Jon Stewart is returning to The Daily Show, part time
In a shocking announcement, The Daily Show's new host will be... its old host
The Daily Show finally hired a host. That long-awaited leader is… Jon Stewart, who will be returning to the hosting desk eight years after initially stepping down in 2015.
According to Deadline, Stewart is returning to the show every Monday night—apparently the show’s most-watched time slot—throughout the election cycle. The venerated commentator, who hosted the for over 15 years, will begin his tenure on February 12. He’s also on board to executive produce every episode of the show throughout 2025 in order to help “shape” its future.
“Jon Stewart is the voice of our generation, and we are honored to have him return to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to help us all make sense of the insanity and division roiling the country as we enter the election season,” said Chris McCarthy, President/CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios in a statement (via Deadline). “In our age of staggering hypocrisy and performative politics, Jon is the perfect person to puncture the empty rhetoric and provide much-needed clarity with his brilliant wit.”
The rest of the week will be hosted by the show’s rotating door of correspondents, currently including Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta and Ronny Chieng and Jordan Klepper.
This brings a (temporary) end to Comedy Central’s year-long search for a host, following Trevor Noah’s departure December 2022. The network had previously honed in on comedian Hasan Minhaj, before a lengthy New Yorker exposé alleging he’d fabricated details in some of his more incendiary bits reportedly cost him the job this past fall. Longtime correspondent Roy Wood Jr. was also reportedly in contention for the post (and had previously expressed his interest). Wood announced his departure from the series, at least as a correspondent, this past October. “There’s no sense in me doing what I’ve been doing for the last eight years while concurrently trying to think of a new thing to do,” he said of his decision at the time. “The job of correspondent, it’s not really one where you can juggle multiple things. And after eight years, I think I’ve earned the right to just, you know, take a quick break before January.”