But what begins to wear on you is where it is taken. And i think this election could be a great lesson in that controlling the culture, is not the same thing as power. Charlie jon stewart, for the hour, next. Charlie jon stewart, thank you for doing this. Jon thank you for having us. Charlie why this, why an oral history. Chris well, the title, if i did it, was taken. So we had to go with an oral history. Because charlie because it is an oral history chris yes, the people who wrote and performed this show are so interesting, and are not terribly well known as the head of the 22 minutes per night that jon and everyone else did for 16 years. Certainly Stephen Colbert has done interviews, samantha bee as well, that the actual process, of the making of the show that was not something that was kept secret, but was kept close because jon and everyone else was so focused on those four days a week. And just getting it done. A that is a really hard job. The actual process, the evolution, the growth internally and externally, was a story best told by the people who lived it. Charlie so you go to john, and everyone else and asked them if they would do this and cooperate and instantly they said yes . Jon yes, i have known him for a long time. I have known chris a long time and always enjoyed his reporting. He always came at things from a really thorough and fair when you are reading his work, in new York Magazine and other places, it always felt invested but not purposefully pejorative. It was just really well done. And i thought we were so involved over the 16 years, people have always said, what was it like . What was your favorite part . And i would say, i do not know charlie you learn something about it jon absolutely. Charlie about the perspective of the people you were with. Jon absolutely. And if it was going to be told, i wanted it to be told as thoroughly and fairly as it could possibly be. I thought chris was a great reporter to be able to do that. Charlie over the 16 years, how did the show evolved . What does it become that it was not at the beginning . Jon i think of the evolution of the show we just became better at doing it. It is not that it is there are two separate things, what the show became and what people thought of the show, on the and the outside perspective of it. That was the thing that i think, about,d to chris a lot you had to ignore. What we tried to develop was a decent internal barometer of what worked for the show and how well we could execute it. So, you could not look at a piece and go i do not know if this is emmyworthy, and we are an Emmy Awardwinning show you had to keep your own morality and integrity as the beacons for where you wanted a material to go. Charlie was your instinct almost always write about what he be about what would be funny or not . Jon i think we got better at that, there is something fragile about comedy, and musical, and one mans meat is another mans pratfall. I can say that there were things we wrote that we thought were really funny, where the audience might not read and other things where you would do a joke in there would be upon and the ship pine and the crowd go bananas. And you would stop and go really . , we would spend a whole day crafting this really beautiful comedic essay, and you really thought the little pun on double little pun on the 007 . In terms of the abolition , peoplen of the show forget the daily show existed before jon stewart. Craig kilborn was the host for close to three years. And they laid a really Good Foundation in some ways, with the mock correspondents, the satire of the news. The tone and the focus was very different. It was much more of a parody, of local newscasts in a way that could be a meanspiritedness in the material. They were much more interested in celebrity and hollywood and showbiz stuff. And it punched down at times, in a way that could be funny, but was kind of ephemeral. One thing interesting in talking to jon and other folks there at the time when he came in at 1999 , he knew he wanted to be more substantive. But he did not have blueprint. An, a ok, here is where we are going. Charlie you just said, i want to last nine months . Charlie yes, i had been fired enough. Charlie do you know why he was successful this time . Chris charlie was it the best extension of your talent . Jon yes. I did not necessarily know that at the time. But beyond that, cable is a different animal, especially during that time. It had a different level of pressures, and a different level of performance. You were able to use it as a laboratory in ways that you would not be able to do on a network. The network lives and dies by whereas cable lives and dies by the carriage. Charlie they have two revenue streams. Jon their goal was to throw things out there, and i knew that we had more time. I think maybe that allowed me a little more confidence to push it. And i had to push them as well, because it was not necessarily the direction they wanted to go in. Charlie but you were running the show too, you were there in the trenches. Jon i would not research to my i would not refer to myself [laughter] the number of digestive metaphors involved in the creation of the daily show charlie what did it become . It became for us a cultural event, more than a show. And jon touched on this as well. It is easy to forget what the media world looks like 1997, 1998, 1999. When Comedy Central was still kind of a sketchy proposition. Msnbc and fox news had Just Launched at the same time the daily show has come into being. Facebook did not exist, as now it is had a major influence on an election, a president ial election jon it came a frozen and you had to heat it by hand it was a different time. [laughter] charlie we just went through an election. Jon what . Charlie yes. Your reaction to the president ial election . Jon surprise. Here is what i would honestly say. I do not believe we are a fundamentally different country today than we were two weeks ago or than we were a month ago. The same country, with all of its grace and flaws and volatility and insecurity and strength and resilience, it exists today as it existed three two weeks ago. The same country that elected donald trump elected barack obama. And those contradictions are, this election to me is just another extension of the long argument that we have had from our founders. Which is, what are we . Are we an ideal, or are or are we some form of ethnostate . That argument has existed for existed on a philosophical and theoretical level. I feel badly for the people for whom this election will mean more uncertainty and insecurity. But, i also feel like this fight has never been easy. I think, it is odd, it is like we are a couple who met, and the first fight we had when we met was look, the people had the people on our money had slaves. The people we honor had slaves. The people who wrote all men are created equal had slaves. It is not like they did not know what was wrong. Charlie many of them came from slaveowning states. Jon right. So the argument between wirral and urban, the ideals of inalienable rights and slavery, we have that argument over and over again. At times it has been more volatile. At times it has been more violent. But it has never been easy. Fighting for this, i do not see as some form of endpoint. It is a continuation of a long battle to determine what we are. And i think, it made me wonder, one of the things that struck me odd about this election, and maybe i just missed it, nobody asked donald trump what makes America Great. That was the part that i charlie he wants to make America Great again, but nobody asked him what makes America Great . What is it that you want to do . What is it that we are not doing now . Jon what are the metrics . By listening to him, it looks like the metrics are that it is a competition. It is wins and losses. We are going to win more. Is that what makes us great . What many would say is that what makes us great is that nobody america is an anomaly in the world. There are a lot of people, and i think his candidacy has animated that thought, that a multiethnic democracy, a multicultural democracy is impossible. And that is what america, by its founding and constitutionally is charlie and is becoming more and more, year by year jon correct. Charlie some people thought that it meant somethings different for them, that their life would be changed, and there was a certain fear. Jon no question. The insecurities that people feel as marginalized populations our also felt a rust belt worker that lost his job in manufacturing feels and insecurity. Look at all of the terrible things he says, and they might say i live in an area that voted for him. Charlie the question is, did democrats and secretary clinton open the door for donald because she could not or did not speak to them . Jon whether or not she opened the door or not, i do not think it was her door to open. You are talking about a global issue. Globalization and the pushback of that, in ethnostates it makes more sense. We have an ethnic identity. But when you live in a state that is an ideal, then what is the bar of entry . The bar of entry is, i agree with you. People have inalienable rights, and can i come in . As long as you behave in that manner. Let us not pretend this is not a battle that has been revisited time and time again. And that is why, i feel like we have a resilience to it. That we have to continue to fight. Charlie did you miss it during the campaign . Jon god no charlie you are not able to do what you just did . Tell us what you thought both , with satire and comedy, and with reason . Jon no. Chris because impotent rage weighs on you. Charlie meaning that you could not make a difference, so it gave you rage . Jon any the artistic pursuit, whatever effect it has on its artist, is a relatively selfish pursuit. It is a catharsis for the individual. It is a way to get ideas out. The seduction of it is, is it going to score or not. That is the hits, that is the adrenaline. But, what begins to wear on you is where it is taken. I think this election could be a great lesson in that, controlling the culture, is not the same thing as power. A viral video eviscerating racists is not the same as a Grassroots Movement that seeks to have a Common Ground with people and create a multiethnic coalition that understands that other peoples hierarchy of needs is not necessarily your hierarchy of needs. But the idea of what the daily show became was not something that had been banging around in your head when you took this job. Jon well, what was banging around in my head was is there a better , way to execute Public Affairs comedy that means something to me . If i am going to spend this much time i had hosted talk shows, i did one on mtv and another on a syndicate. And i was spending 12 hours a day on the things that did not feel substantial or meaningful to me. This is a chance to, can i express my comedy about things that i care about in a way that is entertaining enough that i will not get fired . Because i had been fired. And when you get fired and your name is on the show, it is hard might suck at you this and you have to reevaluate, if im going to put myself in that position then, i am going to lay it on the line. And i am going to put out there what i care about. Charlie if i go down i am going , to go down doing it my way. Jon that is right. I am going to do down the way i feel like. And away i feel is the best iteration of my abilities, and if that goes down, i can bartend. Charlie yes, you could. [laughter] charlie was there a moment a , time, an event, where you said weve got it we have traction i can be confirmed in my belief, that what i was willing that what i was rolling the dice on has come up a winner . Jon no. Charlie not in terms of success, but in terms of the confidence of what i wanted to do and was insisting on doing has been jon you have talked to a bunch of people, havent you . I would say that it was never about it was more about, will we be able to develop a process where we can do that well . Inherent juxtaposition of the creative pursuit. Is we build a machine that redundant enough and rigid enough that it can it can sustain inspiration . Charlie when did that process kick in . Jon that was not my concern. Chris when did that happen . [laughter] chris it really took shape through the 2000 campaign and the recount, the daytoday process. Like jon says, the technology eventually caught up with what the daily show was doing. They pioneered it in some ways, not just to perform, but the assembly of these kinds of montages. What was equally important, was not simply the process of having a meeting at 9 00, and we need this what they found earlier early on was a tone to what they wanted to do. While events went on in the outside world that changed what they thought they found a , tone and a piece that steve carell did with john mccain on the Straight Talk express in late 1999. Carell does a preamble where he is chasing the boss and trying to get on the bus there were two press buses, and they would not let us in. One was for mainstream press, one had a nicer airconditioning and the bathroom. Conditionsled by the and lets him onto the bus. What you do not know watching the finished piece is all of the work that went into this. It became a prototype of how jon shifted field pieces away from, his phrase, abject cruelty to actual point of view. [laughter] carell and the producer of the peace, a guy named mike mckinney, had laid out a series of questions. Carell is a worldclass improviser, so that if you asked this question, and he says next, he says x, here is how you respond. The difficulty is you have , worldclass improvisers working with civilians who do not know that they are in an improv. So they develop all of these questions about what they will ask mccain, and most of them are softball, like what kind of , tree would you be . What became famous at the end of that piece, and a turning point in the development of the show, was that steve carell asked mccain, senator, you have been a strident opponent of porkbarrel spending. How can you justify that when you were a chair of the commerce committee, you okd billions of dollars in porkbarrel spending . And mccain freezes, it is a deer in the headlights moment. And then carell bursts the tension by saying i was just joking, i do not even know what that means. What was fascinating to me, and carell did not even remember until i talked to him they found that question in time , magazine when driving over to the shoot that kind of structure and lastminute improvisatory genius was something that jon created that held throughout his run at the show. Jon but it also brings up an interesting which is the crux of the daily show paradox. Which is in that moment, you hold to account a senator whose entire identity is based on a hypocritical behavior. I am against this type of porkbarrel politics, unless it benefits [indiscernible] charlie unless it benefits the good people of arizona. Jon we nailed you, and what do we have to do at that point . We let you go. It is catch and release, because we had to undercut it with a laugh. It gets to the joy and frustration of doing that kind of job. It is when we realized that access did not help us. It is that idea of i got you here is my one moment, and i am going to, with a scalpel, though go at the crux of your identity as a politician and expose it for everybody to see, and then i will have to make a joke about it and walk away. And you will laugh, and it will humanize you. One of the difficulties of this is that satire began to take the place of reality i think this has been given a greater place in the discussion, and a larger role in the discourse than is warranted. Once that started to happen, i think you began to question if it is a good thing or a bad thing. I know it is not a black and white issue, but controlling the culture for as much fun as we could make about the tea showing well we were videos of eviscerations, they ram the off the highway taking over a school , board. The populars won vote by probably more than one million votes. And they do not control the presidency, the house, the senate, they do not control governorships, state legislatures. This may be the largest disconnect between majority rule and majority power that we had in this country in ages i am in no way saying we are responsible. [laughter] i am saying, there is a comfort in culture that can be mistaken for real power. There are only two towns in the world that ive been to that i thought were delusional. One was washington, d. C. , and the other was los angeles. The only difference between the two of them was that in los angeles, they actually believe that they have power. In d. C, that is where it is. Charlie in d. C. , they have power. In l. A. , they just believe they have power. It is the same arrogance. So youre saying essentially, that whatever we say about culture, and the end it is not political power, and in the end it is not . Jon in the end it is not real cultural influence, either. It is a story we tell ourselves about the rightness of our position. But it is argument, and it is not without weight, but it is not with so much weight. I believe that culture played a good role in marriage equality. It brought a story out that had been so much of what occurs with inequality is ignorance. I do not mean that in a malevolent way, i mean that in the way of, my have no experience, i do not know what that is so exposure to that can be positive. Generally in the entertainment sense charlie do you think people came as guests because they wanted the numbers you had, or wanted to reach the audience you had . Jon yes. Charlie or because they enjoyed it it , is give them a sense of being part of something that was hip and in . Jon i would say they did not enjoy it. He talked to them. Chris to that point, chris wallace, from fox news, said almost exactly those words to me. That his kids were never more impressed with him than when he went on the daily show. And it felt like you had been invited to become a member of a hipper club. Charlie and you had the ticket to that club. That is power chris to a club . Jon power in the way that a bouncer might have power. I was a bouncer at a club that did pretty well. But i will tell you drive ,down 14 to avenue, the aint there anymore. It is a condo now chris i walked past fox news world headquarters, and there is a marching band, free jello shots, dancing girls, apparently they won. Charlie but speaking of fox news, it was a gift that kept on giving . Jon not the gift they kept on giving. Ofwas the relentless offer they were a good foil, because they were offering cynicism. Which they continue to offer. There is no more cynical enterprise than fox news. For whatever they want to say about the liberal media charlie fair and balanced jon which may be the most cynical expression of any slogan in the history of slogans. That would be like if cocacola said of their slogan was healthy vitamins for children. Fox news is reactionary. The daily show was reactionary. A lot