After a decade, Jon Stewart revived what he once called The Daily Show’s “worst legacy” by reuniting with Bill O’Reilly to talk about this “terrible fucking week.”
On Tuesday night, Stewart acknowledged that Monday’s episode of the show—which was supposed to have been filmed at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee—had been canceled following Saturday’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. Instead, Stewart taped Tuesday’s show from New York, where he said, “We dodged a catastrophe, but it was still a tragedy.”
Then came a visit from O’Reilly, the former Fox News host who appeared on The Daily Show more than a dozen times between 2001 and 2015, back when Stewart was the show’s permanent host. This was the first time in a decade that Stewart and O’Reilly, who exited his own show in 2017 amid claims of sexual harassment (which O’Reilly denied), had been reunited on cable TV.
“I like coming on here, in front of all of your friends out here—and the audience should know, I have no friends here,” O’Reilly said. “Well, not just here,” Stewart cracked in response.
O’Reilly acknowledged that he and Stewart “have a history” of on-air battles. “If you Google Stewart and I, we are able to disagree without hating each other,” said the former Fox News host. “Now, I truly hate him—but I don’t show it.” Said Stewart, “You hold it very well.”
It didn’t take long for the former sparring partners to argue about ideology. O’Reilly criticized the liberal urge to emphasize that Trump’s alleged shooter was a registered Republican, to which Stewart shot back: “You and I are both somewhat fossilized practitioners of the rhetorical arts that are confrontational at times, provocative at times. And we made a really spectacular living pushing those envelopes.”
O’Reilly, who has penned multiple books about the assassinations of presidents (“You reproduce books like mold,” Stewart said in 2013), said that all assassins throughout American history had been mentally ill. In response, Stewart brought up President Abraham Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth. “Well, John Wilkes Booth was a fanatical conservative and racist who hated Lincoln,” O’Reilly began.
“Good thing that’s gone out of the country,” Stewart joked.
As a registered independent, O’Reilly distanced himself from Trump, but also condemned President Joe Biden by saying that prices and overdose rates have risen during Biden’s time in office. “I respectfully say, yes, inflation was too high, and that hurts American consumers,” Stewart replied. “So what did Biden do to create that, though?”
