The question of “How long will Jon Stewart stay at The Daily Show?” is certain to persist after the week the show has had.
The long-running Comedy Central program took home the Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Series on Sunday night. And one of the first questions that came up in the press room was directed squarely at Stewart, who rejoined the show in February to host once a week (typically on Mondays) “through the election.”
Stewart has previously given a vague—yet not-ruling-anything-out—answer to the question of when he might be retiring his Daily Show desk again, conceding that this second tenure has left him feeling “reinvigorated.” Last night, however, his misdirect took a different trajectory.
“Well, my feeling is this election will never end,” Stewart stated when asked about how long he’ll stay put. “So why would I—how could I—leave? I won’t be allowed to leave until the election. Until we’re all ground to some sort of calcified nub by the emotion of the moment.”
Stewart went on to clarify that he’s still enjoying his time on the show. “We’re having a ball,” he said, while showrunner Jen Flanz jokingly offered the possibility of Stewart being forced to stay as the election goes through “recount after recount after recount.”
“We’re looking forward to it being awful,” Stewart added.
Jokes and deflections aside, Stewart did reveal that he’d welcome the addition of more Daily Show alums back into the fold. Asked if former host Trevor Noah might one day return to the program, Stewart offered a tongue-in-cheek response: “Am I being fired?” However, he was then quick to heap praise on his successor-turned-predecessor.
“That’d be lovely. The more the merrier,” said Stewart. “We’ve got such a lovely family of outstanding talent through the years, from [Steve] Carrell and [Stephen] Colbert and [John] Oliver and Rob Corddry and Sam Bee. All these incredible people have walked through the doors.”
“We always have a sense… that we’re borrowing them,” Stewart added. “Because the understanding is some other producer who has more money than basic cable is going to say, ‘Oh, that person can do something great for us.’ So I love the family of collaborators that we’ve built up over all these years, and the nice part about tonight is coming out here and seeing everybody again.”
Last night’s Emmy win was just the latest victory for The Daily Show in its new, partially Stewart-hosted era. The comic returned to the show in February, seemingly without missing a beat, and just last week, delivered the show its largest audience since 2017.
