Jon Stewart sounds surprised at how the Hasan Minhaj Daily Show scandal shook out

In a new interview with Esquire, Hasan Minhaj officially confirms that his fact-check scandal cost him The Daily Show gig: “We were in talks, and I had the gig, and we were pretty much good to go.” But once The New Yorker story hit, “It went away… That’s part of showbiz.” Maybe so, but his peers, including those at The Daily Show, didn’t agree with how it all went down. “I remember Jon [Stewart] called, and he said, ‘Why the fuck are they doing this? And who does this benefit?'” Minhaj shares. On the flip side, Stewart also suggested the scandal would be “great” for Minhaj’s material. “When Jon told me that, I felt really seen,” the comic says.

Elsewhere, friend and Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng admits he “didn’t think it was as serious as it was” when the New Yorker piece landed, “and in some ways I still don’t think it’s as serious as it was.” Chieng was surprised “that the cultural gatekeepers would turn on him so quickly and not give him the benefit of the doubt.” He also objects to the idea that Minhaj’s embellishments were more offensive because they were about topics like racism and harassment (specifically a scare where white powder was mailed to his house). In Chieng’s view, “Comedy is counterculture. Sometimes the point is to cross the line.”

Most of Minhaj’s friends seem confused about the scandal, given that pretty much every stand-up alive has embellished the truth for the point of a punch-line. But Minhaj recognizes that the political climate may have worked against him: “Maybe we live in a society where trust has been degraded to the point where that’s why that happened,” he proposes. Even if it’s just telling jokes, people crave someone they can trust behind The Daily Show desk. Right now that’s Stewart again, filling in one day a week in a rotation with other Daily Show correspondents. Chieng, for one, seems to see the whole situation as a loss. Minhaj “knows exactly what’s done in culture, he knows what’s next, and he knows how to get there,” Chieng tells Esquire. “That’s why he would’ve been perfect for The Daily Show. His superpower is knowing what the culture needs right now.”