Ep. 392 — Jon Stewart
The Axe Files with David Axelrod
CNN
4.6 • 7.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2020
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jon Stewart is a comedian, writer, director, and former host of The Daily Show. He joins David to talk about President Trump’s out-of-touch messaging, the pervasiveness of systemic racism and inequity in America, how he worked to correct a lack of diversity at The Daily Show and why he still believes in American exceptionalism. He also discusses the inspiration for his new political satire Irresistible.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Music |
| 0:06.0 | And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with |
| 0:12.5 | your host David Axelrod. |
| 0:20.0 | In his 16 years as the anchor of the Daily Show on Comedy Central, John Stewart held |
| 0:25.1 | a harsh and hilarious light up to our politics and politicians. He walked away from that |
| 0:30.3 | perch five years ago, reappearing only on rare occasions, including his powerful shaming |
| 0:37.3 | last year of Congress over the treatment of first responders. But now he's resurfaced |
| 0:42.3 | with a brilliant new film he wrote and directed called Irresistible. It's a satire in which |
| 0:47.0 | he takes aim at political consultants and cable news commentators. Wait, what? I sat down |
| 0:53.4 | with him this week to talk about the film, his life, and the state of our union. |
| 1:00.4 | John Stewart, good to see you, my friend. What's up, David? In an act of impeccable timing, |
| 1:09.7 | you are unveiling a new film in the midst of a pandemic called Irresistible. You make |
| 1:15.7 | a sport of political consultants and cable commentators, but I loved it anyway. Thank you for |
| 1:21.5 | providing me with the absurd world that I was able to. Yes, yes. Well, I've spent a |
| 1:28.1 | lifetime working at that. So we'll get to that shortly. You know, I was thinking about |
| 1:33.9 | the last time I, well, no, it wasn't the last time, but one of the last times I saw you |
| 1:37.2 | was on your own, was on the Daily Show back in 2015. And I happened to be on there the |
| 1:43.3 | night that you announced that you were going to leave after 16 years. And when you did |
| 1:49.3 | it, you said, I have covered four elections. I don't think this one's going to be much |
| 1:53.8 | different. That was 2016 coming. See what a wonderful prognosticator I am. Yes. I know. |
| 2:01.1 | Well, join you can join all us other pundits. But would you, would you have stayed if you |
| 2:06.3 | knew how it was going to turn out? No, no, no. Part of why I left was that I didn't think |
... |
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