Comedian Jon Stewart made a special appearance on “The Daily Show” on Thursday to react to news of ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week.
“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart said in his opening.
The comedian was making sarcastic reference to Kimmel’s suspension, which came on Wednesday after comments the ABC host made earlier in the week about Charlie Kirk’s killing.
Kimmel joked on Monday that Trump was mourning Kirk’s death “like a four year old mourns a goldfish” and accused Republicans of trying to score political points off the young conservative activist’s assassination.
Kimmel’s remarks were met with heavy blowback from President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, who suggested the host be punished over the comments.
ABC suspended Kimmel hours later and after Nexstar Media Group, which owns The Hill and is the largest broadcaster of local news in the country, announced its affiliate stations would drop Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.”
Stewart used his appearance on Thursday to sarcastically praise Trump, playing clips from the president’s recent trip to the U.K. and referencing Trump’s “legendary warmth and radiance.”
“There were plenty of other people exercising their free speech incorrectly,” Stewart said, mocking Trump, and praising him by saying his “kindness is only outdone, by your manliness.”
“Now some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical … to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that,” Stewart said.
“Not me though, I think it’s great.”
