For fans of The Daily Show, Monday nights in 2024 might feel a bit like déjà vu. Last week, nearly a decade after saying his official goodbyes, Jon Stewart returned to his old seat behind the desk of the semi-satirical Comedy Central series to lay out his plans for steering us through what is sure to be an unprecedented election year. And Jordan Klepper could not be more thrilled to welcome back his old boss.
“What an exciting, awesome shock for us to sort of have this person who was really important for so many people’s lives here at The Daily Show,” Klepper told Daily Show producer Ian Berger while sitting down to discuss Stewart’s return, and his own week as guest host, for The Daily Show: Ears Edition, the series’ behind-the-scenes podcast.
After more than a year of operating without a permanent host since Trevor Noah departed the show in December 2022, Klepper seems to be relishing the cohesiveness that Stewart has brought back to the show.
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“I think this last year and a half taught us many things,” Klepper shared, “And one of them is, through the infrastructure of The Daily Show, we have such a very clear voice.” But what was lacking, according to the senior correspondent, was one overarching voice to pull all these ideas together in the most honest way possible.”
“Jon came in and sort of was like, ‘Here’s what I'm feeling about this,’” Klepper explained. “This is such an important year. It’s an existential threat is what everybody is talking about, and we all know the threat Donald Trump poses. And we also know it looks like it’s going to be Joe Biden. What do Democrats feel about this? What are the insecurities people have around this idea? And how do we talk authentically about the fears people have? How do we criticize BS wherever we see it? And how do we prep for this wild election year as a team and look at it almost holistically, so that we can approach the big trends over the next year while also being on the ball day in and day out?”
Ultimately, Klepper believes this collaborative approach will be essential if he and his colleagues want to keep their heads above water as they wade into yet another election year where truly anything can happen.
“Really what the show needed was Jon coming in and all of us kind of getting into that room and being like, ‘Alright, here we are. This is the team. We got Jon Stewart back and we are running as fast as we can till this election.’ It really kick-started everybody to be like, ‘Alright, the clock starts.’”
Those sincere words are a far cry from the way he jokingly roasted Stewart’s “snark and both sides-ism” during his first show back. But if all of this sounds like lip service, it’s worth noting that Klepper expressed many just-as-glowing things about Stewart back in early January, when he (alongside Roy Wood Jr.) were guests on The Last Laugh podcast. While discussing the role late-night television plays in shaping people’s opinions, Klepper praised Stewart’s time behind The Daily Show desk, stating, “I think in the Jon Stewart era, that was the only name in the game.”
“As somebody who came in during Jon’s time, the shit mattered,” Klepper stated. “Jon was a comedian, and approached it comedy-first. But the guy was serious as a heart attack, as smart as you could get, and people tuned in to Jon—I tuned in to Jon, because I trusted him. I trusted that he wasn’t bound by party politics, he wasn’t bound by bullshit. I think a lot of people were drawn to that, and I think that is, at its core, what is cool about The Daily Show. That’s what I love about that institution.”
As for what the future of the show might look like at the time, Klepper knew just one thing: “Whoever comes in, whatever the next piece is, I do think it is imperative that that person cares about the show that deeply, that the audience has that kind of trust in that person, that they’re not going to waste their time with somebody else. They’re tuning into somebody who knows that this is a rarefied space, knows that they’ve got to do the research so that they’re not spewing bullshit, and that they will look unflinchingly at that bullshit and cut it down as efficiently as they can.”
Almost prophetically, Klepper suggested that The Daily Show’s “best days could lie in this next year, because it’s never been more important.”
