Trump announced his presidential candidacy on June 16, 2015, giving Stewart's Daily Show about six weeks to cover it before his signing off on Aug. 6, 2015. Back then, Stewart called Trump's candidacy "a gift from heaven." “Thank you Donald, thank you Donald Trump, for making my last six weeks my best six weeks,” he said. “He is putting me in some kind of comedy hospice where all I’m getting is just straight morphine.” Stewart went on to call Trump’s announcement speech “the most beautifully ridiculous jibber-jabber ever to pour from the mouth of a batshit billionaire,” also cracking that “America’s id is running for president!” In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Stewart admitted his treatment of Trump was, in retrospect, wrong. “What I missed there is that his certainty, his ridiculousness, his shamelessness is what made him dangerous,” he said. “I thought it made him a buffoon, and I thought that’s what would disqualify him. What it did is made him the perfect vessel.”
TOPICS: Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Donald Trump