped expletives, “You don’t know sh*t about sh*t, and I… don’t care for you.”
Still, he managed to close—after an anguished scream of “AH!” which undoubtedly spoke to millions of late-night viewers—with a message against pronouncements that this event is “the finality of our civilization.”
Instead, he said, “We’re all going to have wake up tomorrow and work like hell to move the world to the place that we prefer it to be.”
Which certainly sounded like he did not regret already signing on for another year of staring down the Clownstick.
This is not the country I have loved and respected all of my life.
This is now a fascist oligarchy.