Comedian and one-time Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac is calling out his former boss Jon Stewart—and not for the first time.
On Sunday, Cenac—who served as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2008 to 2012—took to his Substack to share an op-ed in which he takes Stewart to task for his recent remarks in defense of Tony Hinchcliffe.
ICYMI: Hinchcliffe is the comedian who appeared at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, October 27, and who in part ignited the current Garbagegate we’re embroiled in by referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
On the following night’s episode of The Daily Show, Stewart seemed to take Hinchcliffe’s side in the controversy, although he did not condone the content of the comedian’s jokes.
“Now obviously in retrospect, having a roast comedian come to a political rally a week before Election Day and roasting a key voting demographic, probably not the best decision by the campaign politically,” Stewart opined on last week’s Monday night episode of The Daily Show. “But to be fair, the guy is really just doing what he does.”
“There’s something wrong with me,” Stewart added, before breaking into laughter. “I find that guy very funny. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“People seemed surprised Jon’s criticism was toward the media and not Hinchcliffe, who he called ‘very funny,’ excusing the comedian’s participation in a xenophobic rally as the fault of the organizers for booking a ‘roast comedian,’” Cenac wrote. “Having worked for Jon, his response wasn’t really surprising. Disappointing but not surprising.”
Cenac went on to offer other examples of what he saw as similar instances of Stewart excusing famously bad takes and behaviors from comedians by shifting the blame away from the individuals. According to Cenac:
When Joe Rogan came under fire for spreading misinformation about COVID, as well as a history of misogynist and racist comments on his show, Jon defended the comedian turned podcaster, saying he was personally ‘more worried about the algorithm of misinformation than the purveyor of misinformation,’ which feels a bit like being worried about bullets but not the person holding the gun. When GLAAD and others took issue with Dave Chappelle’s jokes about transgender and LGBTQ people, Jon suggested ‘his intentions are never hurtful,’ while also seemingly disregarding the feelings of the many people his jokes actually hurt. In 2017, when asked about having Louis CK on The Daily Show after allegations about his inappropriate behavior around women came to light, Jon feigned ignorance.
Ultimately, Cenac concluded that “When it comes to criticizing other comedians, Jon in his unique position often chooses to close ranks the way cops do when a fellow officer is under investigation for impropriety.”
Cenac is far from the only comedian to condemn Hinchcliffe’s comments, but his situation—and relationship with Stewart—is a unique one.
In 2015, as Stewart was preparing to depart The Daily Show, Cenac appeared on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and shared that his time on the Comedy Central series was a bit stormy. He admitted that he and Stewart had a strained relationship that only grew worse with time.
The final straw came when Stewart did an impression of Herman Cain on-air that led Fox News to wonder “Is Jon Stewart Racist?” Cenac explained to Maron that he had been away during the controversy-spawning episode, but was back at work when Stewart decided he wanted to confront those attacking him. Cenac thought it was a bad idea, and expressed that opinion (Stewart’s impression had bothered Cenac when he eventually saw it).
“He got incredibly defensive, and I remember he was like, ‘What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice,’” Cenac recalled to Maron of their confrontation. When Cenac made it clear that he, too, found the impression offensive, Cenac said that Stewart was furious. And eventually ended the conversation by telling the correspondent: “F**k off. I’m done with you.”
Cenac departed the show not long after that altercation, though he did appear on Stewart’s final episode, leading many outlets to claim the two had made up, which wasn’t exactly true.
Still, Cenac understands that “Some folks reading this may choose to write me off as ‘that guy who had a bad experience working for Jon Stewart and was the only one dumb enough to speak about it.’” While he admitted that his time on the show was rocky, he also believes “it’s that experience that also makes me comfortable pointing out Jon seeming to co-sign a comedian who knowingly chose to perform at a rally where Donald Trump echoed the sentiment of his offensive jokes as action to take if elected.”
“For Jon, it seems like comedians should be free to say whatever they want, wherever they want,” Cenac continued. “And he seems more willing to defend the idea that the circumstances surrounding their jokes are irrelevant as long as people laugh.”
But Cenac believes that sitting behind The Daily Show desk brings with it a certain amount of responsibility. He wrote:
During his first run hosting the show, [Stewart] was called the most trusted man in America. This was praise he would often deflect, insisting he was simply a clown, but if that was the case, he probably wouldn’t have been offered a lucrative contract to return as host of The Daily Show through 2025. In the network’s announcement, they didn’t highlight his comedy; rather stating ‘his ability to cut through the noise and deliver clear-eyed insights is exactly what we need.’ It was in that capacity that he appeared to be shielding a comedian whose performance offered those rally attendees the chance to laugh at bigotry which perhaps made the more serious hateful vitriol that followed that much easier to swallow.
On Monday, ‘America’s most trusted‘ voice wasn’t defending comedy as much as suggesting to racists maybe if their hate speech had made him laugh, he might have their backs too. Defending comedy might’ve been pointing out Hinchcliffe wasn’t at a comedy club, he was setting a tone for an ex-president, who while in office, didn’t feel that style of comedy belonged at the White House Correspondents Dinner after another comedian, Michelle Wolf, roasted him. It might involve holding Rogan, as a ‘purveyor of misinformation,‘ to standards The Daily Show held Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, and other similar misinformation purveyors to.
“Like it or not, Joe Rogan is this moment’s Jon Stewart, but with content more in line with Alex Jones,” Cenac concluded. “And the Jon Stewart that Rogan is emulating seems reluctant to challenge his friend out of respect to some comedy omertà.”
You can read Cenac’s full op-ed here.
I do not get this as a use of one’s energy, and I don’t see what Wyatt’s trying to achieve here.